I got the idea for the next poem that I'm
going to read to you one morning when I went down to my study
with, as usual, nothing on my mind.
I happened to pick up a candy bar that
was in the living room.
And I sat in my chair and began to read the candy bar.
And I was fascinated with the ingredients
that go into a candy bar.
And I thought, how high can you get on a candy bar?
Maybe candy bars shouldn't just be for kids.
And so I wanted to see if I could
get it-- as high on a candy bar as other people get
on other things.
Well, as I was thinking this, John Keats came into my head.
And I felt sorry for him, thinking
about what happened to him when he ate the grape
and accloyed and sunk into a depression.
And I wondered whether that really
has to happen with a candy bar.
[LAUGHTER]
So this poem is a ballad.
And it's called "Ballad for Baby Ruth."
[LAUGHTER]
And you've got to--
I ask you, as I read, to think of Baby Ruth as a candy bar,
but also to think of Baby Ruth as a girl.
And the poem is also a how to do it poem.
So it's subtitled-- it's called--
the whole title of the poem is "Ballad for Baby Ruth,
or How to Burst Joy's Grape."
[LAUGHTER]
"Chocolate Kisses, Milky Way, Forever Yours,
and Baby Ruth at home amid the not-so-alien candy corn,
white tipping the top, then orange tapering fat to yellow,
and yellow yellowing while out there in the Milky Way,
another fruit-flavored, life-savouring sunset,
orange of apricot, orange of kumquat, cantaloupe orange,
orange of nectarine, and apple-red blinking blue to plum
and banana-yellow pulsing up from green--
and here is a honeydew gumdrop kiss forever yours
until our teeth decay.
And here is my Vanilla Bean and here is my Milky Way,
shaped like pears.
Frolicking yellow flute notes leap.
Bassoon-round sounding plums bulge purple to the edge.
Are you filling up my Baby Ruth as your quick lip-licking,
pink tongue-tasted yet the whole hope message of orange light,
now mellowing yellow home marshmallows fondle gold
by fire flame flutter, Tang lemon and chill,
hot summer tea, peach marmalade or blueberry jelly with peanut
butter--
And here is a honeydew gumdrop kiss, Forever Yours
until our teeth decay.
And here is my Vanilla Bean, and here is my Milky Way,
for the candy light comes up, surrounds.
Yellow spreads out.
Purple thrusts in, flavored with malt, with salt,
with egg whites whipped.
And your teeth shiver.
Your gums quake.
Your taste buds rise, nourished with vegetable oil,
with syruped corn, with butterscotch, with milk.
And your left ear blushes to a horn's red flare, your right
to an oboe's blue.
And the orange light comes up, Baby Ruth, comes out,
goes in for you, for me, where last the first void was,
and is, and will forever be.
And here is a honeydew gumdrop kiss, Forever Yours
until our teeth decay.
And here is my Vanilla Bean, and here is my Milky Way."