WEBVTT

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So this guy wrote some
poems a long time ago,

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and I would be remiss if I
didn't read some of these.

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I wanted to read some that I
had never read in public before.

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So I'm going to pick
these two short poems.

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This is called Caw and Crow.

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I'm a crow of a man, Hamlet's
last, best interpretation.

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Preferring my body the
color of absence, dark,

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disconnected as a phone
line, as a blank shack.

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Attracted by the
sharp, the shiny--

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chrome and chrome's likeness--

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the dark reflection of
self in small things.

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Listen, the finish
of this lighter

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doesn't show much else
besides the truth.

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It's a luminous machine and it
burns at a simple, exact task.

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I've taken to
skipping Sunday mass,

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and the buckles on
my shoes, the straps

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remind me of the
vows I vowed against.

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When I write about a
man smoking a cigarette,

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I mean my grandfather's
gray wool suit, I mean me.

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Too distracted by the
glittered cleavage of stones,

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by what's been revealed,
how it's accrued.

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Listen, a crow will
land in December snow

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to leave an angel's
print, clear and cold

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as the light between pines.

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Their throaty calls break
the air like flint--

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strike and spark-- in the
cryptic wood cutter's cottage,

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grandfather serves his
penance, splitting wood

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for fires that will not burn.

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