WEBVTT

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I'd like to start with
a fairly old poem.

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This one particularly
because I'm fond of it

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and because it's an easily
available or accessible poem

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and from childhood.

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The poem is called
"Life without Abie."

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And Abie was an eccentric
character in my neighborhood

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when I was a little kid.

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And I'm sure most of you had
the same kind of character.

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He was retarded, I guess.

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He was about 55 or 60 years
old, retired retarded man.

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And I guess he was a
sex pervert in some way.

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But I wasn't really aware of
that at age seven or eight.

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But he used to teach us
all the dirty words when

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I was a little kid.

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And I imagined at one
point in his career

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as the neighborhood
pervert, they

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took him off to the funny farm.

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And years later, I imagined
him to be something of a--

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or fantasized him to be
something of a neighborhood

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sexual figure.

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And in his absence, the
neighborhood sort of drooped.

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[LAUGHTER]

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[APPLAUSE]

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OK.

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"Life without Abie".

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"Everyone on the
block recalls his sins

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like half remembered movies,
a wet dream, the widow's

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empty bed, a small boy's
hand gripping emptiness.

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On velvet seats, we caress
our own tight thighs.

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We open like lockets.

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On Friday night, we
confess in secret booths.

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Life without Abie is a drag.

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Our favorite queer, foul mouth.

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He taught us how
to grin and hide

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our hands when they itched.

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When they took him
to the funny farm,

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we pissed against
the wall and laughed.

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We didn't understand.

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Among his own kind
now, nose to nose,

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he is loved as a hanky
against the weather.

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And you think I care?

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Man, I'm not just standing
here shooting pool.

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You can still buy it
in the street for two

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bits and the secret wink.

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He swells in your pants pocket.

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Do you miss his bent shadow like
a thief's, a half moon sinking

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into your doorway each
dark night, a bouquet,

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the fierce smell of heat behind
the shades in every room?

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Abie, we repent.

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We touch you with our hands.

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We fall asleep alone,
and in the mornings,

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plunge like semen into
the everyday dust."

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