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At the same time I
was writing that poem,

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I was writing another
one, which was obviously

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totally different.

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And I came later to
think that they really

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were set of cousins.

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But this other one is--

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that's one of the saner poems
I've written in recent years,

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I think.

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And this poem is the craziest
one I've ever written.

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Well, there may be new
candidates for that honor.

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I don't know.

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But this one is
called "Happy Times."

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And it began with a
series of single lines

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that came detached
from each other.

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Totally.

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I was thinking about famous
one-liners of surrealism.

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Sort of-- the surrealists
are like Bob Hope.

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And they have better writers.

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But they're famous one-liners.

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And one of them that I
always love is Lautréamont,

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19th century
pre-surrealist surrealist.

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"The chance meeting upon a
dissecting table of a sewing

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machine and an umbrella."

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That's right.

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So I fumble with that.

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So I began to think
about that kind of line,

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and then they began to happen.

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They began to come.

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And I had about 60
of them or something.

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And I began to throw them away.

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I didn't know what I had.

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I have 60.

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I have a book, a new book--

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60 one-line poems.

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But I began to throw them away
when they didn't feel good.

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And then the ones that were
left began to breed and attach.

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Things began to grow
between them-- syntax.

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Ridiculous syntax.

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Well, eventually,
I had to shape.

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And it seemed to be a shape.

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I didn't know.

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I kept thinking,
what's going on here?

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What is it about anyway?

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They're all full of lines,
like "tiny electric feet

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of sample witches."

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But I thought, oh,
I know what this is.

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This is about being
a very little child.

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And it's only-- it
says the good part.

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So I called it "Happy Times."

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It says the good part.

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And it was really a sort
of spin-off from the table

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where I got into that trip.

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And what interested
me most in the table

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was the going out of yourself
into the other world that

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lives in the air, that village
of little sounds, and all that.

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I mean, the whole
scene was one I

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remember with great affection.

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But this experience
of transcendence

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of the ego or some such
thing was what got into me.

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Well, this poem was
going on at the same time

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and really was coming
from the same place.

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"Happy Times."

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"There is straw in
the goose bindery.

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Egg princesses hear tiny
electric feet of sample witches

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in the white city of bacon.

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Tongues, tongues, they
grow on the porch.

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Mattresses lumber through
the simian quarter.

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Ablaze.

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Karen, the walnuts
are bothering me.

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[LAUGHTER]

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The caboose dwindles, which I
fabricated of worn fruit punch.

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I have eaten the fur hats.

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Buick of yellow leaves,
sing the peanut wheel

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while the fiddle dances to
the newspaper that regards it,

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the smiles of important
shrimp shine like motors

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in the cabbage light."

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I think it's a ringing
conclusion, you know?

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[LAUGHTER]

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It'll tell you who to
vote for, isn't it?

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I've been saying to myself
for a long time and to people

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that I thought this was
about very early childhood,

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but I never knew.

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But then last year, a year
ago, well, just last December,

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I went to a first grade.

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I've been going to grammar
schools and high schools,

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but not the first grade.

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You get the little ones.

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And I read poems to them.

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And I read this one.

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And it was boffo.

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It was real box office.

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I get halfway through a line.

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And they go, oh, ohh!

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[LAUGHTER] And then
they'd say, stop.

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Don't, go on, go on, go on!

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I'd say "tiny electric
feet," they'd be dying.

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I'd say it's sad, the
witch is maybe dead.

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[LAUGHTER] And then they
come back and ask for more.

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And they kept making me
say it over and over again.

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And I thought they
were all going

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to have heart attacks--
all these six-year-olds.

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A catastrophe, 40 six-year-olds
have heart attacks--

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a terrible headline.

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And then it was really a gas.

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And [AUDIO CUTS OUT]
lack of attention

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span unless you stand in your
head every 4 and 1/2 seconds.

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It's a very-- I kept getting
these great questions.

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They were, how long it
takes you to write a poem?

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How do you put the
covers on your books?

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[LAUGHTER] And
then one kid said,

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will you do an imitation
of Phyllis Diller?

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[LAUGHTER] I knew the
kid had me, really.

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I wouldn't do it.

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