One more poem directly out of childhood.
This one's called Tobacco Farms.
I think it was about 13, I forged my birth certificate.
Had to be about 14 to take a job at the time,
to get a work permit.
And my friend and I forged our birth certificates
and got a job in tobacco farms.
I lived in western New England, in the Pioneer Valley,
and they used to grow tobacco, cheap tobacco
for the outside covering of cigars.
And they grew under these enormous fields--
they grew in enormous fields under nets, gauze nets.
So you're just driving down a country road
and you see a field just covered by gauze.
The gauze nets were about, oh, 10 or 12 feet above the ground.
They were held up by poles that we call bend posts,
and we got paid by how much we picked.
And we'd get paid by a certain number of pennies per bend.
The experience of working there--
I worked there for a couple of summers, two or three summers--
it was really good for me.
It got me out of my neighborhood,
get to meet people.
You know, guys and girls from different neighborhoods
in the town, and from different towns around.
I also worked with Jamaicans and Puerto Ricans,
and I had never met people like that before.
One thing that--
[LAUGHTER]
I'd never met foreigners before except the old Russians
is what it was.
It was a tough place to work, and I was Mr Tough Guy
in my neighborhood.
But once I got to a larger neighborhood like that,
I wasn't necessarily the toughest guy.
So for a while, I just got in a lot of fights.
Anyways, this is about the whole experience.
Tobacco Farms.
"Under acres of white net, I crawl on my knees
and worry about God, and sex, and death.
Sometimes, I'd like to lie in the damp row and dream.
But this is piecework, $0.13 a bend.
So I pick, and think, and tender these delicate leaves.
Heat blazes under the nets.
But mornings, the dew is cool.
At lunch, the straw boss brings beer.
I watch the Polish immigrant, nose in a grammar book,
who arrived last week in a suit.
By now, he's learned the vocabulary of fuck
this and fuck that.
On the truck ride home, I dream of Bab's Beach, a dance
with the Pennsylvania girls.
I'll drink, maybe fight, I'll watch stars wheel
over the curing barns.
Meanwhile, Ace Cody's got a new tattoo,
and the fat kid jiggles his breasts like a woman.
Monday, another field, the same river of
nets all the way to the sea.
Not yet 14, and my father says I know too much."
[APPLAUSE]