WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.350 align:middle line:90% A very few more pieces. 00:00:02.350 --> 00:00:06.150 align:middle line:84% This is one piece of prose I want to read 00:00:06.150 --> 00:00:10.440 align:middle line:84% and then it and the last poem's all from the Rising and Falling 00:00:10.440 --> 00:00:11.730 align:middle line:90% manuscript. 00:00:11.730 --> 00:00:13.860 align:middle line:84% The title of this is "The Penalty for Bigamy 00:00:13.860 --> 00:00:15.580 align:middle line:90% is Two Wives." 00:00:15.580 --> 00:00:21.420 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:26.460 align:middle line:84% It has two-- it's a piece with two characters. 00:00:26.460 --> 00:00:29.880 align:middle line:84% One is somebody who admires about artists 00:00:29.880 --> 00:00:33.600 align:middle line:84% the imagined beautiful doom in which they live, 00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:37.260 align:middle line:84% a favorite and stupid romantic myth about artists. 00:00:37.260 --> 00:00:40.200 align:middle line:84% The other one is an artist who is a little nervous about being 00:00:40.200 --> 00:00:42.742 align:middle line:84% seen in this light, since it's going to require him to suffer 00:00:42.742 --> 00:00:44.190 align:middle line:90% to keep up his public image. 00:00:44.190 --> 00:00:49.750 align:middle line:90% And they have a discussion. 00:00:49.750 --> 00:00:51.660 align:middle line:84% The discussion, though, is reported only 00:00:51.660 --> 00:00:52.830 align:middle line:90% by one of the characters. 00:00:52.830 --> 00:00:54.650 align:middle line:90% And so they don't actually talk. 00:00:54.650 --> 00:01:00.210 align:middle line:84% This character who's speaking recalls their discussion. 00:01:00.210 --> 00:01:03.090 align:middle line:84% "I don't understand how Janis Joplin did it, 00:01:03.090 --> 00:01:07.170 align:middle line:84% how she made her voice break out like that in hives of feeling. 00:01:07.170 --> 00:01:09.480 align:middle line:84% I have a friend that writes poems who says he really 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:11.580 align:middle line:90% wants to be a rock star-- 00:01:11.580 --> 00:01:14.490 align:middle line:84% high-heeled boots, the handheld mic, 00:01:14.490 --> 00:01:16.500 align:middle line:84% the glare of underpants in the front row-- 00:01:16.500 --> 00:01:18.060 align:middle line:90% the whole package. 00:01:18.060 --> 00:01:20.970 align:middle line:84% He says he likes the way music throws you back into your body, 00:01:20.970 --> 00:01:23.640 align:middle line:90% like organic food or heroin. 00:01:23.640 --> 00:01:26.130 align:middle line:84% But when he sings, it is sleek and abstract, 00:01:26.130 --> 00:01:29.580 align:middle line:84% except for the pain, like the silhouette of a dog baying 00:01:29.580 --> 00:01:32.160 align:middle line:84% at the moon, almost liver-shaped, 00:01:32.160 --> 00:01:36.210 align:middle line:84% a bell hung from a rope of its own pure yearning. 00:01:36.210 --> 00:01:38.100 align:middle line:90% Naturally, his life is exciting. 00:01:38.100 --> 00:01:40.230 align:middle line:84% But sometimes I think he can't tell the difference 00:01:40.230 --> 00:01:42.870 align:middle line:90% between salvation and death. 00:01:42.870 --> 00:01:46.410 align:middle line:84% When I listen to my Janis Joplin records, I think of him. 00:01:46.410 --> 00:01:48.870 align:middle line:84% Once I got drunk and sloppy and told him 00:01:48.870 --> 00:01:51.442 align:middle line:84% I feared artists always had more fun and more death, too, 00:01:51.442 --> 00:01:53.400 align:middle line:84% and how I had these strong feelings but nothing 00:01:53.400 --> 00:01:54.067 align:middle line:90% to do with them. 00:01:54.067 --> 00:01:56.010 align:middle line:90% And he said, don't worry. 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.380 align:middle line:84% I'd trade my onion collection for a good cry. 00:01:58.380 --> 00:01:59.940 align:middle line:90% Wouldn't you? 00:01:59.940 --> 00:02:01.680 align:middle line:90% I didn't really understand. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:04.860 align:middle line:84% But poetry is how you feel, so I lie back 00:02:04.860 --> 00:02:07.890 align:middle line:84% and listen to Janis's dead voice run up and down my body 00:02:07.890 --> 00:02:10.449 align:middle line:84% like a fire that has learned to live on itself. 00:02:10.449 --> 00:02:14.735 align:middle line:84% And I think, here it comes, grief's beautiful blowjob. 00:02:14.735 --> 00:02:16.110 align:middle line:84% I think about the painter who was 00:02:16.110 --> 00:02:17.550 align:middle line:90% said to paint with his penis. 00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:19.410 align:middle line:84% And I imagine one of his portraits 00:02:19.410 --> 00:02:21.810 align:middle line:84% letting down a local rain of hair 00:02:21.810 --> 00:02:24.810 align:middle line:84% around his penis, now too stiff to paint with, 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.120 align:middle line:84% as if her diligent silence meant to say, 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:29.310 align:middle line:90% you loved me enough to make me. 00:02:29.310 --> 00:02:31.290 align:middle line:90% When will I see you next? 00:02:31.290 --> 00:02:35.010 align:middle line:84% Janis, I don't care what anybody thinks or writes. 00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:37.110 align:middle line:84% I don't care if my friend who writes poems 00:02:37.110 --> 00:02:40.660 align:middle line:84% is a beautiful fake, like a planetarium ceiling. 00:02:40.660 --> 00:02:42.540 align:middle line:84% I want to hold my life in my arms 00:02:42.540 --> 00:02:45.330 align:middle line:84% as easily as my body will hold forever 00:02:45.330 --> 00:02:49.400 align:middle line:84% the silence for which the mouth slowly opens." 00:02:49.400 --> 00:02:50.000 align:middle line:90%