Let me conclude with one poem from a book
I'm currently working on.
It's called "Said to Have Been Heard to Say Hush."
There's a new gnosticism in American poetry
that's been getting some attention,
and sometimes my name gets mentioned in relationship
to it.
I've decided that there are two schools of this new gnosticism.
There's a sunshine school, and there's the cloudy school.
I think this poem qualifies me for the latter.
Again, it's called "Said to Have Been Heard to Say Hush."
Remembered moment lamenting--
[MICROPHONE FEEDBACK]
Shouldn't have mentioned Jimi Hendrix.
[LAUGHTER]
Remembered moment lamenting its exit.
The anaphylactic aria fell away.
What beauty promised or we projected faded,
we moved on, not's province the place we now camped in.
The abandoned ones we averred we'd someday be
fell away as well.
The abandoned girl and boy blended in.
Thought's province it was we pitched our tents in.
Wind wrinkled our foreheads, thought not's not someday.
Not made every eye water.
In our heads more than ever, syllabic
beads we thumbed, not's dread have-without-hold,
we bowed down to.
Cried, cry blood, fell back.
There was a box inside my head.
Something menacing shook it, Joe Henderson's tenor.
Not's woken-up-to now we backed away from, little Johnny C,
Hobo Joe, insistent, imposed itself, beside the point.
All of it was orphan song we chimed in on, chided by it,
charmed even so.
I saw no light but said otherwise,
lit by the thought of it, not-light lytic,
tear between said and saw.
Light stole away, some kind of spell I was under.
At more removes than there was ground for,
I stole away as well, said to have been heard to say hush.
A tiptoe ghost octet fidgeted behind us.
Not was another name for death I was afraid,
and afraid my feet would fail, idiot footless,
feet I did indeed speak with, did indeed say hush.
A little bit of nothing, anaphylactic rush,
seen say gone so soon.
We were not's understudies.
Whatever it was we did, no matter
what we did, whatever we did, we did away.
No one heard footsteps, no feet struck the dirt.
Earth beset by see-through sleep, transparent footprint,
sleepwalk's his and hers, an it club of late, the abandoned his
and hers run come.
In back of us, the ghost octet kept at it.
Thread on the box and on the backs of our necks.
Hair stood on the backs of our necks.
Balletic, they traipsed on tiptoe,
shushed all who stood, and looked on.
The sense we were being shadowed had hold of us.
The sense of being had we had.
They were plotting what it was to be
footless, points on a graph the ground had become.
What it meant to be the tiptoe ghost we could see now,
shushed as we were, shadowed as we were,
warned we were better off away, beside the point,
not's null insistence, moot.
All the same, they doused us all in fish powder, a rite
we were none the wiser for.
Slogan.
I saw no way to be wise enough.
Tonal motion made me weep.
I saw no way to stay where I was, be where I was.
Whatever it was, I was moved on, moved over.
Whatever it was, worried what I was.
So it was green-loomed outside my window.
Drawn light and low forest I was wise to,
saw through, aroused by light's reluctance,
but not to be caught out.
No way could I be wise enough, I knew.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]