WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.720 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:03.630 align:middle line:84% This is a long poem but it's one sentence. 00:00:03.630 --> 00:00:05.310 align:middle line:90% So I'll go by quickly. 00:00:05.310 --> 00:00:08.370 align:middle line:90% 00:00:08.370 --> 00:00:11.220 align:middle line:84% This was written after visiting the gay parade in San Francisco 00:00:11.220 --> 00:00:12.900 align:middle line:90% this July or was it-- 00:00:12.900 --> 00:00:15.090 align:middle line:90% actually I think it was June. 00:00:15.090 --> 00:00:19.230 align:middle line:84% I was just absolutely astonished by the presence and the power 00:00:19.230 --> 00:00:21.030 align:middle line:84% of the people marching in the parade given 00:00:21.030 --> 00:00:23.970 align:middle line:84% that the devastation of AIDS that 00:00:23.970 --> 00:00:26.760 align:middle line:84% has seared through the community there and I was-- 00:00:26.760 --> 00:00:29.080 align:middle line:90% I was just blown away. 00:00:29.080 --> 00:00:31.230 align:middle line:84% And I hope that you'll hear the parade 00:00:31.230 --> 00:00:33.330 align:middle line:84% when it comes in about three-quarters of the way 00:00:33.330 --> 00:00:35.740 align:middle line:90% through the poem. 00:00:35.740 --> 00:00:37.590 align:middle line:90% It's in here. 00:00:37.590 --> 00:00:39.690 align:middle line:84% The setting for this, this is one 00:00:39.690 --> 00:00:41.310 align:middle line:84% of these poems that starts and ends 00:00:41.310 --> 00:00:44.700 align:middle line:90% in the same place like bookends. 00:00:44.700 --> 00:00:50.205 align:middle line:84% And the setting for it is actually a room much like this. 00:00:50.205 --> 00:00:52.800 align:middle line:90% 00:00:52.800 --> 00:00:53.880 align:middle line:90% "The Impossible." 00:00:53.880 --> 00:00:58.690 align:middle line:90% 00:00:58.690 --> 00:01:02.490 align:middle line:84% "I had to give a great speech to a filled hall, 00:01:02.490 --> 00:01:06.240 align:middle line:84% beginning with a flute sonata, and to recite 00:01:06.240 --> 00:01:11.550 align:middle line:84% from several books only two of which I recognized, 00:01:11.550 --> 00:01:15.300 align:middle line:84% which I accomplished though it took everything out 00:01:15.300 --> 00:01:18.810 align:middle line:84% of me as I tried to hold my posture erect 00:01:18.810 --> 00:01:24.210 align:middle line:84% and failing that, at least look good on the balls of my feet. 00:01:24.210 --> 00:01:27.600 align:middle line:84% This being nearly impossible, I tried 00:01:27.600 --> 00:01:30.420 align:middle line:84% to give the illusion of weightlessness or at the very 00:01:30.420 --> 00:01:33.720 align:middle line:84% least a sense of rapprochement wont with gravity 00:01:33.720 --> 00:01:37.950 align:middle line:84% whereby my head remained light while my heart suffered 00:01:37.950 --> 00:01:40.080 align:middle line:90% and my soul burned. 00:01:40.080 --> 00:01:44.310 align:middle line:84% So that when asked to run, run for all 00:01:44.310 --> 00:01:47.700 align:middle line:84% I was worth which I tell you was not much 00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:52.050 align:middle line:84% by then, because of the pressure to demure to those around me 00:01:52.050 --> 00:01:56.490 align:middle line:84% cajoling and demanding, I fled with a kind of verve 00:01:56.490 --> 00:02:00.750 align:middle line:84% even I did not foresee since I was preoccupied with having 00:02:00.750 --> 00:02:02.130 align:middle line:90% abandoned a project. 00:02:02.130 --> 00:02:06.030 align:middle line:84% Its true only a genius or a madman might have finished 00:02:06.030 --> 00:02:09.780 align:middle line:84% and which I had, frankly, more or less accomplished 00:02:09.780 --> 00:02:14.430 align:middle line:84% by accident, intuition, and a sudden burst of confidence 00:02:14.430 --> 00:02:18.810 align:middle line:84% which shocked even my dearest and succeeded 00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:21.630 align:middle line:84% in reaching the famous Crystal Springs 00:02:21.630 --> 00:02:24.750 align:middle line:84% heretofore thought to be imaginary. 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:28.140 align:middle line:84% A thing of wonder but without substance, 00:02:28.140 --> 00:02:32.370 align:middle line:84% without substantiation, such blueness and liquidity. 00:02:32.370 --> 00:02:36.150 align:middle line:84% It was unbelievable but true that I 00:02:36.150 --> 00:02:40.290 align:middle line:84% stopped on a dime resisting a personal moment that surely 00:02:40.290 --> 00:02:42.690 align:middle line:84% would have overwhelmed anyone so haunted 00:02:42.690 --> 00:02:46.230 align:middle line:84% and so driven by so many and experienced 00:02:46.230 --> 00:02:52.320 align:middle line:84% what can only be described as a disappointment plain and simple 00:02:52.320 --> 00:02:56.220 align:middle line:84% not because the waters were any less majestic, any less 00:02:56.220 --> 00:02:59.010 align:middle line:84% transparent than rumored, in fact, 00:02:59.010 --> 00:03:02.160 align:middle line:84% they were blue beyond the cerulean of sky 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:05.850 align:middle line:84% over a south high in the mountains of deepest Earth. 00:03:05.850 --> 00:03:10.890 align:middle line:84% Purpled nearly black; that is, if one thought of the sun ever 00:03:10.890 --> 00:03:13.350 align:middle line:90% going down into such waters. 00:03:13.350 --> 00:03:17.400 align:middle line:84% Sad because I had never been more in love, more 00:03:17.400 --> 00:03:21.300 align:middle line:84% given over to any one person, place, or thing 00:03:21.300 --> 00:03:24.870 align:middle line:84% and all of existence seemed paltry next to such 00:03:24.870 --> 00:03:29.910 align:middle line:84% feeling if one did not count the few stones that uncannily 00:03:29.910 --> 00:03:33.810 align:middle line:84% caught my eye, pebbles I almost smashed out 00:03:33.810 --> 00:03:37.740 align:middle line:84% of a euphoria that overcame and nearly destroyed me. 00:03:37.740 --> 00:03:41.100 align:middle line:84% A taste of heavenly wind swept my body, 00:03:41.100 --> 00:03:44.490 align:middle line:84% tickling my ribs with a fancy singing of spirit, 00:03:44.490 --> 00:03:49.530 align:middle line:84% tempting, perfumed, but for the goddamn six or seven 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:53.280 align:middle line:84% loosely strewn aforementioned ugly little rocks that buckled 00:03:53.280 --> 00:03:56.460 align:middle line:84% my knees with their gray snaky surface, 00:03:56.460 --> 00:03:59.310 align:middle line:84% pimpled, rough, impossibly connotative; 00:03:59.310 --> 00:04:02.760 align:middle line:84% that is, I saw 1,000 lakes in the landscape 00:04:02.760 --> 00:04:07.950 align:middle line:84% of a bird-shat mossy clump glombed to a crag and bat faces 00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:10.560 align:middle line:84% and bare paws and exoskeletal histories 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:15.540 align:middle line:84% from beyond time and so on which held me face down, 00:04:15.540 --> 00:04:19.320 align:middle line:84% less recalcitrant than I had ever been, trust me on that, 00:04:19.320 --> 00:04:23.820 align:middle line:84% and ever more eager to obey the longer I picked out lunar hills 00:04:23.820 --> 00:04:27.210 align:middle line:84% and valleys and the more hushed I got between one 00:04:27.210 --> 00:04:29.130 align:middle line:90% ancient, practically moribund, 00:04:29.130 --> 00:04:32.910 align:middle line:84% megaliths and another beamed so to speak from oblivion. 00:04:32.910 --> 00:04:36.510 align:middle line:84% The body of universe opened into a gaping mouth 00:04:36.510 --> 00:04:40.770 align:middle line:84% whose lips mercifully shined with the handiwork of creation 00:04:40.770 --> 00:04:42.600 align:middle line:84% or at least it seemed that way to me. 00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:46.050 align:middle line:84% By now flattened to the cold damp floor, reddened 00:04:46.050 --> 00:04:49.170 align:middle line:84% with the liveliness of movement, and of sweat, 00:04:49.170 --> 00:04:53.220 align:middle line:84% crimson then, and moving, mouthing something, in tongues 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:55.620 align:middle line:84% but almost immediately my language, 00:04:55.620 --> 00:04:59.070 align:middle line:84% words I once dared to call I grant, you in a dream, 00:04:59.070 --> 00:05:02.340 align:middle line:84% the language of love, which in this case 00:05:02.340 --> 00:05:07.080 align:middle line:84% hasten to particularize itself in the being of a face. 00:05:07.080 --> 00:05:11.190 align:middle line:84% And then the hair and eyes and costume of beatific figures 00:05:11.190 --> 00:05:16.080 align:middle line:84% transsexualized by ritual and political charioteering, 00:05:16.080 --> 00:05:18.210 align:middle line:84% such that I no longer knew myself, 00:05:18.210 --> 00:05:22.480 align:middle line:84% but rather a consortium of likenesses whose cocksureness 00:05:22.480 --> 00:05:28.140 align:middle line:84% is colloquialized as immediately as the words for it are spoken. 00:05:28.140 --> 00:05:32.100 align:middle line:84% A roaring of motorcycles and then hundreds of faceless, 00:05:32.100 --> 00:05:35.370 align:middle line:84% because one face, hermaphroditic moderns 00:05:35.370 --> 00:05:39.150 align:middle line:84% blazed by, upstaging the monochromatic past 00:05:39.150 --> 00:05:41.850 align:middle line:84% with theatrical moves and chartreuses, 00:05:41.850 --> 00:05:46.260 align:middle line:84% white-faced and mascara-ed images, eyebrowless. 00:05:46.260 --> 00:05:48.870 align:middle line:84% And I found myself in full color, 00:05:48.870 --> 00:05:51.690 align:middle line:84% reproduced electronically as it were, 00:05:51.690 --> 00:05:54.990 align:middle line:90% so eroticized as to be unreal. 00:05:54.990 --> 00:05:58.260 align:middle line:84% A diorama overpowering everything else 00:05:58.260 --> 00:05:59.820 align:middle line:90% in common limelight. 00:05:59.820 --> 00:06:04.530 align:middle line:84% Dykes on bikes, fag hags, drag queens, steroidal buffs, 00:06:04.530 --> 00:06:08.310 align:middle line:84% midnight blue Black semi nudes, boy toys, 00:06:08.310 --> 00:06:11.720 align:middle line:84% unzipped sadomasochistic 6 foot tricks. 00:06:11.720 --> 00:06:14.780 align:middle line:84% The semi-erect, the innocent, in gym shorts 00:06:14.780 --> 00:06:19.100 align:middle line:84% and in slips, tuxedos, T-shirts, cut-offs, jeans 00:06:19.100 --> 00:06:22.460 align:middle line:84% impaled at the crotch, godly larger 00:06:22.460 --> 00:06:25.070 align:middle line:84% than life meaning assigned to them. 00:06:25.070 --> 00:06:28.370 align:middle line:84% By messages spelled out on their chests, 00:06:28.370 --> 00:06:35.000 align:middle line:84% silence equals death, et cetera, until so engorged their numbers 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.590 align:middle line:84% blur into a massive energy that finally disperses 00:06:39.590 --> 00:06:42.470 align:middle line:84% into the missions and the tenderloins 00:06:42.470 --> 00:06:47.030 align:middle line:84% from whence they came into the planetary city named 00:06:47.030 --> 00:06:53.100 align:middle line:84% irreverently and made familiar by necessity, sex. 00:06:53.100 --> 00:06:57.390 align:middle line:84% And I passed out onto those innocuous stones. 00:06:57.390 --> 00:07:00.330 align:middle line:84% Trifles I might have missed another day. 00:07:00.330 --> 00:07:06.000 align:middle line:84% Waking to stumble between two destinations, home or on, 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:10.530 align:middle line:84% knowing I'd forgotten, oh Alcatraz-ed face, 00:07:10.530 --> 00:07:12.600 align:middle line:90% betrayed, abandoned. 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:15.630 align:middle line:84% Forgotten more than any metaphor provided 00:07:15.630 --> 00:07:19.380 align:middle line:84% because it too is ultimately betrayed and abandoned. 00:07:19.380 --> 00:07:24.840 align:middle line:84% Forgotten life because if this paper face, this alphabet 00:07:24.840 --> 00:07:28.230 align:middle line:84% and these blanks I trusted naturally 00:07:28.230 --> 00:07:33.000 align:middle line:84% like a form of breathing, life I have to return to, 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.360 align:middle line:84% which I made more difficult than walking off 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:41.460 align:middle line:84% the globe by imagining I had to say a few tired words 00:07:41.460 --> 00:07:45.540 align:middle line:84% into an ear, near empty auditorium, 00:07:45.540 --> 00:07:50.010 align:middle line:84% beginning with a couple of short notes only some of which 00:07:50.010 --> 00:07:52.851 align:middle line:90% I'd actually written." 00:07:52.851 --> 00:08:04.810 align:middle line:84% [APPLAUSE AND CHEERS] Did you get the parade? 00:08:04.810 --> 00:08:05.960 align:middle line:90% You got the parade. 00:08:05.960 --> 00:08:08.280 align:middle line:90% OK, you got the parade.