WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.830 align:middle line:90% Good evening. 00:00:02.830 --> 00:00:07.540 align:middle line:84% I read in this room 12 years ago. 00:00:07.540 --> 00:00:11.010 align:middle line:90% And it's great to be back. 00:00:11.010 --> 00:00:15.330 align:middle line:84% I write long poems and have time for three of them, 00:00:15.330 --> 00:00:18.390 align:middle line:90% but I don't write epic poems. 00:00:18.390 --> 00:00:20.550 align:middle line:84% In an epic poem, there has to be a hero 00:00:20.550 --> 00:00:22.050 align:middle line:90% and he has to do something. 00:00:22.050 --> 00:00:25.440 align:middle line:84% And I vowed that I would write an epic poem, where I would 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:27.090 align:middle line:90% be the hero and do something. 00:00:27.090 --> 00:00:32.910 align:middle line:84% And all I could do was shift from one foot to the other. 00:00:32.910 --> 00:00:36.900 align:middle line:84% That poem is called "Litany in Which Certain Things Are 00:00:36.900 --> 00:00:37.590 align:middle line:90% Crossed Out." 00:00:37.590 --> 00:00:40.490 align:middle line:90% 00:00:40.490 --> 00:00:44.090 align:middle line:90% Every morning the maple leafs. 00:00:44.090 --> 00:00:48.200 align:middle line:84% Every morning another chapter, where the hero shifts from one 00:00:48.200 --> 00:00:50.240 align:middle line:90% foot to another. 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:52.220 align:middle line:84% Every morning the same big and little words 00:00:52.220 --> 00:00:53.840 align:middle line:90% all spelling out desire. 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:57.980 align:middle line:84% All spelling out you will be alone always 00:00:57.980 --> 00:00:59.000 align:middle line:90% and then you will die. 00:00:59.000 --> 00:01:01.950 align:middle line:90% 00:01:01.950 --> 00:01:03.810 align:middle line:84% So maybe I wanted to give you something 00:01:03.810 --> 00:01:08.280 align:middle line:84% more than a catalog of non-definitive acts, 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:12.030 align:middle line:84% something other than the desperation. 00:01:12.030 --> 00:01:18.010 align:middle line:84% Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I couldn't come to your party. 00:01:18.010 --> 00:01:21.880 align:middle line:84% Dear So-and-So, I'm sorry I came to your party 00:01:21.880 --> 00:01:24.940 align:middle line:84% and seduced and ruined you, you poor sad thing. 00:01:24.940 --> 00:01:28.780 align:middle line:90% 00:01:28.780 --> 00:01:31.590 align:middle line:90% You want a better story. 00:01:31.590 --> 00:01:33.010 align:middle line:90% Who wouldn't? 00:01:33.010 --> 00:01:35.260 align:middle line:90% A forest, then. 00:01:35.260 --> 00:01:37.540 align:middle line:90% Beautiful trees. 00:01:37.540 --> 00:01:38.650 align:middle line:90% And the lady singing. 00:01:38.650 --> 00:01:42.820 align:middle line:84% Love on the water, love underwater, love, 00:01:42.820 --> 00:01:44.380 align:middle line:90% love and so on. 00:01:44.380 --> 00:01:46.000 align:middle line:90% What a sweet lady. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:47.800 align:middle line:90% Sing, lady, sing. 00:01:47.800 --> 00:01:49.870 align:middle line:90% Of course, she wakes the dragon. 00:01:49.870 --> 00:01:56.380 align:middle line:84% Love always wakes the dragon and suddenly flames everywhere. 00:01:56.380 --> 00:01:59.230 align:middle line:90% 00:01:59.230 --> 00:02:02.260 align:middle line:84% I can tell already you think I'm the dragon, that would 00:02:02.260 --> 00:02:06.610 align:middle line:90% be so like me, but I'm not. 00:02:06.610 --> 00:02:08.410 align:middle line:90% I'm not the dragon. 00:02:08.410 --> 00:02:10.270 align:middle line:90% I'm not the princess either. 00:02:10.270 --> 00:02:11.050 align:middle line:90% Who am I? 00:02:11.050 --> 00:02:12.620 align:middle line:90% I'm just a writer. 00:02:12.620 --> 00:02:14.540 align:middle line:90% I write things down. 00:02:14.540 --> 00:02:18.010 align:middle line:84% I walk through your dreams and invent the future. 00:02:18.010 --> 00:02:23.800 align:middle line:84% Sure, I sink the boat of love, but that comes later. 00:02:23.800 --> 00:02:29.680 align:middle line:84% And yes, I swallow glass, but that comes later. 00:02:29.680 --> 00:02:32.690 align:middle line:84% And the part where I push you flush against the wall 00:02:32.690 --> 00:02:36.580 align:middle line:84% and every part of your body rubs against the bricks, shut up, 00:02:36.580 --> 00:02:37.450 align:middle line:90% I'm getting to it. 00:02:37.450 --> 00:02:40.750 align:middle line:90% 00:02:40.750 --> 00:02:44.980 align:middle line:84% For a while I thought I was the dragon. 00:02:44.980 --> 00:02:47.380 align:middle line:90% I guess I can tell you that now. 00:02:47.380 --> 00:02:53.980 align:middle line:84% And, for a while, I thought I was the princess. 00:02:53.980 --> 00:02:56.680 align:middle line:84% Cotton candy pink, sitting there in my room 00:02:56.680 --> 00:02:58.480 align:middle line:90% in the tower of the castle. 00:02:58.480 --> 00:03:02.710 align:middle line:84% Young and beautiful and in love and waiting for you 00:03:02.710 --> 00:03:04.930 align:middle line:90% with confidence. 00:03:04.930 --> 00:03:06.970 align:middle line:84% But the princess looks into her mirror 00:03:06.970 --> 00:03:08.770 align:middle line:90% and only sees the princess. 00:03:08.770 --> 00:03:11.680 align:middle line:84% While I'm out here, slogging through the mud, breathing, 00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:14.170 align:middle line:84% fire and getting stabbed to death. 00:03:14.170 --> 00:03:18.400 align:middle line:90% OK, I'm the dragon, big deal. 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:21.790 align:middle line:90% You still get to be the hero. 00:03:21.790 --> 00:03:24.910 align:middle line:84% You get magic gloves, a fish that talks. 00:03:24.910 --> 00:03:28.120 align:middle line:90% You get eyes like flashlights. 00:03:28.120 --> 00:03:29.980 align:middle line:90% What more do you want? 00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:33.520 align:middle line:84% I make you pancakes, I take you hunting, 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:36.880 align:middle line:84% I talk to you as if you're really there. 00:03:36.880 --> 00:03:38.980 align:middle line:90% Are you there sweetheart? 00:03:38.980 --> 00:03:40.900 align:middle line:90% Do you know me? 00:03:40.900 --> 00:03:43.840 align:middle line:90% Is this microphone live? 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:47.140 align:middle line:84% Let me do it right, for once, for the record. 00:03:47.140 --> 00:03:50.530 align:middle line:84% Let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes, 00:03:50.530 --> 00:03:55.410 align:middle line:84% you know the story, simply heaven. 00:03:55.410 --> 00:03:58.200 align:middle line:84% Inside your head, you hear a phone ringing. 00:03:58.200 --> 00:04:01.020 align:middle line:84% And when you open your eyes, only a clearing 00:04:01.020 --> 00:04:02.270 align:middle line:90% with a deer in it. 00:04:02.270 --> 00:04:03.990 align:middle line:90% Hello, deer. 00:04:03.990 --> 00:04:07.380 align:middle line:84% Inside your head the sound of glass, 00:04:07.380 --> 00:04:10.080 align:middle line:84% a car crash sound as the trucks roll over 00:04:10.080 --> 00:04:13.590 align:middle line:90% and explode in slow motion. 00:04:13.590 --> 00:04:15.480 align:middle line:90% Sorry, darling. 00:04:15.480 --> 00:04:17.760 align:middle line:90% Sorry about that. 00:04:17.760 --> 00:04:20.279 align:middle line:84% Sorry about the bony elbows, sorry 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:23.490 align:middle line:84% we lived here, sorry about the scene at the bottom 00:04:23.490 --> 00:04:26.580 align:middle line:84% of the stairwell and how I ruined everything by saying it 00:04:26.580 --> 00:04:29.442 align:middle line:90% out loud, especially that. 00:04:29.442 --> 00:04:31.880 align:middle line:90% But I should have known. 00:04:31.880 --> 00:04:34.790 align:middle line:84% You see, I take the parts that I remember 00:04:34.790 --> 00:04:38.690 align:middle line:84% and stitch them back together to make a creature that will 00:04:38.690 --> 00:04:42.170 align:middle line:90% do what I say, or love me back. 00:04:42.170 --> 00:04:45.320 align:middle line:84% I'm not really sure why I do, it but in this version 00:04:45.320 --> 00:04:49.980 align:middle line:84% you are not feeding yourself to a bad man against a black sky 00:04:49.980 --> 00:04:52.490 align:middle line:90% prickled with small lights. 00:04:52.490 --> 00:04:54.230 align:middle line:90% I take it back. 00:04:54.230 --> 00:04:57.740 align:middle line:84% The wooden horse like caskets, these terms from the lower 00:04:57.740 --> 00:05:01.580 align:middle line:90% depths, I take them back. 00:05:01.580 --> 00:05:05.660 align:middle line:84% Here is the repeated image of the lover destroyed. 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:06.740 align:middle line:90% Crossed out. 00:05:06.740 --> 00:05:09.350 align:middle line:90% Clumsy hands in a dark room. 00:05:09.350 --> 00:05:10.460 align:middle line:90% Crossed out. 00:05:10.460 --> 00:05:13.700 align:middle line:84% There is something underneath the floorboards. 00:05:13.700 --> 00:05:15.860 align:middle line:90% Crossed out. 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:20.420 align:middle line:84% And here's the tabernacle reconstructed. 00:05:20.420 --> 00:05:23.220 align:middle line:84% Here is the part where everyone was happy all the time. 00:05:23.220 --> 00:05:28.100 align:middle line:84% And we were all forgiven, even though we didn't deserve it. 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:30.980 align:middle line:84% Inside your head, you hear a phone ringing. 00:05:30.980 --> 00:05:32.840 align:middle line:84% And when you open your eyes, you're 00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:34.880 align:middle line:84% washing up in a stranger's bathroom. 00:05:34.880 --> 00:05:37.850 align:middle line:84% Standing by the window in the yellow towel. 00:05:37.850 --> 00:05:41.584 align:middle line:84% Only 20 minutes away from the dirtiest thing you know. 00:05:41.584 --> 00:05:44.190 align:middle line:90% 00:05:44.190 --> 00:05:49.950 align:middle line:84% The rooms in the castle, except this one, says someone. 00:05:49.950 --> 00:05:54.720 align:middle line:84% And suddenly darkness, suddenly only darkness. 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:57.480 align:middle line:90% 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:00.510 align:middle line:84% In the living room, in the broken yard, 00:06:00.510 --> 00:06:03.210 align:middle line:84% in the back of the cars the lights go by. 00:06:03.210 --> 00:06:06.060 align:middle line:84% In the airport bathroom's gurgle and flush, 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:08.850 align:middle line:84% bathed in a pharmacy of unnatural light. 00:06:08.850 --> 00:06:14.430 align:middle line:84% My hands looking weird, my face weird, my feet too far away. 00:06:14.430 --> 00:06:17.760 align:middle line:84% And then the airplane, the window seat over the wing 00:06:17.760 --> 00:06:22.530 align:middle line:84% with a view of the wing and a little foil bag of peanuts. 00:06:22.530 --> 00:06:25.680 align:middle line:84% I arrived in the city and you met me at the station, 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:29.130 align:middle line:84% smiling in a way that made me frightened. 00:06:29.130 --> 00:06:31.500 align:middle line:84% Down the alley, around the arcade, 00:06:31.500 --> 00:06:33.990 align:middle line:84% up the stairs of the building to the little room 00:06:33.990 --> 00:06:35.820 align:middle line:90% with the broken faucets. 00:06:35.820 --> 00:06:39.420 align:middle line:84% Your drawings, all your things, I looked out the window 00:06:39.420 --> 00:06:41.970 align:middle line:84% and said, this doesn't look that much different from home, 00:06:41.970 --> 00:06:43.900 align:middle line:90% because it didn't. 00:06:43.900 --> 00:06:48.180 align:middle line:84% But then I noticed the black sky and all those legs. 00:06:48.180 --> 00:06:51.720 align:middle line:84% We walked through the house to the elevated train. 00:06:51.720 --> 00:06:54.600 align:middle line:84% All of these buildings, all that glass, 00:06:54.600 --> 00:07:00.740 align:middle line:84% and the shiny, beautiful, mechanical, wind. 00:07:00.740 --> 00:07:04.580 align:middle line:84% We were inside the train car when I started to cry. 00:07:04.580 --> 00:07:06.440 align:middle line:90% You were crying too. 00:07:06.440 --> 00:07:11.840 align:middle line:84% Smiling and crying in a way that made me even more hysterical. 00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:15.710 align:middle line:84% You said I could have anything I wanted, 00:07:15.710 --> 00:07:18.350 align:middle line:84% but I just couldn't say it out loud. 00:07:18.350 --> 00:07:21.870 align:middle line:90% 00:07:21.870 --> 00:07:28.380 align:middle line:84% Actually, you said, love for you is larger 00:07:28.380 --> 00:07:30.960 align:middle line:90% than the usual romantic love. 00:07:30.960 --> 00:07:33.690 align:middle line:90% It's like a religion. 00:07:33.690 --> 00:07:35.790 align:middle line:90% It's terrifying. 00:07:35.790 --> 00:07:40.690 align:middle line:84% No one will ever want to sleep with you. 00:07:40.690 --> 00:07:45.420 align:middle line:84% OK, if you're so great, you do it. 00:07:45.420 --> 00:07:48.720 align:middle line:90% Here's the pencil, make it work. 00:07:48.720 --> 00:07:53.130 align:middle line:84% If the window is on your right, you are in your own bed. 00:07:53.130 --> 00:07:57.750 align:middle line:84% If the window is over your heart and it is painted shut, 00:07:57.750 --> 00:08:00.850 align:middle line:84% then we are breathing river water. 00:08:00.850 --> 00:08:04.050 align:middle line:84% Build me a city and call it Jerusalem. 00:08:04.050 --> 00:08:08.910 align:middle line:84% Build me another and call it Jerusalem. 00:08:08.910 --> 00:08:12.090 align:middle line:84% We have come back from Jerusalem, where we found not 00:08:12.090 --> 00:08:14.250 align:middle line:90% what we sought, so do it over. 00:08:14.250 --> 00:08:16.950 align:middle line:84% Give me another version, a different room, 00:08:16.950 --> 00:08:20.550 align:middle line:84% another hallway, the kitchen painted over and over, 00:08:20.550 --> 00:08:21.750 align:middle line:90% another bowl of soup. 00:08:21.750 --> 00:08:26.170 align:middle line:90% 00:08:26.170 --> 00:08:30.310 align:middle line:84% The entire history of human design 00:08:30.310 --> 00:08:34.720 align:middle line:90% takes about 70 minutes to tell. 00:08:34.720 --> 00:08:39.250 align:middle line:84% Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time. 00:08:39.250 --> 00:08:40.970 align:middle line:90% Forget the dragon. 00:08:40.970 --> 00:08:43.059 align:middle line:84% Leave the gun on the table, this has 00:08:43.059 --> 00:08:46.760 align:middle line:90% nothing to do with happiness. 00:08:46.760 --> 00:08:49.250 align:middle line:84% Let's jump ahead to the moment of epiphany 00:08:49.250 --> 00:08:53.150 align:middle line:84% in gold light as the camera pans to where the action is. 00:08:53.150 --> 00:08:57.680 align:middle line:84% Lakeside and backlit and it all falls into frame, close enough 00:08:57.680 --> 00:09:02.535 align:middle line:84% to see the blue rings of my eyes as I say something ugly. 00:09:02.535 --> 00:09:06.590 align:middle line:90% 00:09:06.590 --> 00:09:08.370 align:middle line:84% I never liked that ending either. 00:09:08.370 --> 00:09:10.620 align:middle line:84% More love streaming out the wrong way. 00:09:10.620 --> 00:09:14.910 align:middle line:84% And I don't want to be the kind that says the wrong way. 00:09:14.910 --> 00:09:16.200 align:middle line:90% But it doesn't work. 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:20.270 align:middle line:84% These erasures, this constant refolding of the pleats. 00:09:20.270 --> 00:09:21.740 align:middle line:84% There were some nice parts, sure. 00:09:21.740 --> 00:09:24.980 align:middle line:84% All lemondrop and melonball, laughing and silk pajamas 00:09:24.980 --> 00:09:29.480 align:middle line:84% and the grains of sugar on the toast, love love or whatever. 00:09:29.480 --> 00:09:31.880 align:middle line:90% Take a number. 00:09:31.880 --> 00:09:33.680 align:middle line:84% I'm sorry it's such a lousy story. 00:09:33.680 --> 00:09:36.290 align:middle line:90% 00:09:36.290 --> 00:09:42.400 align:middle line:84% Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently we 00:09:42.400 --> 00:09:44.770 align:middle line:84% have had our difficulties and there are 00:09:44.770 --> 00:09:47.710 align:middle line:90% many things I want to ask you. 00:09:47.710 --> 00:09:51.670 align:middle line:84% I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then 00:09:51.670 --> 00:09:56.170 align:middle line:84% again, years later in the chlorinated pool. 00:09:56.170 --> 00:10:01.220 align:middle line:84% I am still talking to you about help. 00:10:01.220 --> 00:10:06.240 align:middle line:84% I still do not have these luxuries. 00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:09.250 align:middle line:84% I've told you where I'm coming from. 00:10:09.250 --> 00:10:11.430 align:middle line:90% So put it together. 00:10:11.430 --> 00:10:15.330 align:middle line:84% We clench our bellies and roll on the floor. 00:10:15.330 --> 00:10:22.280 align:middle line:84% When I say this, it should mean laughter, not poison. 00:10:22.280 --> 00:10:25.370 align:middle line:90% I want more applesauce. 00:10:25.370 --> 00:10:29.750 align:middle line:84% I want more seats reserved for heroes. 00:10:29.750 --> 00:10:33.620 align:middle line:84% Dear Forgiveness, I saved a plate for you. 00:10:33.620 --> 00:10:37.940 align:middle line:84% Quit milling around the yard and come inside. 00:10:37.940 --> 00:10:39.000 align:middle line:90%