I had an interview in Shumia a couple of months ago.
And one of the things I was talking about-- after my book
came out, I was interested in how to start writing again.
And what I do is a Dada technique,
where I take lines at random from different books
and then mush them all together and then
try to write a poem from them.
So here are a bunch-- they sound like me after I'm done.
I revise them so much that they're mine, finally.
And the first poem I'm going to read is called "Shuttle."
This is a poem, again, in a man's voice.
"Burning in the strange, this ill-fitting body
of my marriage, I settled too early
with my wife, crazy, frightened, two days out of college.
For 15 years, I watched darkness construct a kind of house
around my life.
When morning came, I thought I'd never
have the courage to shake loose from her arms,
the arms of my children.
Fear protects us from the accidents of self.
Sadness always keeps us thirsty because we
imagine we can always drink more happiness
than our capacity allows.
This morning on the plane, I had this thought.
For 15 years, marriage was my address,
and I was as homesick tenant.
Now, my life is opening like the dream with all its familiar
furniture even a flight of stairs dizzying and continuous.
I begin to climb.
I feel like the bird you brought home rocketed
to your apartment in a cardboard box with symmetrical
punched out holes to let in a little light and air.
I watched you quaking, handle the quaking thing,
clinging to the Bronze bars of its cage.
For hours, I've watched it pretending to read.
I can't keep my eyes from the animal,
so miserable, hunched rigid on its perch,
catatonic from the absent flutter
and touch of other wings, refusing seed, refusing water,
and terror of your hand.
The bird worries me now that I'm free, shocked by light again."