I'm going to read a poem that, I think,
I, finally, finished tinkering with.
It's called The Last Packard, Until We Win The War,
and it's based on an issue of Life Magazine.
The date is mentioned in the poem itself.
It's, again, a combination of prose and verse lines,
and the verse lines, well, I think you'll
recognize which is which.
I was a child during the war.
First, let me say that--
and I think this will actually be quite obvious
that the poem refers to many of the ads in that issue of Life
and to a number of the articles.
And, again, it was 1945.
It was almost the end of the war.
Could smell that the end was coming,
but nonetheless, the war effort was still very gung ho as such.
I was a child during the war.
It marked me.
I hope you have noticed my seriousness.
Life, April 16, 1945, Ike's massive forehead.
Creases I hiked in my Poll Parrot shoes.
Rosebud mouth is especially bad on round faces.
Full mouth becomes Barbara Nelson.
17 shells have hit in the target area above.
Child, you could be such a piece of sweetness and communism,
a pinwheel worrying up over this republic of coming and going
grasshopper lights.
This is how we looked when US troops freed him last week.
Exaggerated mouth looks bad on lean faces.
This one's right for Carolyn Kasler.
The men opened their mouths to lessen the concussion
on their eardrums.
The laughs of a nation of all American traits, none
is more characteristic than our universal appreciation
of comedy.
I want bags, Bradley said, bags, bags, bags, bags,
but she called him fool.
What good will all the riches on Earth
do me if I just sit on the saddle?
A war is not won, until the last shot is fired.
Continue to give blood.
On D-day, a Jeep must be ready to roll the instant the ship
grounds, and thanks to Veedol motor oil, it is.
Oh, clouds, oh, spirits, did you see my vulture of syringes
captured at the border?
The happier you are, the lovelier you are.
Fresh up, keep smiling.
You've been in a gray fog since the day
he went away, half seeing, half hearing, hardly daring to hope.
Then the sun floods in.
Your man is yours.
You're his.
Here at Community, we'll have the finest silver plate for you
when your man comes home, home for keeps,
and a kitchen for me that's full of magical things.
Blown dams farther South, rosebud shells
have hit Barbara Nelson, her melting helmet.
A man who has just come up trail is bending over
to keep out of sight.
Helen, honey looks better this way.
Promise yourself you'll keep your hands as thrillingly
lovely as they are now.
You decreed, years ago, that these lives
be saved when you first demanded US rubber products.
A weird assortment of our boys be crutched, bandaged,
splintered.
The mosquito evening stands on long legs.
Live veins blister up now, departures red pout mouth
blisters up now.
Set then moon your cirrus table.
Best return on your dollar one slice of bread,
unpeeled potatoes, one bowl of pea soup per day.
Light, then, the [? Scud ?] bread; light, then,
the new skills born of war, the building
of a greater, happier nation.
Then it's actually a speech given by Gertrude Stein
to the troops.
The French are very disappointed.
Last time, everybody was drunk all the time.
All right, you'll have to go to the Pacific, and the Pacific,
you'll have people to smile at too.
Not Japs waving their finger.
Nobody wants to smile at Japs, but there are Chinaman.
Chinamen are kindly people too.
What I am getting at is that, in this horrible war,
we're in danger of losing our humanity.
Homeless drifts in the cloud ways of destruction.
You cannot turn to one another.
Some of you are dead.
Only the holy remains intact without a location.
Do you see?
Go now, like language opened up at great depth.
Can you imagine?
Where there are no gods, phantoms
wander in the cloudways.
Hatred's dispersals.
Do you see now?