WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.600 --> 00:00:04.800 align:middle line:90% I'll read another serious one. 00:00:04.800 --> 00:00:05.550 align:middle line:90% This is a poem-- 00:00:05.550 --> 00:00:09.870 align:middle line:84% I have a wonderful poetic friendship with the poet Marie 00:00:09.870 --> 00:00:10.820 align:middle line:90% Howe. 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:14.100 align:middle line:84% And one of those friendships where 00:00:14.100 --> 00:00:15.840 align:middle line:84% there don't seem to be any barriers, 00:00:15.840 --> 00:00:18.660 align:middle line:84% or if you encounter them, you just keep going through them. 00:00:18.660 --> 00:00:20.628 align:middle line:90% And you say it makes me nervous. 00:00:20.628 --> 00:00:22.170 align:middle line:84% And one of the things we talked about 00:00:22.170 --> 00:00:28.380 align:middle line:84% is about male violence to women and how strong 00:00:28.380 --> 00:00:31.940 align:middle line:84% it is in our culture and how strong it is in us. 00:00:31.940 --> 00:00:36.510 align:middle line:84% And it's a subject that we haven't 00:00:36.510 --> 00:00:38.580 align:middle line:84% seen written about very much, because, of course, 00:00:38.580 --> 00:00:43.320 align:middle line:84% it's so dangerous and that hatred 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:48.270 align:middle line:84% that is connected in some weird circuitous way to violence 00:00:48.270 --> 00:00:52.680 align:middle line:84% and mothers and the whole fucking mess. 00:00:52.680 --> 00:00:58.650 align:middle line:84% And anyway this is my attempt to write a poem about that subject, 00:00:58.650 --> 00:01:00.180 align:middle line:90% and it's called Adam and Eve. 00:01:00.180 --> 00:01:01.830 align:middle line:84% It's a poem I'm kind still working on. 00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:04.780 align:middle line:90% 00:01:04.780 --> 00:01:09.400 align:middle line:84% I wanted to punch her right in the face, and that's the truth. 00:01:09.400 --> 00:01:12.100 align:middle line:84% After all, we'd gotten from the station 00:01:12.100 --> 00:01:17.290 align:middle line:84% of the flickering glances to the station of the hungry mouths, 00:01:17.290 --> 00:01:21.190 align:middle line:84% from the shoreline of shirts and faded jeans 00:01:21.190 --> 00:01:26.140 align:middle line:84% to the ocean of unencumbered skin, from the perilous 00:01:26.140 --> 00:01:28.990 align:middle line:84% mountaintop of the apartment steps 00:01:28.990 --> 00:01:32.380 align:middle line:84% to the sanctified valley of the bed. 00:01:32.380 --> 00:01:34.750 align:middle line:84% The candle flickering on the dresser top, 00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:39.580 align:middle line:84% its little yellow blade sending up its whiff of waxy smoke, 00:01:39.580 --> 00:01:42.580 align:middle line:84% and I could smell her readiness like a dank 00:01:42.580 --> 00:01:46.800 align:middle line:90% cloud poised above a field. 00:01:46.800 --> 00:01:51.690 align:middle line:84% When at the crucial moment, the all important moment, the moment 00:01:51.690 --> 00:01:56.460 align:middle line:84% standing at attention, she held her milk white hand agitated 00:01:56.460 --> 00:02:00.510 align:middle line:84% leap over the entrance to her body and said no, 00:02:00.510 --> 00:02:04.980 align:middle line:90% and my brain burst into flame. 00:02:04.980 --> 00:02:09.960 align:middle line:84% If I couldn't sink myself into her like a dark spur 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:14.670 align:middle line:84% or dissolve into her like a dirt clod thrown in a river, 00:02:14.670 --> 00:02:17.970 align:middle line:84% can I go all the way in the same and say 00:02:17.970 --> 00:02:21.430 align:middle line:84% I wanted to punch her right in the face? 00:02:21.430 --> 00:02:24.030 align:middle line:84% Am I allowed to say that that I wanted to punch 00:02:24.030 --> 00:02:26.970 align:middle line:90% her right in her soft face? 00:02:26.970 --> 00:02:31.560 align:middle line:84% Or is the saying just another instance of rapaciousness, just 00:02:31.560 --> 00:02:37.590 align:middle line:84% another way of doing what I wanted then by saying it? 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:42.720 align:middle line:84% Is a man just an animal, and is a woman not an animal? 00:02:42.720 --> 00:02:46.020 align:middle line:90% Is the name of the animal power? 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:49.440 align:middle line:84% Is it true the man wishes to see the woman hurt 00:02:49.440 --> 00:02:53.220 align:middle line:84% with her own pleasure, and the woman wishes 00:02:53.220 --> 00:02:57.120 align:middle line:84% to see the expression on the man's face of someone falling 00:02:57.120 --> 00:03:00.840 align:middle line:84% from great height, that the woman thrills 00:03:00.840 --> 00:03:04.920 align:middle line:84% with the power of her weakness, and the man is astonished 00:03:04.920 --> 00:03:08.250 align:middle line:90% by the weakness of his power? 00:03:08.250 --> 00:03:13.410 align:middle line:84% Is the sexual chase a hunt where the animal inside 00:03:13.410 --> 00:03:18.300 align:middle line:84% drags the human down into a jungle made of vowels, 00:03:18.300 --> 00:03:22.500 align:middle line:84% hormonal undergrowth, sweat, and hair, 00:03:22.500 --> 00:03:25.620 align:middle line:84% or is this an obsolete idea lodged 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:28.560 align:middle line:84% like a fossil in the brain of the ape who 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:31.470 align:middle line:90% lives inside the man? 00:03:31.470 --> 00:03:34.980 align:middle line:84% Can the fossil be surgically removed 00:03:34.980 --> 00:03:38.910 align:middle line:84% or dissolved or redesigned so the man can 00:03:38.910 --> 00:03:43.350 align:middle line:90% be a human being like a woman? 00:03:43.350 --> 00:03:46.830 align:middle line:84% Does the woman see the man as a house 00:03:46.830 --> 00:03:50.430 align:middle line:84% where she might live in safety, and does the man 00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:55.020 align:middle line:84% see the woman as a door through which he might escape the hated 00:03:55.020 --> 00:03:57.810 align:middle line:90% prison of himself? 00:03:57.810 --> 00:04:02.130 align:middle line:84% And when the door is locked, does he hate the door instead? 00:04:02.130 --> 00:04:05.960 align:middle line:90% Does he learn to hate all doors? 00:04:05.960 --> 00:04:10.920 align:middle line:84% I've seen rain turn into snow then back to rain, 00:04:10.920 --> 00:04:15.060 align:middle line:84% and I've seen making love turn into fucking then back 00:04:15.060 --> 00:04:17.010 align:middle line:90% to making love. 00:04:17.010 --> 00:04:20.399 align:middle line:84% And no one covered up their faces out of shame. 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:25.470 align:middle line:84% No one rose and walked into the lonely mall of night, 00:04:25.470 --> 00:04:30.010 align:middle line:84% but where was there in fact to go? 00:04:30.010 --> 00:04:32.260 align:middle line:90% Oh, be careful people. 00:04:32.260 --> 00:04:34.840 align:middle line:90% Mustn't we be careful? 00:04:34.840 --> 00:04:38.350 align:middle line:84% Shouldn't we tiptoe everywhere we go 00:04:38.350 --> 00:04:43.480 align:middle line:84% and carefully replay each word before it leaves the lips 00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:46.480 align:middle line:90% so that nobody gets hurt? 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:50.200 align:middle line:84% Are some things better left unsaid? 00:04:50.200 --> 00:04:53.630 align:middle line:84% Have you noticed I haven't got back to the woman? 00:04:53.630 --> 00:04:55.970 align:middle line:90% Should I tell you her name? 00:04:55.970 --> 00:05:01.180 align:middle line:84% Can I say it again that I wanted to punch her right in the face? 00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:06.640 align:middle line:84% Naked and wrong in a strange bed far from home 00:05:06.640 --> 00:05:11.610 align:middle line:84% you could find out something you would rather not have learned. 00:05:11.610 --> 00:05:15.770 align:middle line:84% Until we say the truth, there can be no tenderness. 00:05:15.770 --> 00:05:19.040 align:middle line:84% As long as there is desire, we will not be safe. 00:05:19.040 --> 00:05:20.890 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:05:20.890 --> 00:05:30.000 align:middle line:90%