I was fortunate enough to get a long poem published
in the Best American Poetry this year,
which shocked the heck out of me,
but I wanted to read you a little bit of this.
I don't know why I'm into these really long poems
but this is not as long as that.
So if you're starting to twitch, I'll be merciful.
But I thought it was interesting because it's a poetic bridge
between my materials.
I'm so concerned about all these things
that are constantly separating us and breaking us
apart and setting us against each other.
And in this book tour, I may have mentioned,
but doing radio call-in shows in Los Angeles when you've
written a book praising illegal immigrants is really a bad idea.
[LAUGHTER]
I'll tell you.
And I start my new book with a quote by Richard Rodriguez.
It says, the illegal immigrant is the prophet.
He's the bravest and strongest among us
and he knows what's happening long before a California
suburbanite knows it.
And the radio guy said to me, did you ever box?
And I said, why?
He said, because you sure are leading with your chin.
I thought, oh, man.
Oh, darn it.
So I'm desperately hoping that, if anything,
I can at least try to lay out some rudimentary bridges
between us because I hate the things that separate us.
And I think they're mostly lies, certainly propaganda.
And one of the experiences I had when on my macho safaris
with my dad was the--
I don't know how to put this delicately--
the classic experience of being taken to a house of ill repute
as a boy.
And it was a very peculiar experience for me
because I did not want to be there
and I was only 12 years old.
And they had selected somebody for me who scared me so bad.
She looked just like Tina Turner.
[LAUGHTER]
But she had tarantulas for eyelashes.
These gigantic things.
And I didn't know how I was going to get out of this.
I really didn't.
Because it was presented to me as a great noble thing.
The men have collected the money for you, you little punk.
Go do it.
So we were sitting there and I was watching this place.
And one of the fellows confessed that he was 21 years old
and had never been with anybody.
And I leapt to my feet and made an instant soliloquy.
Beloved brothers!
Although this is the most beautiful gesture
anyone's ever made for me, brother Gilbert has never been.
And so they gave him the money and sent him off.
And I got out of it.
But the more I thought about this place,
the more it bothered me.
It was so rogue-full and so naughty.
We were such boys.
But I thought about the women in there the more and more I
thought about it.
And one Christmas I was staying down there,
and I decided to go back to see this place.
And it was much more alarming this time that I was grown up.
And an old woman in the town who had
been the Nina, the sort of steadying female hand for all
these wild cousins of mine when they were little boys, now
works in an organization helping these women who do this work.
And I should have known from the work
I was doing in Mexico what their situation was.
But the majority of women working that work
are, of course, sending all of their earnings home
to their children or their parents
and working as slaves, almost, in these places.
So it made me vividly and shockingly remember a moment.
And this is one of those poems that
comes directly from Mr. Anderson's suggestion of ghosts
of small gestures because one little tiny moment happened
and it's bugged me forever.
That's what this poem is about.
And it was just making eye contact
for one second with somebody.
So this is that section of this poem,
which is called "Ghost Sickness."
And this is part 10.
And then maybe if you want to chat or something, we can chat.
Because maybe you might have some comments or questions.
I love to hear what people have to say.
"Drive mad across town, radio tuned to sizzle spit mariachi
howls.
Drunk, white hat wolves, six-gun poets,
bawling pagan gospels of tequila.
Love, murder, ruin.
Six men in a Volkswagen, uncountable ghosts on the roof
hung on for dear death.
Rubber burned on cobbles as we spun another corner, laughter's
nasty calliope calling.
Dog bark, midnight outskirts of some flyspeck town.
Cemetery next door to the whorehouse away where
the shouts, and the shooting, and the trumpets,
and the shatter wake no one.
Grass shacks lined the compound where
the women slept with wash tubs and TVs, candy, photos,
cigarettes, radios, memories, chamber pots, underpants,
makeup, nightmares, and one bundle each
of rubber band letters from some dream boy who
went and never came back.
Dig that sign, Club Verde Para Hombres.
Fat cops at the door touched us all over,
felt us for .38s .44s and hung the pistols on pigs by the bar.
Inside, shaky leg tables of tin, flaking stickers
stuck to our forearms, bright paper freckles, Tecate, Dos
Equis, Corona, Carta Blanca.
Concrete dance floor stained into maps of lost worlds by beer
spilled by boot heels, by flat women's sandals and black hair
dyed orange as cheap boots.
And in the corner, rock and roll.
A blind guitarist followed the sounds with his head,
thin as sticks, moved like a metronome singing,
all you need is love.
Love is all you need.
You can buy it here.
Unzip your hair, pull off your skin.
We watched them dance.
Farmhands worked hard at having fun.
And all those dresses in the farmer's hands were gone limp,
wilted by 1,000 palms.
And we danced with them.
Love is all-- [AUDIO OUT]
And one bowl, one woman.
No exit.
I saw the crucifix above her bed and then her.
Cigarette burns tattooed her arms.
Through an open door, I saw, love is all you need.
She dipped a knotted flower rag into her bowl
and ran the water down her chest, her neck, her leg.
Her other leg so tired it shook.
I knew that hair as thin as mist uncurled for moistened flesh
and rose.
She wiped her nodding breasts under her dress,
washed off the heat, washed off the weight,
washed off the smell, the feel, the fingerprints.
And then looked up.
I smiled across the room, embarrassed rogue
through sheets of smoke.
And her stare burned my smile to ash.
You smile so easily, muchacho.
You think you offer me condolences or is this business?
Do you think you understand?
Love is all you need.
You'll never understand until you lie here 10 or 20 nights
and dream of home.
Love is all you need.
You can spend money to rest in me.
I'll carry you, would you carry me?
Love is all you need.
And if we meet at noon in the town,
plazuela, you with your notebooks
and me with my flowers, always careful not to greet anybody.
Love is all you need.
You will look away, ashamed of what you put here.
And I will walk away out of town the long way
because the best part you bought for me was silence.
Love is all you need.
Neither one looks back and then you go.
But I remain tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
Love is all you need.
Her lips were smeared the color of crushed smiles.
I pointed to my mouth, she wiped her face.
The knot of cotton flowers cleaned her teeth.
We waved.
The blind guitarist shrieking in the corner.
The twisted Jesus writhing in his torture.
The brilliant coin cascade that hit her bed,
a dark ranchero pushing in.
She glanced at me, her hands at head.
At heart, sign of the cross.
The closing door.
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah."
[?
That one. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Thank you very much.