OK.
This-- all right.
I have friends that are like, you talk too much between poems,
but I'm going to talk about this one too.
This one was published online with a poetry magazine.
Well, it was in the magazine, but then it's also online.
And I got so much hate mail for this poem
from transcendentalist aficionados
or whatever they are.
Because I believe, and I'm pretty sure I'm right about it,
that Herman Melville's story, Bartleby, the Scrivener.
Are you familiar with this?
It is an indictment against the transcendentalists.
That story is all about, like, oh, you
want to be a nonconformist?
What is happening-- what happens to him at the end?
Curled up in the fetal position, eating ginger
snaps, children's cookies.
It's like yeah, you should just die.
Melville was hanging out with men on boats, killing whales.
And he worked on Wall Street.
And the transcendentalists are like-- they're
like occupy Wall Street.
He's Wall Street.
This kind of thing.
And then he's just like, sh.
I think he was just trashing them in that story.
"The hill appeared in many dreams.
Never sure if it was real.
Melville aimed his gun at the transcendentalists
and named it Bartleby.
We can prepare our shadows to be chewed apart or not,
but the chewing will commence.
I saw a spider eat a fly.
I saw a praying mantis eat the spider.
I did not mean to see these things.
The spider caught my eye.
Then the spider was gone into the green body.
We begin to discern waning time as seasons through our organs."