WEBVTT

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Since you're sitting
in an auditorium,

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I've never read this poem.

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But it sort of uses
sitting in an auditorium

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and an enforced role of
audience as a metaphor.

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So I always thought this was a--

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strange to say this.

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This is a poem about
how I really felt,

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as opposed to the other ones.

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This is--

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[LAUGHTER]

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I heard that come
up out of my brain

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and that came right
out of the mouth, so.

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It's titled Untitled One.

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A curtain rose.

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I mean, I really
feel this is, like,

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the history of my life here.

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I'm going to tell
it to you this way.

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A curtain rose.

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I felt an obligation.

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I tried to feel the thing
that blossoms in me.

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Here in my seat, assigned.

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The whole world intelligently
lit, up there in front of me.

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I tried to feel the untitled
thing that blossoms in me.

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The abnegation that doesn't
stutter, not at all, not once.

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Or no, that stutters
once and once only.

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What the days are a rehearsal
for, breathe in, breathe out.

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What the held breath
is ventriloquial for,

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the eyes quickly shut,
then scribbled back

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open again, rasping martyrdom.

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The glance once again
shouldering the broadcast

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out there, the loud,
flat broadcast.

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The glance ambushed once
again by the apparent warmth

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of the picture.

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I blinked.

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Tomorrow came.

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Nothing came true.

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Birds scattered and the
minutes clucked, single file.

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Daggering, talkative,
the breaths

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ministered to nothingness.

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A tight bond, theirs,
an hysterical love.

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Never mind, the thing
said, those robberies.

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I love you, they said.

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Or in a broader
sense, this example

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suggests I tried to feel
the days go on without me.

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Walking in the park, a
small tin of shoe polish

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nestled in the grass.

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From over the trees,
the names of people

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were called out via loudspeaker.

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Then there were
numbers, the score,

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incessant coarse ribbon,
floated by elegantly,

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then smeared itself
all over the sky.

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The small hole inside,
I'm supposed to love.

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I tried to house it.

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No, I tried to gorge it.

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I hovered 'round it with
sentences to magnify the drama.

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I choked it with waiting.

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I whispered, don't be afraid,
and petitioned it with rapture.

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The plumed thing, the
cross-dressed lingering,

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dramatic, all my thin secrets
giddy, all my whispers

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free-spending.

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Tomorrow came.

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Slowly it scattered.

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Then it came again, first
fragile, eyes closed.

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Then peeling away its
cellophane eyes, striating open,

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it did it again,
each time so easy,

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first blurring a bit
then nearing five.

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The sparrows a scribble,
the magnet rising,

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tomorrow starting to strip
itself clean again of itself.

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But casually, tirelessly,
and without innuendo.

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Just oh so plucky, peeling the
minutes off, the little white

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worms.

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Quavering up to a
strong, fine whiteness.

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High varnish, yet non-committal.

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Giving thanks, or so it seemed.

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Then backing away, unexpurgated,
sort of disfigured.

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Then again, tomorrow came.

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Never a chorus, only the hero.

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And tomorrow, and tomorrow,
one after another,

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up into the floodlights.

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I tried to feel the story grow,
name by name, one at a time.

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My eyes grew heavy.

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I could feel my
attention slipping.

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I tried to shoulder the
whole necklace of accidents.

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I waited for them all
to reappear at the end,

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to take a bow, all
at once, altogether,

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that I might remember.

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[APPLAUSE]

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OK, that's it now
for the-- because you

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can't, like-- then
there's going to be

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the poem you don't applaud for.

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And then I'm going to get
all screwed up about that.

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So this-- call it quits right
now and wait until the end,

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thanks.

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