WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.660 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:00:00.660 --> 00:00:03.960 align:middle line:90% One more last poem. 00:00:03.960 --> 00:00:05.904 align:middle line:90% Just one more. 00:00:05.904 --> 00:00:07.110 align:middle line:90% Got time. 00:00:07.110 --> 00:00:12.324 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.324 --> 00:00:16.309 align:middle line:84% It's a poem called "Crowds" from the last section of my book. 00:00:16.309 --> 00:00:19.330 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.330 --> 00:00:23.530 align:middle line:90% Again, simple title. 00:00:23.530 --> 00:00:25.030 align:middle line:84% "Crowds" mean a lot of things to me. 00:00:25.030 --> 00:00:27.940 align:middle line:90% I have a have a certain fear. 00:00:27.940 --> 00:00:30.520 align:middle line:84% When I was really little, like when I was about 5 and 6, 00:00:30.520 --> 00:00:33.610 align:middle line:84% my father used to take me to Yankee Stadium all the time. 00:00:33.610 --> 00:00:36.040 align:middle line:84% And I guess it was some sort of shock 00:00:36.040 --> 00:00:39.430 align:middle line:84% at seeing 70,000 people at that age or-- 00:00:39.430 --> 00:00:41.238 align:middle line:84% I think more of what it was is you always 00:00:41.238 --> 00:00:42.655 align:middle line:84% had that feeling in Yankee Stadium 00:00:42.655 --> 00:00:44.260 align:middle line:90% that you were going to fall off. 00:00:44.260 --> 00:00:46.240 align:middle line:90% It's so strangely tilted. 00:00:46.240 --> 00:00:52.480 align:middle line:84% And the aisles and the seats are so precarious. 00:00:52.480 --> 00:00:54.880 align:middle line:84% And if you're six years old-- and that's 00:00:54.880 --> 00:00:57.523 align:middle line:90% where it all started, I guess. 00:00:57.523 --> 00:00:59.440 align:middle line:84% But I don't talk about Yankee Stadium in this. 00:00:59.440 --> 00:01:02.980 align:middle line:84% I talk about something else closer to my heart. 00:01:02.980 --> 00:01:05.392 align:middle line:90% It was the circus. 00:01:05.392 --> 00:01:06.850 align:middle line:84% When you were a city boy, you never 00:01:06.850 --> 00:01:10.090 align:middle line:84% got to see any animals except at the circus 00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:12.880 align:middle line:84% or, well, the zoo once in a while. 00:01:12.880 --> 00:01:15.540 align:middle line:90% "Crowds". 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:17.940 align:middle line:84% "Terrace bars rise now, though not 00:01:17.940 --> 00:01:21.750 align:middle line:84% so high as the steeple above the marches on the Avenue. 00:01:21.750 --> 00:01:22.920 align:middle line:90% Victory Day. 00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:25.110 align:middle line:90% Hitler lying in a pool of blood. 00:01:25.110 --> 00:01:26.250 align:middle line:90% A small pool. 00:01:26.250 --> 00:01:27.810 align:middle line:90% The worst yet to come. 00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:31.680 align:middle line:84% The pits and maggots on the bodies packed by bulldozers. 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:36.150 align:middle line:84% Gas exuding from uncovered graves dissipating in the air. 00:01:36.150 --> 00:01:39.240 align:middle line:84% That now with the finding of a woman who cut nipples 00:01:39.240 --> 00:01:41.280 align:middle line:90% off Jewesses at Buchenwald. 00:01:41.280 --> 00:01:44.310 align:middle line:84% We hear from the street, she was a good neighbor. 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:46.290 align:middle line:90% Who remembers Buchenwald? 00:01:46.290 --> 00:01:48.090 align:middle line:90% Such deaths legend. 00:01:48.090 --> 00:01:49.860 align:middle line:90% The oven's myth like. 00:01:49.860 --> 00:01:54.570 align:middle line:84% Bombs blazing above Hanoi, no more real than the traffic jam. 00:01:54.570 --> 00:01:57.390 align:middle line:84% Marchers who remember, who can see death 00:01:57.390 --> 00:02:01.380 align:middle line:84% as the pain in their cells, lying in the streets, clubbed, 00:02:01.380 --> 00:02:04.200 align:middle line:84% gashes in their heads, billy clubs waving 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:07.740 align:middle line:84% in the air, eyes closing in the color of television 00:02:07.740 --> 00:02:08.880 align:middle line:90% to this sight. 00:02:08.880 --> 00:02:11.940 align:middle line:84% Sounds of politicos afraid of the crowds, 00:02:11.940 --> 00:02:15.990 align:middle line:84% the pressure of bodies moving against silk suits. 00:02:15.990 --> 00:02:18.930 align:middle line:84% Behind him, the living room fills with suits. 00:02:18.930 --> 00:02:20.730 align:middle line:84% Through the greater doors, he sees 00:02:20.730 --> 00:02:23.400 align:middle line:84% drinks ease the tongues of the celebrants hearing 00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:24.810 align:middle line:90% the news from Germany. 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:28.050 align:middle line:84% He is scared of things so large, yet ogles 00:02:28.050 --> 00:02:31.140 align:middle line:84% when the parents are gone and the German boyfriend 00:02:31.140 --> 00:02:35.460 align:middle line:84% slides his hand up the thighs of the maid before the menorah. 00:02:35.460 --> 00:02:37.920 align:middle line:84% Everything is larger than himself. 00:02:37.920 --> 00:02:41.550 align:middle line:84% In crowds at the circus, he wants to sit on the elephants 00:02:41.550 --> 00:02:46.020 align:middle line:84% to see eye to eye with monsters, shouting, extending hands, 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:49.980 align:middle line:84% fists clenched behind their backs as he is lost. 00:02:49.980 --> 00:02:51.810 align:middle line:90% Later, his sister was lost. 00:02:51.810 --> 00:02:53.760 align:middle line:84% The trees and thickets around him. 00:02:53.760 --> 00:02:57.030 align:middle line:84% His sister crying, Central Park circling him. 00:02:57.030 --> 00:02:59.820 align:middle line:84% Huge buildings to peer through their glass. 00:02:59.820 --> 00:03:01.620 align:middle line:90% He calls out for God. 00:03:01.620 --> 00:03:05.700 align:middle line:84% The God claimed when the self is too small and won't do. 00:03:05.700 --> 00:03:09.580 align:middle line:84% In his fear, thoughts push each other aside. 00:03:09.580 --> 00:03:15.790 align:middle line:84% Hearing the shots or backfires, he wishes to be a crowd." 00:03:15.790 --> 00:03:17.410 align:middle line:90% That's about all I can handle. 00:03:17.410 --> 00:03:18.010 align:middle line:90% Thank you. 00:03:18.010 --> 00:03:21.360 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:30.234 align:middle line:90%