And the last poem I'm going to read is called "Self-Portrait."
"They no longer hold any hope.
I'll fulfill my early promise.
It's apparent now.
I won't be president of a local bank, the United States,
the regional sawdust factory, the Junior Chamber of Commerce,
the rotary, or even a respectable member thereof.
Very early, I thought I might succeed the Durango kid.
My profile wouldn't take close-ups. Summers
at the beach, I dug pits in the sand, waited for the Japs.
But they never came.
A hot bath on Sunday, a clean sailor suit.
The pants were short.
And I never went to see fantasies of lingerie and Kotex
boxes, the imagined purpose of women.
We played doctor.
Of course, I was always the patient.
I fumbled my way into knowledge on a rainy night in November.
I was scared.
She insisted.
The windshield fogged.
Nothing mattered.
At 17, Europe, the grand tour, a little Polish,
a little savoir-faire.
I told dirty jokes in ancient cathedrals,
demanded spaghetti in Rome, told a whore in London
I had a season ticket.
I've regretted it ever since.
At 14, I climbed the tallest mountain in Wyoming.
An astonishing feat.
My mother worried, everyone was proud.
They sold my ice axe and boots.
I aspired to be an engineer.
I passed geometry, promising not to take solid and trig.
I come from an endless line of self-made men.
Everywhere I look, opportunities and boredom.
I can try formalities to order my life.
Experience dribbles through my fingers.
I can't focus on the forms before me.
The ceilings, no roof.
The walls, no boundary.
My name belongs to a stranger.
I've been led astray by battered music.
And even my respectable novel wanders away into broken lines.
I'm given to fits of idleness.
Here is my biography.
This is the section with pictures.
See?
That's me, the one with a hat.
Here I am with my Gladstone bag, the one who's smiling
that rubber beach toy smile."
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]