So my friend, Greg, has taken some poems
of mine and he's written music.
I'm going to read a poem.
These are older poems and then I'm just
going to listen to them.
Listen to the poem and then imagine
how it would be as music.
And you'll hear Alina's voice say the poem again to you.
Much better than my version.
The first is a poem called ''Lightning at Night'', or
''Listening at Night'', or.
[LAUGHTER]
We haven't decided.
It's jazz.
[LAUGHTER]
''Lightning at Night''.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
''The white flash blows you back against me.
The whole skies ablaze, sulfuric blues and grays.
Utterly still and for one moment we see things the same.
Trees whipped and shorn as if shamed.
Beyond which is boiling, now green, a perilous sea of storm
clouds low over all the houses.
The earlier heat hovers as steam above the slick closed roofs.
You touch my neck, it's not fear, not tenderness,
to see if I am ready as you are.
Though we've known all along what's
to come as crushingly dark returns.
The whole world explodes, shattered on its black trunk
and vanishes, leaving echoes to carry on.
Us, split in two''.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
(SINGING) The white flash blows you against me.
The whole skies ablaze, sulphuric blues and grays.
Utterly still and for one moment we see things the same.
Trees whipped and shorn as if shamed.
Beyond which is boiling, now green, a perilous sea of storm
clouds low over all the houses.
The earlier heat hovers as steam above the slick closed roofs.
You touch my neck, it's not fear, not tenderness,
to see if I am ready as you are.
Though we've known all along what's
to come as crushingly dark returns.
The whole world explodes, shattered on it's black trunk
and vanishes, leaving echoes to carry on.
Us, split in two.
[MUSIC PLAYING]