At the same time I was writing that poem,
I was writing another one, which was obviously
totally different.
And I came later to think that they really
were set of cousins.
But this other one is--
that's one of the saner poems I've written in recent years,
I think.
And this poem is the craziest one I've ever written.
Well, there may be new candidates for that honor.
I don't know.
But this one is called "Happy Times."
And it began with a series of single lines
that came detached from each other.
Totally.
I was thinking about famous one-liners of surrealism.
Sort of-- the surrealists are like Bob Hope.
And they have better writers.
But they're famous one-liners.
And one of them that I always love is Lautréamont,
19th century pre-surrealist surrealist.
"The chance meeting upon a dissecting table of a sewing
machine and an umbrella."
That's right.
So I fumble with that.
So I began to think about that kind of line,
and then they began to happen.
They began to come.
And I had about 60 of them or something.
And I began to throw them away.
I didn't know what I had.
I have 60.
I have a book, a new book--
60 one-line poems.
But I began to throw them away when they didn't feel good.
And then the ones that were left began to breed and attach.
Things began to grow between them-- syntax.
Ridiculous syntax.
Well, eventually, I had to shape.
And it seemed to be a shape.
I didn't know.
I kept thinking, what's going on here?
What is it about anyway?
They're all full of lines, like "tiny electric feet
of sample witches."
But I thought, oh, I know what this is.
This is about being a very little child.
And it's only-- it says the good part.
So I called it "Happy Times."
It says the good part.
And it was really a sort of spin-off from the table
where I got into that trip.
And what interested me most in the table
was the going out of yourself into the other world that
lives in the air, that village of little sounds, and all that.
I mean, the whole scene was one I
remember with great affection.
But this experience of transcendence
of the ego or some such thing was what got into me.
Well, this poem was going on at the same time
and really was coming from the same place.
"Happy Times."
"There is straw in the goose bindery.
Egg princesses hear tiny electric feet of sample witches
in the white city of bacon.
Tongues, tongues, they grow on the porch.
Mattresses lumber through the simian quarter.
Ablaze.
Karen, the walnuts are bothering me.
[LAUGHTER]
The caboose dwindles, which I fabricated of worn fruit punch.
I have eaten the fur hats.
Buick of yellow leaves, sing the peanut wheel
while the fiddle dances to the newspaper that regards it,
the smiles of important shrimp shine like motors
in the cabbage light."
I think it's a ringing conclusion, you know?
[LAUGHTER]
It'll tell you who to vote for, isn't it?
I've been saying to myself for a long time and to people
that I thought this was about very early childhood,
but I never knew.
But then last year, a year ago, well, just last December,
I went to a first grade.
I've been going to grammar schools and high schools,
but not the first grade.
You get the little ones.
And I read poems to them.
And I read this one.
And it was boffo.
It was real box office.
I get halfway through a line.
And they go, oh, ohh!
[LAUGHTER] And then they'd say, stop.
Don't, go on, go on, go on!
I'd say "tiny electric feet," they'd be dying.
I'd say it's sad, the witch is maybe dead.
[LAUGHTER] And then they come back and ask for more.
And they kept making me say it over and over again.
And I thought they were all going
to have heart attacks-- all these six-year-olds.
A catastrophe, 40 six-year-olds have heart attacks--
a terrible headline.
And then it was really a gas.
And [AUDIO CUTS OUT] lack of attention
span unless you stand in your head every 4 and 1/2 seconds.
It's a very-- I kept getting these great questions.
They were, how long it takes you to write a poem?
How do you put the covers on your books?
[LAUGHTER] And then one kid said,
will you do an imitation of Phyllis Diller?
[LAUGHTER] I knew the kid had me, really.
I wouldn't do it.