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I have a new book
coming out in the fall,

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and I think this
following poem is

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going to be the opening one
although the publishers make up

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where it gets to
go into the book.

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It's called "The
Young and the Old."

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Will we make it to 2000?

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1984 slides along ominously.

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Now murder and assassination
assail free Canada.

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The center is not
holding, Willie.

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I sat beside you when
the course was young.

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I knew, old man, you
would tell the truth.

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How the young laugh at your
singing Byzantium bird,

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ventriloquists all no
golden bow for them.

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Who would want the intellect?

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That great stride only
to reach a tinsel bow.

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The drab in the ditch is
better, you thought of that.

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The purgatory knife, the
sharpest you ever honed.

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We are easy riders to
the fields of grace,

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a bombshell in the gut.

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No reality but in the spirit.

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I might give you a footnote
on the last line of that poem.

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You remember that, William
Carlos Williams was always

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harping on the sentence
that he kept repeating,

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no reality but in things.

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So I pay my respects
to him in that answer.