I meant to announce this before.
I usually have to be mad to read,
because I'm really basically shy,
and I've been getting angry since Monday.
And I got drunk last night, and it was real nasty
at this party, and I threw people out
of my house and stuff.
So I'm ready.
OK.
I don't know the merit of this poem, either,
but people seem to like it.
It's called "The Root Eater."
The war has begun, and I see the root eater bending, shifting
his hands under the soil in search
of the arthritic knuckles of trees.
I see dazed flower stems pushing themselves back
into the ground.
I see turnips spinning endlessly on the blunt bitten-off tips
of their noses.
I see the root eater going home on his knees,
full of the ripe foundations of things, longing
to send his seed up through his feet and out into the morning.
But the stumps of trees heave themselves forward
for the last march.
And the root eater waits, knowing
he will be shoved ruthless under the brown, scaly torso
of the rock.