WEBVTT

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This one is called
The Journalist.

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The Journalist.

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One.

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In the old photograph
I'm holding my nose

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and my friend Stutz has
a finger down his throat.

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We're 16 in Cedar Falls.

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It's all still a joke.

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In my mind, I'm back there.

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The blonde who used
me like a dirty rag

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is gone in a red convertible.

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The top is down.

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She sits beside the
Greek from out of town,

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his hair slicked
down with bergamot.

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I don't care, I do care
that she cruises the streets

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of Little America without me.

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I take a last drag off
my Lucky, pull my cap low

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and take the old road
to the fairgrounds.

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I'm 16.

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What do I know about
love and passion,

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I think, as I watch the circus
set up, watch as the elephants

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pitch and sway, heads and
trunk swinging wildly.

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When the yellow leaves
stir and spin around me,

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I walk back to the
river and skim stones

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across the clear gold
water of early evening

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till the 7:18 whistle blows.

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Then, as if on command, I
start running from childhood,

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from the hometown that keeps me
a boy when I want to be a man.

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Manhood, a dream, an
illusion, I think,

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as I lay down the photograph and
stand still in the anemic glow

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of the darkroom lights, my body
giving off the formaldehyde

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smell of the unknown.

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Two.

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In Vietnam in 1966, I stood
among the gathering crowd

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as the Buddhist nun doused
her robe with gasoline.

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As an American, I
couldn't understand,

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and as I stood there I imagined
myself moving through the crowd

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to stop her, but I didn't.

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I held my camera in position,
then it happened so quickly:

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her assistant stepped
forward with a match.

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Flames rose up the nun's
robe and covered her face,

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then her charred body
slowly fell to the ground.

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That year in Vietnam, I
threw my life in the air

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like a silver baton.

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I could catch it with my eyes
closed, till one night it

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sailed into black space
like a wish and disappeared.

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Or was it me who vanished,
sucking the hard rock

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candy of the future,

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sure that a man's life is
art, that mine had to be?

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But tonight I'm 53,
I've drunk my way

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to the bottom of that
river of my youth,

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and I'm lying there
like a fat carp,

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belly down in the muck and
nothing, not the blonde,

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the red car, or the smell of
new money can get me up again.

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I lay out the
photographs of the nun.

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I remember how her
assistant spoke

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to the crowd, how
no one acknowledged

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her, how we stood another
two or 3 minutes till I put

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my hand in my pocket,
brought out the matchbook,

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and threw it to the nun's side.

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I stare at the last photograph,
the nun's heart that would not

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burn, the assistant, her
hands stretched toward me

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with a matchbook in it.

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What is left out?

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A man in me, stepping
forward, tearing off a match,

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striking it, and touching
it to the nun's heart?

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I throw the photographs
in the metal wastebasket,

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then take the heart from a
glass container of formaldehyde.

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I light a match.

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Still, the heart won't burn.

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I put the fire
out, close my eyes,

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and see myself running,
holding a lump wrapped

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in a handkerchief.

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I think someone will stop me
or try to, but no one does.

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I open my eyes, take the heart
and hold it against my own.

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When I was 16 I was
the dutiful son,

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I washed my hands, helped
my mother set the table,

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got my hair, my shoes shined.

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I tip the Black man,
a cowboy, a dime.

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I didn't excel, but I knew I
could be heroic if I had to.

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I'd set the sharp end of the
compass down on black paper,

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and with a pencil end I
was drawing the circle that

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would contain me,
everything I wanted,

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everything I'd settle for,
life and all its imitations.

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That day in Hue, I had the
chance to step from the circle

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and I took it, but when I
turned back everything inside

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it was burning.

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My past was gone, I was gone,
but the boy was still there.

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He watched the flames take
the nun, he took her heart,

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he was running, I was bound,
he said to himself: I'm free,

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but it was a lie.

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I put the heart back
in the container,

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hear the heavy
footsteps of my wife,

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the blonde, who is gray
now, who is clumping up

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the stairs in her rubber boots
like some female Santa Claus.

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In the heavy canvas bag
slung over her shoulder

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all the smashed toys of my life.

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Wait, I say, as I stand with
my shoulder against the door,

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wait, you haven't heard
the best part yet,

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a boy is running away from home.

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He's lost his cap, he's wearing
the icy wind like an overcoat,

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he can't go back,
he won't go back.

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He never left.

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[Applause]

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Thanks for that.

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That was the last
poem that I wrote

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for the manuscript,
what's happened lately

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though the last two I wrote
I thought really good,

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and I told my editor well,
I'll give you one of them.

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And then last week I thought
well, I'll send the other one

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and I keep adding this
stuff I keep thinking,

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well, I'll just make
the book stronger,

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and it's getting out of control.

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Now, thought some
sort of neurosis now.

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It's add on so that
when the book comes out

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it'll be 350 pages, largest
book of poetry ever written.

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Talked to this philosopher who
said the volumes are so slim,

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what do you expect?

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It's your life's
work in 60 pages.

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Expect some opus, I'm
just giving myself

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a small break here.

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