Thank you, Julie.
It's always so disappointing when
I'm the one that has to come up after an introduction
like that.
Just to keep me honest here, I have a script.
My mind is a dog without a master,
so I need a script to stay with it here.
Thank you all.
Julie for that Shop Talk, too.
And for all the perceptive people that came out for that
and made those poems come to life.
Thanks to Tyler and Becka, everyone at the Poetry Center.
You've been such gracious hosts.
And to Janice Dewey and her poetry students
for your attention.
And thanks to all of you for coming out.
I'm going to begin where I live, which
is just blocks from the historic district of Philadelphia.
The city of brotherly love.
The cradle of liberty.
Home of the fabled founding fathers.
The Liberty Bell.
Independence Hall.
In short, I'm living a real 21st century
life surrounded by the idealized icons of American history.
So join me in one of those horse-drawn buggies
as it's circling Independence Mall.
I'm going to skip the title.
Titles are stupid when you're trying to read a poem.
Somehow it's just like, no.
"And the mare kicks at her traces,
pulling the old fashioned rig around Independence Hall.
Surrounded now by cheap aluminum stands,
fences to hold off terrorists.
Another fool's errand on which Smokey
the Bear and his brethren, the National Park Service,
with their self-important official hats have been sent.
The terrorists don't give a damn about our little historic pile
of bricks and sentiment from a time before empire.
When 18th century men, in what was hopefully
called the Enlightenment, made their stand for autonomy.
More economic than ideal, but sanctified by time
and by an empire's need for roots with some morality
clinging to them and not just dirt.
There was a prediction back in Franklin's time
that if the population grew at the current rate,
the amount of horse manure would be in another century
18 feet deep.
They weren't entirely wrong.
Though they didn't factor in the steam engine, Henry Ford,
or the trolley car, they guessed right
on the depth of horse shit.
Though most of it is in DC, Where it draws crowds of flies.
Where the Washington Monument white towering obelisk glowers
with its red electric eyes.
A Klansman in a white hood staring down
the blossoming mall.
Admiring its reflection in the monumental pool."
This is mostly bummer lit, but you know.
You don't choose what you write about.