And the last poem I'll read is called, "Harlem Montana, Just
Off the Reservation."
And the reservation is the Fort Belknap reservation
up in north-central Montana.
And Harlem is about 4 miles off it.
And I've talked to a lot of Indians
and they feel that the whitest people in the world
lived just off a reservation.
And I think this poem reflects that.
"We need no runners here.
Booze is law.
And all the Indians drink in the best tavern.
Money is free if you're poor enough,
disgusted busted whites are running
for office in this town.
The constable, a local farmer plants the jail with wild raven
haired stiffs who beg just one more drink.
One drunk, a former Methodist becomes a saint
on the Indian church, bugs the plaster man
on the cross with snakes.
If his knuckles broke, he'd see those women
wail the graves goodbye, goodbye,
goodbye Harlem on the rocks.
So bigoted, you forget the latest joke.
So lonely, you'd welcome a battalion of Turks
to roll your women.
What you don't know, what you will never
know, or want to learn, Turks aren't white.
Turks are olive, unwelcome, alive in any town.
Turks would use your one dingy park
to declare a need for loot.
Turks say, bring it, step quickly, laid down and dead.
Here we are when men were nice.
This photo hung in the New England hotel lobby,
shows them nicer than pie, agreeable to the warring bands
of redskins who demanded protection
money for the price of food.
Now, only Hutterites out north are nice.
We hate them.
They are tough, and their crops are always good.
We accuse them of idiocy and believe their belief all wrong.
Harlem, your hotel is overnamed, your children
are raggedy assed.
But you go on, survive the bad food from the two cafes,
and pedal your hate for the wild who bring you money.
When you die, if you die, will you
remember the three young bucks who
shot the grocery up, locked themselves in, and cried
for days, we're rich.
Help us, oh God, we're rich?"
[APPLAUSE]