Now, I'd like to read a couple of songs, both of which
are more recent.
I call these songs, not because they've been set to music.
Poets are very funny about what they call songs.
I'm a great admirer of Edward Dorn's poetry,
but he came out with a book called
24 Songs, which I don't think could have been set to music.
But by these, I mean, not that they've been set to music,
that they are so regular and simple that they could
be set to music, and the words could
be understood even just one time through the music.
I always look on the back of the poems I'm reading just in case
there's some obscene drawing.
I don't think there ever has been,
but once I was reading like this,
and somebody was looking fixedly at the back
of the piece of paper and I felt sure there was
something terrible on the back.
And it was blank, but it worried me
so much I like to check first of all.
Can you still hear me all right, now I'm at the side?
This is supposed to be sung by a baby who's just been born,
and it's called "Baby Song."
From the private ease of mother's womb,
I fall into the lighted room.
Why don't they simply put me back, where
it is warm and wet and black?
But one thing follows on another.
Things were different inside mother.
Padded and jolly, I would ride the perfect comfort
of her inside.
They tuck me in a rustling bed.
I lie there, raging, small, and red.
I may sleep soon.
I may forget, but I won't forget that I regret.
A rain of blood poured round her womb.
But all time roars outside this room.