WEBVTT

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The next poem came from a guy
at the Vermont Studio Center--

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he's this amazing
artist named Tim Stotz.

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And Tim was very
mysterious, you know, beard

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and the dark eyes, and
sitting in the corner,

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and drawing women at art
openings and stuff like that.

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And-- so I asked him
what he was working on,

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and he said "I can't tell you."

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And so, about a week later,
I said, "come on, Tim,

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what are you doing?"

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He said, "all right,
well why don't you

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come over to my studio?"

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No, he said-- "I can't show you
yet, but I'll tell the story."

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Then he told me this
story about growing up

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in a family where
he was really just

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bullied to the point of nearly
abuse by an older brother,

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and how he used to escape into
the woods behind his house--

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he grew up in Massachusetts--
to sort of escape the situation.

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And he would sort of
escape into there,

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and sort of become
prince of the woods

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and live in his imaginary world.

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And he said, there was this one
day-- when he was about 12--

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when his brother was really
giving him a hard time,

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and he ran out into the woods
and went to his usual spot.

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And there was this box,
and he opened the box.

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This box was, like, rained on.

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It was just sitting there, and
it was full of porno magazines.

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And he said-- but he
looked at me, and he said--

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you have no idea what a
strange and numinous experience

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this was--

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[LAUGHTER]

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--but he put it
really well, he said,

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"I felt as if the inescapable
inheritance of being a man

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had come to greet me,
and I was terrified.

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I was terrified."

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And so then, so,
I wrote this poem,

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but I really want to tell
you about this painting,

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because it was really amazing.

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He finally let me
come into the studio,

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and I looked at this thing,
and I went, oh my God!

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Because it looked as
if he had collaged

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a self-portrait out of
butterfly wings and flower

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petals, and I was amazed by it.

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I could tell it was collage,
and I was just stunned,

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because he was he was a
realist, figurative painter.

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And the color tone and
everything was perfect.

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And I just went to say, oh
my God, this is so amazing.

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And I walked up close, and they
were all cut-outs from porno

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magazines, and he had built his
body using the color tone all

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of the different women that
were in these porno magazines,

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and it was called Resurrection
of the Shattered Body.

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It was one of the most
powerful things I've ever seen.

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And so, here's this guy's
body, and it's made up

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of thighs and breasts and--

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you know, it's just amazing.

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So I wrote this poem for Tim,
and it's not nearly as funny

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as the story, but here I am.

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So this is called
"The Beautiful Names."

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"Dark shaft.

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The milky pearl.

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At the top of the milkweed,
pod about to unfold.

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Stalk erect in the shadow of the
pines, sliver of light burning

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through like a
finger, probing it,

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that droplet at
the tip of the pod.

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Moist, white, dew.

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And the gravelly paths lined
with them, on either side,

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cattails like a
stand of scepters

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through which the boy
comes running, panting

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for air by the auto shop
and abandoned garage,

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house burned to its
foundations, away.

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From the brother waving his dick
around saying, look, see it?

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Dark of the closed
shared room, away.

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To the cool eden, electric
green of moss on rock,

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iris at the cold, clear stream.

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He's twelve.

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His brother's a bully,
pinning him to the wall

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until he can't breathe,
rubbing the wet-dreamed sheets

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in his face, saying, this
is what it is to be a man,

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butthole, do you
think you're a man?

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This is what it is.

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The brother, coaxing his
straining cock along,

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dark shaft for the milky pearl.

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The father, blustering into
the house like air, vanishing.

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The mother, who clings,
who will not let him cling.

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Heat of the closed
shared room, But the iris

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above the orange lichen, bending
to the cold clear stream, bud

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unfolding, wasp crawling
in and then out again,

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the yellow sugar, and
the wasp buzzing away,

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and the flower still standing,
stalk unbroken by love.

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And that was love, wasn't it?

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But how could he be sure?

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Unmarked as it was
by words or blows,

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his brother's fist, his
classmates' snickering,

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dirty words for dirty
girls in a huddle

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at the edge of the soccer field.

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Yellow in the
tongues, blue flame,

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a sudden flush
suffusing his cheeks.

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But who put the box at
the foot of the pine?

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Festooned with fur, a green
procreation of moss and mold

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at its conventional
edges, split at one seam

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from the weight of
the first fall rains.

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The moist, white, dew
which he does not see,

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as he makes his way through the
raspberry bracken to the small

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pond where he
cannot have a body,

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where he can be
breath on the water.

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Press of the closed shared room.

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The morning's failure,
nature's failure,

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the cool of the ferns with their
seductive hairs like Robin's

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hair, like Celia's
hair, all the girls

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he knows flitting through
his head like butterflies.

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He's twelve, he
can't be rid of it,

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until the green light falling.

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The dragonfly skimming and
leaving its z shimmering.

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Wink of gems in its
vanishing trail, diamonds

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small as the heads of
pins, this glade and pond,

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this green brightness,
like a stage

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lit up in a ring
of dark trees where

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he has come with a stick of
birch, where he has come to not

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have a body, and the split
box sagging at the foot

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of the pond, which he sees now.

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Wet, black letters under
a rim of moss, to which he

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bends with a probing finger.

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He's a boy, he will
not be rid of it.

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So the cardboard splits,
so he pulls it open.

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Wet magazines stacked like
cards, his pick, his flesh

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fortune.

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And he lifts one, pulls up
a sticky page, and thighs

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without torsos,
breasts without faces,

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in a wheel of burgundy,
dusk, and rose,

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how can he not have a body?

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Here in the green a close
world, this burlesque of flesh

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called easy woman, sopping
object, ridicule honey,

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soft box for the thumb
to plumb through,

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how can he be rid of it?

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He knows the names from
his brother's textbook:

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calyx, lepidoptera,
labia, clitoris,

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he thought they were beautiful.

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As he spreads the pictures
down on the ground, his eyes,

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slow and tracing finger.

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He's a boy, he will
have this body.

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What will he do now with
the beautiful names?"

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