I'll read maybe two more poems from this book
and then I'll read through some stuff.
A poem about Florida, I was reading in an airplane
today a thing about Florida.
Miami would be a great city in the future based
on this and that.
You wake, you know, I haven't seen--
It's like Reagan talking about the turnaround.
Sort of the same thing.
You know, everything's fine now.
There's only 14 million unemployed.
And I have a series of poems about Florida.
This one's called "Visiting Florida Again."
I take walks early in the morning
while my mother, who I visit, is asleep,
and I walk into the Miami Beach into the Cuban section
and get cafe cubana and so on.
And here I passed one day a terrifying experience.
I passed, heard this noise in the bushes,
and I thought it was a giant insect coming to get me.
And it turned out only to be an air conditioner.
And for the first time I realized
that I'd been making a mistake for about 25 years teaching
English 1 and English 2 and such,
teaching that technology was the enemy,
you know, and at first it being taught to me then teaching it,
I realized I didn't believe that at all.
So this poem is a revival of my first simple, stupid, socialist
belief that technology would save us
when I used to sit in the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh
reading Thomas Paine and those other guys Kropotkin and Blake.
That's what this poem is about.
It's called "Visiting Florida Again."
At 11th and Euclid I stood in front of an air conditioner
and listened to it whir.
For just a second, I thought it was
an insect screaming in anger before it sucked up
its enemies.
I ran into the hibiscus to brood.
For the first time, I gave thanks
to my brother, the machine, my little friend,
so out of place in the tropics, so close now
compared to the hideous ichneumon waving
its long needle or the velvet ant searching for babies,
so misunderstood and abused.
Shivering in the heat, I wanted to touch
some great yellow steam shovel or biplane, something so oily
and awkward that it coughed and groaned for hours
before it moved its huge body into position.
I felt as pure as Mayakovsky climbing into his aluminum
vest, as dear as Pico della Mirandola
watching his Jewish soul rise.
I joined the Shakers at their sweet stations, the anarchists
sitting in the sun.
For just one second I was in London again
in the Iron Palace.
I was in Pittsburgh sitting in the old reference room
reading Thomas Paine and William Blake and Peter Kropotkin
creating my first dream.