WEBVTT

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From this next
book, a small trail

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of poems having to do with
9/11 because what poet

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doesn't do some 9/11 poems?

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I waited a long time.

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I hated to do it.

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But on the other hand,
just as with cliche--

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otherwise, in workshops
you're trained to avoid them--

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I can't keep away from them, but
I have to keep pestering them,

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badgering them till I find
out why they came to--

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I mean, a cliche
is where you learn

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why a cliche came into being.

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There is some truth in there.

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You have to restore it to
its liveliness or something,

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something that made it
possible for so many people

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to take it for granted and
get past the sedated part

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back to the provocative part.

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And 9/11 is the same way.

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It turned-- we made it
so fast into a pocket

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truth, or a cliche, or
a set of assumptions.

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And the great astonishment
of that moment,

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aside from other things
was, its irreplicability.

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It is the spike par
excellence in the EKG.

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And to my mind, there were
a lot of features of it

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that were quite
peculiar in retrospect,

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although it has sedated itself
into a story pretty fast.

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Anyway, "Glass House."

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This is sort of the
augury of the moment.

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"Everything obeyed our laws and
we just went on self-improving

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till a window gave us pause and
there, the outside world was

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moving.

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Five apartment blocks swept
by, the trees, and ironwork,

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and headstones of the
next town's cemetery,

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auto lots, golf courses, rest
homes, blue green fields,

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and perishable vistas,
wars had underscored

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and red were sweeping
past with cloud escapes

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just as if the living
room were dead.

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Which way to look?

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Non-negative?

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Nonplussed?

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Un-killed?

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Un-kissed?

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Look out, you said.

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The sight's on us.

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If we don't move,
we can't be missed."

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