WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.640 align:middle line:90% 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:04.155 align:middle line:90% I'm just going to read one more. 00:00:04.155 --> 00:00:12.240 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:14.340 align:middle line:90% No, it's really long. 00:00:14.340 --> 00:00:15.150 align:middle line:90% It's really long. 00:00:15.150 --> 00:00:19.240 align:middle line:90% 00:00:19.240 --> 00:00:22.830 align:middle line:84% It takes about 10 minutes to read this poem 00:00:22.830 --> 00:00:25.800 align:middle line:90% and it's on the fax. 00:00:25.800 --> 00:00:27.405 align:middle line:84% I got to read the poem on the fax. 00:00:27.405 --> 00:00:36.200 align:middle line:90% 00:00:36.200 --> 00:00:39.780 align:middle line:84% This poem is really in honor of Jesse Holmes. 00:00:39.780 --> 00:00:42.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:42.720 --> 00:00:47.370 align:middle line:84% I was really upset that I didn't have any poems that 00:00:47.370 --> 00:00:50.850 align:middle line:84% had any kinky sex in them whatsoever, 00:00:50.850 --> 00:00:54.930 align:middle line:84% and that I couldn't possibly offend anybody. 00:00:54.930 --> 00:01:00.630 align:middle line:84% And I wanted to honor a community that raised funds 00:01:00.630 --> 00:01:10.770 align:middle line:84% in spite of the threats in Congress 00:01:10.770 --> 00:01:13.590 align:middle line:84% against our freedom of expression. 00:01:13.590 --> 00:01:16.860 align:middle line:84% And so I tried to write a poem that had 00:01:16.860 --> 00:01:20.850 align:middle line:90% something pornographic in it. 00:01:20.850 --> 00:01:24.930 align:middle line:84% I tried to cover all the ground that the NEA is upset by. 00:01:24.930 --> 00:01:27.210 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:27.210 --> 00:01:29.160 align:middle line:90% And it's not in my nature. 00:01:29.160 --> 00:01:31.290 align:middle line:84% So I'm almost embarrassed reading it. 00:01:31.290 --> 00:01:34.200 align:middle line:84% But I figure there isn't ever going 00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:36.660 align:middle line:84% to be a better audience for kinky sex. 00:01:36.660 --> 00:01:39.015 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:39.015 --> 00:01:43.152 align:middle line:90% 00:01:43.152 --> 00:01:45.360 align:middle line:84% Actually, you're going to wait a long time before you 00:01:45.360 --> 00:01:47.220 align:middle line:84% get to anything sexy, and then it's 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:48.750 align:middle line:84% going to go by so fast you're going 00:01:48.750 --> 00:01:49.833 align:middle line:90% to be really disappointed. 00:01:49.833 --> 00:01:51.922 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:01:51.922 --> 00:01:56.370 align:middle line:90% 00:01:56.370 --> 00:02:03.390 align:middle line:84% All right, that said, this poem takes place 00:02:03.390 --> 00:02:06.850 align:middle line:84% while the first is in three sections. 00:02:06.850 --> 00:02:13.890 align:middle line:84% The first section takes place at the Battle 00:02:13.890 --> 00:02:16.920 align:middle line:90% of Shiloh near Memphis. 00:02:16.920 --> 00:02:21.240 align:middle line:84% Actually, it is looking at relics 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:24.180 align:middle line:84% from the Battle of Shiloh originally 00:02:24.180 --> 00:02:27.600 align:middle line:84% in the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, 00:02:27.600 --> 00:02:31.470 align:middle line:84% in particular, a bullet that has tooth marks in it. 00:02:31.470 --> 00:02:35.280 align:middle line:90% 00:02:35.280 --> 00:02:38.220 align:middle line:84% Sex isn't till the second section. 00:02:38.220 --> 00:02:40.170 align:middle line:84% And in the third section, when you really 00:02:40.170 --> 00:02:44.250 align:middle line:84% can't bear it any longer, it's when 00:02:44.250 --> 00:02:48.540 align:middle line:84% you hear the mention of the peach, 00:02:48.540 --> 00:02:53.370 align:middle line:84% since blossoming of peach trees are 00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:56.520 align:middle line:90% the central object of scrutiny. 00:02:56.520 --> 00:02:58.350 align:middle line:84% But when we get to the actual peach, 00:02:58.350 --> 00:03:00.360 align:middle line:84% you know it's about 10 lines from the end. 00:03:00.360 --> 00:03:04.150 align:middle line:90% 00:03:04.150 --> 00:03:05.520 align:middle line:90% It helps to know these things. 00:03:05.520 --> 00:03:18.100 align:middle line:90% 00:03:18.100 --> 00:03:22.810 align:middle line:84% It's titled "Marks," and I'll let you guess how that spelled. 00:03:22.810 --> 00:03:29.530 align:middle line:90% 00:03:29.530 --> 00:03:32.335 align:middle line:84% "One, Pink Palace Museum, Memphis. 00:03:32.335 --> 00:03:36.780 align:middle line:90% 00:03:36.780 --> 00:03:40.245 align:middle line:84% She lifts the bullet out of the gleaming glass case. 00:03:40.245 --> 00:03:43.140 align:middle line:90% 00:03:43.140 --> 00:03:45.810 align:middle line:90% What can it harm? 00:03:45.810 --> 00:03:51.480 align:middle line:84% Clock on the wall, ceiling fan on. 00:03:51.480 --> 00:03:56.280 align:middle line:84% Earlier, it was muzzleflash, dust. 00:03:56.280 --> 00:04:00.990 align:middle line:84% All round in the woods, voices and orders, 00:04:00.990 --> 00:04:04.860 align:middle line:90% but you can't be sure whose. 00:04:04.860 --> 00:04:09.360 align:middle line:84% Here's a sunken place by the road for shelter 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:18.180 align:middle line:84% and the speechless reload, tents that way or is it fog 00:04:18.180 --> 00:04:21.570 align:middle line:90% or is it freedom? 00:04:21.570 --> 00:04:26.310 align:middle line:84% A horse with his dead man disappears. 00:04:26.310 --> 00:04:32.025 align:middle line:84% The line is where that has to be maintained at all cost. 00:04:32.025 --> 00:04:34.650 align:middle line:90% 00:04:34.650 --> 00:04:41.730 align:middle line:84% Smoke clears and here's 1,000 peach trees, a massacre 00:04:41.730 --> 00:04:44.580 align:middle line:90% of blooms or is it smoke? 00:04:44.580 --> 00:04:47.410 align:middle line:90% 00:04:47.410 --> 00:04:52.320 align:middle line:84% The fire is let go, travels into the blossoming not as fast 00:04:52.320 --> 00:04:56.700 align:middle line:90% as you think, enters a thigh. 00:04:56.700 --> 00:05:02.700 align:middle line:84% She holds up the set of knives in their satin-lined case. 00:05:02.700 --> 00:05:06.300 align:middle line:84% Behind her, the diorama where the surgeon's sawing. 00:05:06.300 --> 00:05:08.820 align:middle line:90% 00:05:08.820 --> 00:05:13.200 align:middle line:90% There's the wax mouth held shut. 00:05:13.200 --> 00:05:17.250 align:middle line:90% There's the scream inside. 00:05:17.250 --> 00:05:21.150 align:middle line:90% Peach blossoms fall. 00:05:21.150 --> 00:05:24.660 align:middle line:84% No chloroform, so whiskey is used 00:05:24.660 --> 00:05:31.680 align:middle line:84% and sometimes now lifting up out of the incandescent display. 00:05:31.680 --> 00:05:37.770 align:middle line:84% The bullet, we bend close to see the bite marks on-- 00:05:37.770 --> 00:05:43.200 align:middle line:84% three dark impressions whose footprints 00:05:43.200 --> 00:05:50.040 align:middle line:84% on bottomland, whose bodies sticky with blossom, loosening 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:52.350 align:middle line:90% into the wet field. 00:05:52.350 --> 00:05:56.580 align:middle line:84% The still living, moving the simpler bodies 00:05:56.580 --> 00:06:02.880 align:middle line:84% of the already dead up and down during the night. 00:06:02.880 --> 00:06:07.320 align:middle line:84% Flashes of lightning showed hogs feeding on the dead, 00:06:07.320 --> 00:06:14.100 align:middle line:84% says the captain who hears the wounded rebel under him say, 00:06:14.100 --> 00:06:19.800 align:middle line:84% oh, God, what made you come down here to fight? 00:06:19.800 --> 00:06:23.490 align:middle line:84% We never would have come up there. 00:06:23.490 --> 00:06:28.560 align:middle line:90% Look, he lives to write it down. 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:31.680 align:middle line:84% Here are the black words photographed and blown 00:06:31.680 --> 00:06:35.820 align:middle line:90% up wall-sized behind the guide. 00:06:35.820 --> 00:06:40.720 align:middle line:84% Do you think these words are still enough? 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:46.110 align:middle line:84% And the next thing and the next thing. 00:06:46.110 --> 00:06:50.250 align:middle line:90% Where is a mark that stays? 00:06:50.250 --> 00:06:55.470 align:middle line:84% Where is what makes a mark that stays? 00:06:55.470 --> 00:06:59.610 align:middle line:90% What's real slides through. 00:06:59.610 --> 00:07:04.740 align:middle line:84% The body rots, the body won't hold it. 00:07:04.740 --> 00:07:09.120 align:middle line:84% Here's the next room and the flight simulator. 00:07:09.120 --> 00:07:12.450 align:middle line:84% We, the living, run our arms along the grooves 00:07:12.450 --> 00:07:14.160 align:middle line:90% as we walk through. 00:07:14.160 --> 00:07:20.880 align:middle line:84% They are lifted and dropped, experience wing action. 00:07:20.880 --> 00:07:24.660 align:middle line:90% I shut my eyes and try it again. 00:07:24.660 --> 00:07:28.230 align:middle line:90% The museum hums around me. 00:07:28.230 --> 00:07:32.310 align:middle line:84% Something else, something niggardly 00:07:32.310 --> 00:07:36.900 align:middle line:84% letting the walls stay up for now hums. 00:07:36.900 --> 00:07:42.270 align:middle line:84% Something speechless, and dense, and stationary, 00:07:42.270 --> 00:07:49.710 align:middle line:84% letting matter coalesce in obstinate illustration hums. 00:07:49.710 --> 00:07:52.950 align:middle line:84% Here are the theories come to cloak it-- 00:07:52.950 --> 00:07:54.930 align:middle line:90% buzz. 00:07:54.930 --> 00:07:58.470 align:middle line:84% Hear the deafness all over the trees-- 00:07:58.470 --> 00:08:00.720 align:middle line:90% green. 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:05.310 align:middle line:84% Hear his scream go into the light. 00:08:05.310 --> 00:08:12.090 align:middle line:84% See how the light is untouched by the scream that enters it. 00:08:12.090 --> 00:08:18.270 align:middle line:90% Dust motes, peach blossom fall. 00:08:18.270 --> 00:08:22.560 align:middle line:90% Where shall the scream stick? 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:25.770 align:middle line:90% What shall it dent? 00:08:25.770 --> 00:08:29.820 align:middle line:90% Won't the deafness be cracked? 00:08:29.820 --> 00:08:34.659 align:middle line:90% Won't the molecules be loosened? 00:08:34.659 --> 00:08:36.850 align:middle line:90% Are you listening? 00:08:36.850 --> 00:08:43.000 align:middle line:84% We need the scream to leave its mark on the silky down 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:46.390 align:middle line:90% of the pettaled light. 00:08:46.390 --> 00:08:49.870 align:middle line:84% I lift my arms along the rutted ledge-- 00:08:49.870 --> 00:08:54.250 align:middle line:84% lift, drop, try to feel the prey beneath me. 00:08:54.250 --> 00:08:59.020 align:middle line:84% Look down through the trees, only there is no through. 00:08:59.020 --> 00:09:05.410 align:middle line:84% It all being flat ground zero, a fabric, something's pattern. 00:09:05.410 --> 00:09:14.500 align:middle line:84% Then the dropping down fast to try to scratch the emptiness. 00:09:14.500 --> 00:09:16.330 align:middle line:90% I was there. 00:09:16.330 --> 00:09:18.070 align:middle line:90% I was there. 00:09:18.070 --> 00:09:22.720 align:middle line:84% Or it was a most beautiful evening, 00:09:22.720 --> 00:09:28.150 align:middle line:84% private Leander Stilwell of the 100th Indiana remembered. 00:09:28.150 --> 00:09:32.395 align:middle line:84% It really seemed like Sunday in the country at home. 00:09:32.395 --> 00:09:38.700 align:middle line:90% 00:09:38.700 --> 00:09:46.590 align:middle line:84% "Two, Peach Orchard, Shiloh Battlefield 00:09:46.590 --> 00:09:47.790 align:middle line:90% Near the Mississippi River. 00:09:47.790 --> 00:09:52.100 align:middle line:90% 00:09:52.100 --> 00:09:56.690 align:middle line:84% She's the scream, he's the light. 00:09:56.690 --> 00:10:02.120 align:middle line:84% They are playing sort of at Leda and Swan. 00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:08.780 align:middle line:84% No, she's the stream, he's the blossom fall. 00:10:08.780 --> 00:10:11.885 align:middle line:84% Do you think these words are still enough? 00:10:11.885 --> 00:10:14.570 align:middle line:90% 00:10:14.570 --> 00:10:20.420 align:middle line:84% Something out there on a spot in the middle of the creek, where 00:10:20.420 --> 00:10:25.160 align:middle line:84% the sun hits first and most directly, 00:10:25.160 --> 00:10:29.420 align:middle line:84% where a person can hardly look, where 00:10:29.420 --> 00:10:33.620 align:middle line:84% there's a little gash on the water film. 00:10:33.620 --> 00:10:41.810 align:middle line:84% An indentation almost a cut his foothold are taking there, 00:10:41.810 --> 00:10:45.830 align:middle line:90% though not slowly like rot. 00:10:45.830 --> 00:10:50.780 align:middle line:90% A likeness there, a subtraction. 00:10:50.780 --> 00:10:55.580 align:middle line:84% A dizziness rushing down into thought. 00:10:55.580 --> 00:11:01.820 align:middle line:84% Her, a stream, yes, though not less a girl. 00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:06.800 align:middle line:84% And him, the light become petalled in its lower reaches, 00:11:06.800 --> 00:11:11.780 align:middle line:84% almost cutting the water there where it wings, 00:11:11.780 --> 00:11:17.120 align:middle line:84% or so the story goes, him needing something 00:11:17.120 --> 00:11:20.330 align:middle line:90% he did not have. 00:11:20.330 --> 00:11:24.320 align:middle line:84% Filtering down to make the salt life glow, 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:28.010 align:middle line:84% down onto the one-way motion, the hard muscle 00:11:28.010 --> 00:11:29.255 align:middle line:90% of the no-turning-back. 00:11:29.255 --> 00:11:32.000 align:middle line:90% 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:35.570 align:middle line:84% All around them, the confused clicking of matter. 00:11:35.570 --> 00:11:38.150 align:middle line:90% 00:11:38.150 --> 00:11:40.910 align:middle line:84% Somewhere behind them, a human voice 00:11:40.910 --> 00:11:48.050 align:middle line:84% calling out the time of day like a plea and the insects 00:11:48.050 --> 00:11:53.680 align:middle line:84% whining high and low, buzz, and click without cessation. 00:11:53.680 --> 00:11:56.730 align:middle line:90% 00:11:56.730 --> 00:12:01.700 align:middle line:84% So he hurts her a little, hurts her some more. 00:12:01.700 --> 00:12:06.740 align:middle line:84% Can't seem to find her, maybe he'll cut her. 00:12:06.740 --> 00:12:12.560 align:middle line:84% Can't seem to find her, can't seem to find her. 00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:17.360 align:middle line:84% The more he enters, the more she disappears. 00:12:17.360 --> 00:12:20.360 align:middle line:84% The more she takes him, the more he isn't true. 00:12:20.360 --> 00:12:22.970 align:middle line:90% 00:12:22.970 --> 00:12:29.120 align:middle line:84% Maybe now they will feel their bodies harder. 00:12:29.120 --> 00:12:31.925 align:middle line:90% Now do they feel them harder? 00:12:31.925 --> 00:12:34.730 align:middle line:90% 00:12:34.730 --> 00:12:42.530 align:middle line:84% What is it to always be within oneself, interminable, noon. 00:12:42.530 --> 00:12:45.350 align:middle line:84% Watching for the face to look this way, 00:12:45.350 --> 00:12:48.230 align:middle line:84% the face even then already bored. 00:12:48.230 --> 00:12:50.075 align:middle line:90% Its glance passing over. 00:12:50.075 --> 00:12:53.830 align:middle line:90% 00:12:53.830 --> 00:12:59.650 align:middle line:84% Is it death they want to touch or is it invent? 00:12:59.650 --> 00:13:04.450 align:middle line:84% Their difference, a kindling in the endlessness. 00:13:04.450 --> 00:13:06.460 align:middle line:90% Is that what they wanted? 00:13:06.460 --> 00:13:08.230 align:middle line:90% To make a beginning? 00:13:08.230 --> 00:13:10.810 align:middle line:90% To introduce ruin? 00:13:10.810 --> 00:13:14.410 align:middle line:84% An aperture that lets in the minutes, the buzzing, and then 00:13:14.410 --> 00:13:17.590 align:middle line:90% the festering. 00:13:17.590 --> 00:13:19.810 align:middle line:90% Oh, the minutes. 00:13:19.810 --> 00:13:23.590 align:middle line:84% Can't you hear them already behind this blossoming 00:13:23.590 --> 00:13:26.350 align:middle line:90% white page? 00:13:26.350 --> 00:13:30.670 align:middle line:84% Greedy, awaiting the fresh wound. 00:13:30.670 --> 00:13:34.990 align:middle line:84% Black big wings beating, antennae wild, sticky, 00:13:34.990 --> 00:13:38.140 align:middle line:90% and thousand eyed. 00:13:38.140 --> 00:13:42.340 align:middle line:84% Sacks of our blood beneath their wings. 00:13:42.340 --> 00:13:47.590 align:middle line:84% He wants to go into her, he goes through. 00:13:47.590 --> 00:13:53.230 align:middle line:84% The clawed light down hard on the sinewy scream. 00:13:53.230 --> 00:13:58.900 align:middle line:84% He ties her down with his belt, she is not there. 00:13:58.900 --> 00:14:03.820 align:middle line:84% She is asking for it, he is not there. 00:14:03.820 --> 00:14:08.800 align:middle line:84% He promises forever, she is not there. 00:14:08.800 --> 00:14:10.030 align:middle line:90% Do I own you? 00:14:10.030 --> 00:14:11.230 align:middle line:90% She says. 00:14:11.230 --> 00:14:16.060 align:middle line:90% Yes, yes, he is not there. 00:14:16.060 --> 00:14:20.690 align:middle line:84% She is rising up as he descends, then she is not there, 00:14:20.690 --> 00:14:25.600 align:middle line:84% then she is water beneath him, a river is flowing. 00:14:25.600 --> 00:14:31.150 align:middle line:84% He's clawing for foothold, the river won't take his mark. 00:14:31.150 --> 00:14:34.330 align:middle line:90% What can, he sees. 00:14:34.330 --> 00:14:39.070 align:middle line:84% Where she eddies it's brighter for an instant. 00:14:39.070 --> 00:14:44.890 align:middle line:84% Where the scream is, the light is broken for the instant. 00:14:44.890 --> 00:14:50.410 align:middle line:84% Where the light is brighter, the scream is the instant. 00:14:50.410 --> 00:14:53.200 align:middle line:84% Where they thought they could marry, 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:57.760 align:middle line:84% in which they thought they could touch each other. 00:14:57.760 --> 00:15:01.930 align:middle line:90% The instant, they can't see it. 00:15:01.930 --> 00:15:05.830 align:middle line:84% A scent, in it, the place something 00:15:05.830 --> 00:15:08.335 align:middle line:90% maybe took place, but what? 00:15:08.335 --> 00:15:11.490 align:middle line:90% 00:15:11.490 --> 00:15:15.090 align:middle line:84% Perhaps it is a hate they want to feel, 00:15:15.090 --> 00:15:18.990 align:middle line:90% a pure one without cause. 00:15:18.990 --> 00:15:22.950 align:middle line:84% Like a lateness outside the sensation of time. 00:15:22.950 --> 00:15:25.510 align:middle line:90% 00:15:25.510 --> 00:15:28.920 align:middle line:84% Like a sunlight beating down or a loud voice 00:15:28.920 --> 00:15:32.670 align:middle line:90% utterly without syllables. 00:15:32.670 --> 00:15:37.920 align:middle line:84% Him, the center of what will I be? 00:15:37.920 --> 00:15:41.340 align:middle line:90% What shall I think about? 00:15:41.340 --> 00:15:44.700 align:middle line:84% With a laundry list, and a nobility, 00:15:44.700 --> 00:15:47.100 align:middle line:84% and a question to ask her when he finally 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:50.730 align:middle line:90% gets his hands on her. 00:15:50.730 --> 00:15:54.750 align:middle line:84% The whole damn thing here sucking and buzzing 00:15:54.750 --> 00:15:58.365 align:middle line:84% like a silver wrapper he's supposed to get off. 00:15:58.365 --> 00:16:01.180 align:middle line:90% 00:16:01.180 --> 00:16:03.880 align:middle line:90% Oh, but get up, get up. 00:16:03.880 --> 00:16:05.560 align:middle line:90% The world is strange. 00:16:05.560 --> 00:16:08.530 align:middle line:90% There is no underneath. 00:16:08.530 --> 00:16:10.150 align:middle line:90% Get up. 00:16:10.150 --> 00:16:13.840 align:middle line:84% The light is blossoming like foil, 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:17.335 align:middle line:84% but also it itches and is an iceberg. 00:16:17.335 --> 00:16:20.200 align:middle line:90% 00:16:20.200 --> 00:16:24.670 align:middle line:84% And now raises its head like a swan like a sun light. 00:16:24.670 --> 00:16:28.140 align:middle line:90% 00:16:28.140 --> 00:16:33.390 align:middle line:84% And now raises its head wanting to be alive. 00:16:33.390 --> 00:16:40.710 align:middle line:84% How can the scream rise up out of its grave of matter? 00:16:40.710 --> 00:16:44.865 align:middle line:84% How can the light drop down out of its grave of thought? 00:16:44.865 --> 00:16:47.400 align:middle line:90% 00:16:47.400 --> 00:16:50.670 align:middle line:84% How can they cross over and the difference between them 00:16:50.670 --> 00:16:54.360 align:middle line:90% swirl with existence? 00:16:54.360 --> 00:16:57.180 align:middle line:84% Everything at the edges of everything 00:16:57.180 --> 00:17:04.109 align:middle line:84% else now rubbing, making tiny sounds that add up 00:17:04.109 --> 00:17:07.290 align:middle line:90% into laughter. 00:17:07.290 --> 00:17:11.849 align:middle line:84% Something the breeze can lift and drop. 00:17:11.849 --> 00:17:17.670 align:middle line:84% Something that clots here and there and confirms our fear 00:17:17.670 --> 00:17:19.859 align:middle line:84% and the laughter, which you might think 00:17:19.859 --> 00:17:23.550 align:middle line:90% is an angel above them. 00:17:23.550 --> 00:17:26.880 align:middle line:84% The angel composed entirely of the difference, 00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:31.470 align:middle line:84% a body whose ribs are the limits of everything. 00:17:31.470 --> 00:17:37.050 align:middle line:84% Oh, but we are growing now that there's a hurry, aren't we? 00:17:37.050 --> 00:17:44.040 align:middle line:84% Here where nothing is alive and vastly limbed and vastly eyed. 00:17:44.040 --> 00:17:47.955 align:middle line:84% And the future spreads before us, the back of its long body. 00:17:47.955 --> 00:17:51.090 align:middle line:90% 00:17:51.090 --> 00:17:56.130 align:middle line:84% For the first time since Homer, whispers his open book, 00:17:56.130 --> 00:17:59.220 align:middle line:90% spine up to the light. 00:17:59.220 --> 00:18:03.555 align:middle line:84% And naturalism was already outmoded when. 00:18:03.555 --> 00:18:07.150 align:middle line:90% 00:18:07.150 --> 00:18:12.220 align:middle line:84% And by visible truth, we mean the apprehension of. 00:18:12.220 --> 00:18:23.560 align:middle line:90% 00:18:23.560 --> 00:18:32.970 align:middle line:84% "Three, beautiful natural blossoms. 00:18:32.970 --> 00:18:38.030 align:middle line:90% Little mist of broken starlight. 00:18:38.030 --> 00:18:43.940 align:middle line:84% What is this she lifts and puts into my hand? 00:18:43.940 --> 00:18:49.130 align:middle line:84% This little permanence, this stone punched through 00:18:49.130 --> 00:18:54.305 align:middle line:84% with pain, ash of a man's scream still intact. 00:18:54.305 --> 00:18:56.810 align:middle line:90% 00:18:56.810 --> 00:19:01.490 align:middle line:84% Strange how heavy it is, I think. 00:19:01.490 --> 00:19:05.450 align:middle line:90% And here are the indentations. 00:19:05.450 --> 00:19:08.810 align:middle line:90% I run my fingertip in them. 00:19:08.810 --> 00:19:12.560 align:middle line:84% Little consequence, darker than the cause. 00:19:12.560 --> 00:19:15.470 align:middle line:90% 00:19:15.470 --> 00:19:23.300 align:middle line:84% The war is gone, the reason is gone, the body is gone. 00:19:23.300 --> 00:19:26.030 align:middle line:90% Its reason gone. 00:19:26.030 --> 00:19:32.450 align:middle line:84% The name, the face, the personal identity, and yet here 00:19:32.450 --> 00:19:37.460 align:middle line:84% is a pain that will not diminish. 00:19:37.460 --> 00:19:40.490 align:middle line:90% Is it still pain? 00:19:40.490 --> 00:19:46.280 align:middle line:84% What do we call it when pain gone, the force of the pain 00:19:46.280 --> 00:19:48.590 align:middle line:90% is still intact? 00:19:48.590 --> 00:19:56.360 align:middle line:84% Unwavering, knife sawing the leg, bone breaking. 00:19:56.360 --> 00:20:03.590 align:middle line:84% The opening of the slice, the cold air where flesh had been. 00:20:03.590 --> 00:20:05.960 align:middle line:90% What do we call it? 00:20:05.960 --> 00:20:13.550 align:middle line:84% The air around this gray fossil of pure carnal limit. 00:20:13.550 --> 00:20:16.400 align:middle line:90% Is it free? 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:21.590 align:middle line:90% Beautiful natural blossoms. 00:20:21.590 --> 00:20:27.050 align:middle line:84% White holes in the fabric of air surrounding us. 00:20:27.050 --> 00:20:31.880 align:middle line:84% I stand with my hand out in front of me. 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:35.330 align:middle line:90% The others look onto it. 00:20:35.330 --> 00:20:42.470 align:middle line:84% Someone puts his fingers in, lifts it slightly, then puts it 00:20:42.470 --> 00:20:46.880 align:middle line:90% back down onto my warm palm. 00:20:46.880 --> 00:20:51.590 align:middle line:84% Already, it is less cold than it was. 00:20:51.590 --> 00:20:57.680 align:middle line:84% Already, some of the heat has entered its molecule. 00:20:57.680 --> 00:21:01.310 align:middle line:84% Already, our words and the tone of our words, 00:21:01.310 --> 00:21:06.170 align:middle line:84% the exclamation mark, the rising supplication 00:21:06.170 --> 00:21:11.840 align:middle line:84% of the question mark have mixed into the tall ceilinged museum 00:21:11.840 --> 00:21:13.310 align:middle line:90% air. 00:21:13.310 --> 00:21:17.120 align:middle line:84% Some of the heat from our bodies has crossed out 00:21:17.120 --> 00:21:21.860 align:middle line:84% on the back of the words into the pasture of air. 00:21:21.860 --> 00:21:26.750 align:middle line:84% Some small attribute, some gaseous nature 00:21:26.750 --> 00:21:31.490 align:middle line:84% of the thing has changed, hasn't it? 00:21:31.490 --> 00:21:35.630 align:middle line:84% I'm looking as he tries to see deeply the bitten 00:21:35.630 --> 00:21:40.760 align:middle line:84% bullet without lifting his hand to touch. 00:21:40.760 --> 00:21:43.880 align:middle line:90% I watch his eyes focus. 00:21:43.880 --> 00:21:48.590 align:middle line:84% I watch him try to see what there is to see. 00:21:48.590 --> 00:21:54.080 align:middle line:84% The russet cord behind him gleams, the ceiling fan, 00:21:54.080 --> 00:21:58.760 align:middle line:84% the guide's voice, the thing in my hand, the light on it, 00:21:58.760 --> 00:22:02.750 align:middle line:84% my friend's lowered face, the window to the left, the window 00:22:02.750 --> 00:22:10.370 align:middle line:84% glass, through it the blossoms in rain, little mist. 00:22:10.370 --> 00:22:18.290 align:middle line:84% You take the sunlight in and its frequency, which is a color. 00:22:18.290 --> 00:22:22.370 align:middle line:84% You have these teeth, which are molecules. 00:22:22.370 --> 00:22:27.410 align:middle line:84% In them, there is a form of desire 00:22:27.410 --> 00:22:32.600 align:middle line:84% which ascertains which color of the light will do 00:22:32.600 --> 00:22:36.860 align:middle line:84% and into which the molecules must bite down, 00:22:36.860 --> 00:22:40.340 align:middle line:90% taking the necessary nutrient. 00:22:40.340 --> 00:22:44.120 align:middle line:84% The particular aspect of the light, one of its speeds, 00:22:44.120 --> 00:22:51.080 align:middle line:84% not another, into your speed and altering matter 00:22:51.080 --> 00:23:00.710 align:middle line:84% make white and silky by virtue of what you do not apprehend. 00:23:00.710 --> 00:23:08.690 align:middle line:84% What does this young man's bite into the world take? 00:23:08.690 --> 00:23:14.660 align:middle line:84% What nutrient does his bite find? 00:23:14.660 --> 00:23:20.150 align:middle line:84% What grows white, and airy, and almost invisible, 00:23:20.150 --> 00:23:25.880 align:middle line:84% lacy, out of him as of this feeding? 00:23:25.880 --> 00:23:30.710 align:middle line:84% What has he swallowed that will now rise up through him 00:23:30.710 --> 00:23:37.360 align:middle line:84% and blossom up through his back, out through the eyes, 00:23:37.360 --> 00:23:40.320 align:middle line:84% out the hole at the end of each fingertip? 00:23:40.320 --> 00:23:44.850 align:middle line:90% 00:23:44.850 --> 00:23:47.940 align:middle line:84% Here is the young man's great grandfather 00:23:47.940 --> 00:23:55.290 align:middle line:84% himself, a young man, who gets off the boat in Jamestown 1764 00:23:55.290 --> 00:23:59.610 align:middle line:90% with a sack of seeds. 00:23:59.610 --> 00:24:04.660 align:middle line:90% This is a peach seed, a pit. 00:24:04.660 --> 00:24:08.370 align:middle line:90% It has come from Amsterdam. 00:24:08.370 --> 00:24:14.130 align:middle line:84% Before, it was in a crate unloaded in Venice. 00:24:14.130 --> 00:24:19.020 align:middle line:84% A new thing for the human mind, a peach 00:24:19.020 --> 00:24:22.740 align:middle line:84% found in Baghdad by another young man 00:24:22.740 --> 00:24:27.300 align:middle line:90% and tasted out of curiosity. 00:24:27.300 --> 00:24:30.570 align:middle line:90% The pit is collected. 00:24:30.570 --> 00:24:35.100 align:middle line:84% An interesting fruit, part apple, part pear, 00:24:35.100 --> 00:24:37.050 align:middle line:90% he writes in his travelogue. 00:24:37.050 --> 00:24:39.580 align:middle line:90% 00:24:39.580 --> 00:24:45.940 align:middle line:84% Here's the spring of 1772 and the first blossoms. 00:24:45.940 --> 00:24:52.780 align:middle line:84% And then a good summer, not much war, and then the first fruit. 00:24:52.780 --> 00:24:57.910 align:middle line:84% Here is the wife's face, he is handing her a fruit. 00:24:57.910 --> 00:25:01.030 align:middle line:84% She puts the churn down a minute. 00:25:01.030 --> 00:25:05.530 align:middle line:84% The child is crying in the basket by the fire. 00:25:05.530 --> 00:25:10.660 align:middle line:90% Here he says, try it. 00:25:10.660 --> 00:25:14.410 align:middle line:84% And her mouth over the rough skin, 00:25:14.410 --> 00:25:18.010 align:middle line:90% the fire needing attention. 00:25:18.010 --> 00:25:21.700 align:middle line:90% The child starting to scream. 00:25:21.700 --> 00:25:27.020 align:middle line:84% Here is the mark on the surface of that peach. 00:25:27.020 --> 00:25:30.790 align:middle line:84% Here the note she puts in her journal that night, 00:25:30.790 --> 00:25:35.080 align:middle line:90% the words for it, that taste. 00:25:35.080 --> 00:25:39.610 align:middle line:84% The season it stands at the heart of, that 00:25:39.610 --> 00:25:43.840 align:middle line:90% sweetness not entirely sweet. 00:25:43.840 --> 00:25:50.500 align:middle line:84% A fruit, part sunshine, part water, she writes. 00:25:50.500 --> 00:25:55.660 align:middle line:84% But what she's thinking is his face when he came into the room 00:25:55.660 --> 00:25:58.990 align:middle line:90% holding it this morning. 00:25:58.990 --> 00:26:06.940 align:middle line:84% What was it he held in his hand, that his face could not see, 00:26:06.940 --> 00:26:07.840 align:middle line:90% could not hold?" 00:26:07.840 --> 00:26:10.540 align:middle line:90% 00:26:10.540 --> 00:26:13.590 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:26:13.590 --> 00:26:24.000 align:middle line:90%