And that's the next one.
This is-- I mean, have you seen Predator?
Is Predator still sort of in conversation among y'all?
You need to go home and watch Predator.
All you people who have not watched Predator,
you need to watch Predator, and then read the novelization,
and then read some poems about Predator.
So if anyone's working on any Alien poems,
we could do an Alien vs. Predator reading.
[LAUGHTER]
So this is the second Predator poem
and this is to-- it's called "To a Sunbeam,"
and it requires a little bit of an explanation,
that Sunbeam makes Mr. Coffee coffee machines.
"To a Sunbeam," and this has an epigraph, too.
"Why strip a man of his skin, why bother?
There were so many easier ways to hurt."
Paul Monette, Predator.
[LAUGHTER]
Dear Predator, can we talk about this carafe?
Its Mr. Coffee pour is superior.
The last one dribbled like a palsied mouth
that had been punched too much.
I get to talk, because I have palsy.
I have pals.
I ring bells professionally.
I'm no pansy.
I bear the pall like a baller down the aisle.
Like a whale, I roll with my baleen.
I am a queen for krill, I kill when called in a funereal role.
So if you die, consider me.
If you are killed, consider me.
If you are stripped of skin and hung from trees,
you have bigger problems.
Once those are resolved, consider me.
It's only in the wake when someone else dies
that I feel as alive as I did back then,
out there in what we thought was a Central American jungle--
it turned out to be Mexico.
Like a teen, it was trimmed to be more filmable.
It's still groomed for you--
visit the location, drink in the patio at El Eden.
The crashed chopper hangs from trees perpetually.
Entrees include mar y tierra Jesse Ventura, Major Dutch's
camarones gigantes, the Predator seafood platter, and skewers
from the jungle.
These things are real.
This skin is real, it peels well.
I like my plastic pornographic.
I want to feel it when I touch a tit, or a governor in a mall.
These too are real.
They speak on television, their skin
is not as thin as we imagine.
Having died on screen, they know how to give their ghosts away.
Minnesota, California, euphoria, diphtheria, mild dislike
of Unitarians, failing as a vegetarian,
corniness, bad loneliness-- these are states
in which I can believe or live.
To live, I drink my coffee black, or say I do,
on account of how it sounds.
Monette writes, you didn't drink a pint
if someone else was packing away a fifth."
That's my Paul Monette voice.
[LAUGHTER]
"I keep up with the boys.
I have the tools.
Like this carafe, I like my coffee black and smooth.
I get aroused when I watch it pour.
No drip-- I'm bored, America.
How rare is it when a new model solves a problem?
How rare is it when any model solves a problem?
I know I'm being unfair to models.
They feel too, are full too.
They aren't just hulls--
when I remove their shells, they're
circuit boards with smiles and pills.
Well, if I can't have a palsy party, I'll have a pity party--
with my warty kitties, my memories
of war, the way the coffee used to pour from the old carafe.
I need to laugh or I'll explode.
I need to have some kind of party.
I'm having this baby, you can't stop me,
on account of nothing can."
So those are the Predator poems.
There's like a whole bunch of-- the whole book
is going to be Predator poems.
I was trying to explain this to my editor.
She's like, oh, hm, that's great,
[LAUGHTER]
It's an amazing project.
But it is an amazing project, and it's going to be great.
Because Predator is a great movie, and the poems
are all right too.
[LAUGHTER]