Usually, I agonize for a couple weeks
before I have to read to people, and I just
found out about 10 minutes ago.
[LAUGHS]
[LAUGHS] Thank you, Lisa.
And I just happened to have stuff in the car, too, which
is not normal, but--
so this will be kind of random.
The first one I'm going to read is called "Worth."
Addicted to your own flaws, selfish for wanting
a clear path, a ladder to the roof.
When we could fall berated for doing good.
Pine scent and fudge came past us
now, can't hold a candle to a place
to put your kind of cobwebs.
The order of change of taken.
Do you just take it, the lay of the land and the police
and the dents and scratches, the flawed moms and dads, the truck
pipes, the upgrade to washing clothes, the deal
to go to school versus keeping your kids?
Do you say, I grew up in this place and these things I hold
dear to be self-evident, for me to eat,
pulled those tips in the winter gloom of the yard,
the skating motion of the dance, or the ways you can
twist and ripple, the design of stitches
at the shoulders, the dogs' navigation
of the candles, the meek.
She goes among them through the day while receiving her worth.
And the next one is called "Fill up on the Morsel,"
which is kind of tied with, like, there's just
too much going through you all the time.
We are expanding and moaning, quibbling over commas
and installing permanent orders that is fenceless.
And such is our fieldwork.
Cargoes are taking over America's waistlines,
and taffeta remains underindicated.
The candidates now as loose and the largest
as the entryway for the maintenance of a castle.
A hoisted barn door warehouse map on pulleys or rollers,
volleys of hydraulic jacks, the infinite church,
adolescence doubled, my laughter's daughter,
my laughter's boyfriend, my laughter's daughter's
boyfriend.
How do you field waves of castle of corn
and the pitcher's good right arm, and the gristly drawing
board, bells ring, functioning with beer money.
Pumping carbon monoxide into massive underground transfers,
pumping errors into sunrise, pumping interrogation,
chug, chug.
No payments, no interest for six months.
Oh, error of ancient days, don't forget
you can't afford the unwanted.
And I'm just going to do one more that--
this still has scribbles on it.
[LAUGHS] It's the last one that I
was able to print before the computer stopped printing.
It's called "Not Sounding the Retreat,
It's Too Crowded There Anyway."
Dreaded puffs pouched out under the eyes
on waking cloud meander, in a kind of line,
repeating the same round, never a full feeling of love,
unless the ice cream is just an easy damaged foe.
The same old chaos breeding into little chaos babies.
And we are serving the beautiful girl
this beauty, this evening star, the rich girl we keep safe.
While the subjects and verbs keep disagreeing,
refusing to change the course.
And that thing about the singular
versus plural possessive oh yet how
to filter out the cuss words before you're
late for the movie.
Or OPEC-- they'll just go without you,
because, after all, it's their life.
When the wind blew against him from Belgium to Paris,
where he would die in sores, where in a pinch,
the whole congregation even increased, forgot to be,
right in the middle, everyone might doubt.
And finally, breaking all protocol,
a start on the back row called out, can we just start over?
While you're looking at the crossed bridges
about to burst with flowers and calm beasts hearts, just
then, considering whether 'tis nobler to see or not to see,
it would be if the fire unpackaged holds our gift.
Or what does this cannon mean for women,
or when can we just admit that just who you are
and where the security comes from?
Just then, what else has dropped out of sight for the moment?
The finality of the spent breath that still yet holds
the impression of lilacs, and then also
who could have been entangled for a moment by a French poet.
[APPLAUSE]
And remind us to reprint this.