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Reading the poets has
been the dullest of things.

Even reading the great
novelists of the past

I said Tolstoy is
supposed to be special.

I go to bed I
read "War & Peace,"

I read it and say where's the
specialness in War & Peace?

I really try
to understand.

I mean many
of the great poets

of the past I've
read their stuff,

I've read it
and all I get

is a god damned
headache and boredom.

I really feel sickness in
the pit of my stomach

and I say there's some
trick going on here

this is not true this is
not real it's not good.

You see
poetry itself contains

as much energy as a
Hollywood industry

as much energy as a
stage play on Broadway.

All it needs is
practitioners who are alive

to bring it alive.

Poetry's always been said to
be a private hidden art

not appreciated.

The reason it's not appreciated
because it hasn't shown

any guts it hasn't
shown any dance

it hasn't shown
any moxie.

I don't care for my life or
anyone else's I'm my own man

and in 5 or 6 years
I'll be falling apart

so I want $100 pledges
and I want them

as fast
as they can come.

Poetry, politics,
pragmatism

and friends I'm 41
and I'm just turning a buck.

There's been a mutation in
the possibilities of poetry

and the possibilities
of what poetry may be.

There's been a
definite mutation,

new doorways, portals new
possibilities have been opened

and there's also been
reconnections with traditions

that our standard
formal academic poetry

lost it's
connections with.

We've made many connections
with the future

and we've made many
connections with the past.

At sight of his opponent
he turns a pale green

with fear and sometimes looses
control of his bowels.

Well as an old
adage in showbiz,

the worse the stage fright
the better the performance.

I like performing because if
you really take it seriously

one thing I've decided
to do is if you take

every second of performing
extremely seriously

and when you do that it all
becomes, everything focuses

all your hassles, all your
metaphysical everything boils

and turmoils down to this one
20, 30, 40 minute period

where you...bring your art
everything you have to say

with all your intensity
all it's fervor,

all it's meaning all it's
desire and onwardness

everything focuses
and funnels.

Dance the original dance the
original aboriginal dance

of all time, challenge
the contraction

of perfected the pirouette
with the sly knowing

of hips that do right.

Stretch till all the stars
and sands of all our lands

abandoned mingle in the wet
heat sweat and grow warm.

The Gods demand of the
system that a certain number

of people sing like the
birds do, and it somehow

was given to me to be
one of those people

and I did have a choice I
could've decided not to be

a truck driver or make films
but I liked doing that

and I feel that probably
the major reason I write

is to because the Gods
might destroy--

The whole
thing would collapse.

The whole thing would
fall apart I mean

I'd lose my voice
and song.

When I was young the
freshness of a single moment

came to me with all hope
all tangent wonder

now I am one inexpertly in
this body in this time.

All generality there is
no one here but words.

What has to do with
words and their meanings

their sounds the musicality
of words how do you make

a kind of speech that is a high
speech I call it you know,

and how do you relate
that to the rhythms

that animate everything
and that's I guess

to all poets it's such
a close intimate thing

that you're barely able to
really speak about that

but I know it has to
do with word science.

Rothas Capital!

Authored the Bible!

Wrote Howl,
wrote The Wealth of Nations!

Humanity just
wants a dance!

If you don't wanna lead anyone
in any subjective sense

like push anything
onto them you know

I mean you could say you
teach in a certain way

but it's like putting light
in people's eyes, you know,

just opening the door but
not showing them around

and telling them this
is the chair, this is the table

you know, you just
say here's a room

and turning on the light.

Amiri Baraka.

[cheers]

This is a poem for
Larry Neal and Bob Marley,

two...black cultural workers
that we lost in 1981.

♪

Wailers, are we.

We are wailers.

Don't get scared,

nothing happening but out
and way out.

Nothing happening
but the positive

unless you the negative.

Whalers, we
whalers, yeah whalers!

We whale we whale!

We could dig Melville on
his ship confronting

the huge white mad beast
speeding death across the sea.

But we whalers we
can kill whales,

we could get on top
of a whale and whale.

Whalers undersea
defense hot folk,

blues babies
humming when we arrive.

Boogie ladies strumming
our black violet souls.

Rag Daddies come from
the land of never say die.

Reggae workers bringing the
funk to the people of eye.

We whalers alright.

Hail to you Bob man

we will ask your
question all our lives,

could you be loved?

I and I understand
we see the world,

I's and I's say yes
to transformation.

Whalers I whalers!

Subterranean night
colour magize

working inside the
soul of the world.

Whalers, eyes seeing
the world's being.

Hey Bob, whale on rock
on ya'll come into us

as real vision and action hey
Larry, whale on with Lester

and your pork pie
whaling us energy

for truth we whalers is all.

Lie on me if you want to.

Tell folks it's yours
but for real whaling

not tale telling the sensitive
know who the whalers be.

Be we, we we whalers blue
blowers the real rhythm kings.

We sing philosophy, hand
bone precise findings,

image master of
the sincopater..

Whalers and drummers,
whalers and trumpet stars,

whalers and rocks cookers,
whalers and sax players,

whalers and bass thumpers.

Whalers, hey
whale we we whalers!

Trombone
benders, magic singers,

illingtonians the only trains
faster than rocket ships,

shit put a rocket in our
pocket and put a quart

on the wall of
the wind, whalers!

Can you dig whaling?

Call me Bud Powell.

You wanna imitate this?

Listen.

[scatting]

My calling card the dialectic
of silence, sound approach.

Life one day will be
filled even further

with the numbers we sung,
but primitive place

now we whaling be
kept underground.

But keep it in mind,
call me something dukey

something sassy call
me by my real name.

When the world change
will whaling be in it,

help make it for real time.

Call me, I'll call you, we
call we say hey whalers ,

hey whalers, hey
hey hey whalers!

Whale on!

♪

♪

Narrator: Anne Waldman.

Look what thoughts will do,
look what words will do

from nothing to the face
from nothing to the root

of the tounge from nothing to
speaking of empty space

I bind the ash tree I bind
the you I bind the willow

I bind uranium I bind
the uneconomical

unrenewable
energy of uranium

dash the uranium
to empty space.

I bind the colour red
I seduce the colour red

to empty space I put the
sunset in empty space,

I take the blue of his
eyes and make an offering

to empty space
renewable blue.

I take the green of
everything coming to life,

it grows and climbs
into empty space,

I put the white of the snow
at the foot of empty space.

I clasp the yellow
of the cat's eyes

sitting in the black space,
I clasp them to my heart

empty space.

I want the brown of this floor
to rise up into empty space,

take the floor apart
to find the brown

bind it up again under
spell of empty space.

I wanna take this old wall
apart I am rich in my mind

thinking of this I am
thinking of putting makeup

on empty space everything
crumbles around empty space

the thin dry we crumbles the
milk we blown into empty space

I bind the stars reflected
in your eye from nothing

to these typing fingers
from nothing to the legs

of the elk from nothing
to the neck of the deer

from nothing to porcelain
teeth from nothing

to the fine stand of
pine in the forrest.

I keep the going when
I put the water on

when I let the water
run sweeping together

in empty space there
is a better way

to say empty space,

turn yourself inside out
and you might disappear

you have a new definition
in empty space.

What I like about
impermanence is the clash

of my big body
with empty space,

I am putting a floor
back together again,

I am rebuilding the wall,
I am slapping mortar

on the bricks, I am fastening
the machine together

with delicate wire.

There is no eternal thread but
there is thread of pure gold,

I am starting to sing
inside about empty space

there is some new detail every
time I am taping the picture

I love so well on the
wall two parrots seated

on a lampshade on
a jungle flower

everything illuminated
out of empty space.

I hang the black
linen dress on my body,

the hanging night, the drifting
night the moaning night,

daughter of troubled
sleep this occurs to me

I hang up a mirror to catch
stars everything occurs to me

out in the night in my
skull of empty space.

I go outside in starry ice,
I build up the house again

in memory of empty space,
this occurs to me

about empty space that it is
never to be mentioned again.

[cheers]

I put my poems in a
space between myself

and other people and
when I'm reading them

I'm not the poet I'm
the reader and my job

is to read them correct
with accurate right

to do the justice
to do them right.

This is called
"Whitman in Black."

For my sins, I live in
the city of New York.

Whitman's City lived in
in Melville's census.

Urban inferno where love
can stay for only a minute

then has to go to
get some work done.

Here the detective and the
small time criminal are one.

And though the cases get solved
the machine continues to run.

Big town will weigh you
down but it's only here

you can turn around 360 degrees
and everything is clear

from here at the
centre to every point

along this circle
of horizon.

Here you can see for
miles and miles and miles.

Be born again daily die nightly
for a change of style.

Here, clearly here
see with affection,

bleakly
cultivate compassion.

Whitman's walk, unchanged
after it's fashion.

My poems can be indentified,
they have a touch that is mine,

several touches and you
can't know anything more

about any single poem of
mine by knowing me

than you can know
from the poem

though you can know something
more from hearing my voice.

If you've only ever seen
the poems on the page

and then you hear me read
one of them that will--

Open up some--

That will
open up something,

I never thought Al Ginsburg
was a very good poet

until I heard him read.

I mean his poems
looked messy to me, sloppy,

I was coming up in a tradition
when still things were tighter

and I wanted to change
and be new as well

but of course I thought
well this guy's so wordy

there's so many words and
then I heard Alan Reid

and then I suddenly
recognized this is the bar,

this was the
great voice lifted.

Kenward Elmslie.

Used to be when it
poured down cats and dogs,

I'd go prop up apple branches
and talk pretty to the hogs.

Laughing at the thunder,
watching lighting streak

naked as a jay bird I
plunge into the creek

what I wanna know is
when my high times way.

Who propped me
up in the rain?

Used to be I'd find
skulls with giant jaws.

I'd find porcupines of bone,
and old turkey buzzard claws.

Prowling in the back woods
through a dark ravine

naked as a jay bird
back when I was green.

What I wanna know is
when I'm dead and gone.

Who'll shake it's
head in the dawn.

Some bumbling bird
who picked me up

turned me around
peck a bit.

Stare a while and start
to smile at my remains.

What I wanna know is
when my high times way.

Who propped me
up in the rain?

All I wanna know is
when the good times end.

Who'll say come
on in my friend.

Who'll say come
on in my friend.

[cheers]

Narrator: Ed Sanders.

The always redound triad
you know there's phanopia,

melopia and logopia.

Phanopia's the way it
looks on the page

and I bring argils to that
in drawing and stuff

and melopia
is how it sounds.

Melopia's where
the muse comes in

I think there has to be
another muse invented

for the electromagnetic
era what I call retentia

for the retained image on
tape or on film

or on microdisk or
whatever and I just think

it's important to be able to
perform your poetry well

as well as for it to
look good on the page

which is phanopia and
for it to appear

well in the mind
which is logopia.

That's called
a talking tie.

It just goes
back to performing,

in ancient times they
had a little 4 or 7 string

tortoise shell liar
the tortoise shell

as the sounding board
and little cow horn

or wooden arms and
then a crossbar

for the strings and the
poet would sit there

with a plectrum or something
to strum his keys the strings

and would perform his poetry
and it was this hypnotic,

revering type of verse
that people would listen

to hours and hours these
dactyls da da da da da da

and they'd listen to
it over and over

and I was interested in
building a modern instrument

an electronic instrument
that was small

and wouldn't overwhelm
the poetry,

so I got these little
tune synthesizers

two of them
one for each hand

with the keyboards
on the fingers.

The genius was 81.

[synthesizer]

Fearful of blindness.

[synthesizer]

Caught in a wheelchair.

[synthesizer]

Staring at death.

[synthesizer]

But the angel of mercy,

[synthesizer]

had gave him a year

[synthesizer]

to scissor some shapes

[synthesizer]

to sooth the scythe.

[synthesizer]

One must study an object a
long time the genious said

to know what its sign is.

[synthesizer]

The scissors were his
septor and the cutting

was as the prow of a
boat to sail him away.

[synthesizer]

To sail him away.

[synthesizer]

To sail him away.

[synthesizer]

There's a photographer
which shows him.

[synthesizer]

Sitting in
his wheelchair.

[synthesizer]

Bare foot
touching the floor.

[synthesizer]

Drawing with
crisscross steel.

[synthesizer]

A shape in the quash.

[synthesizer]

His helper sits
near him.

[synthesizer]

Till he hands her
the form.

[synthesizer]

To pin to the wall.

[synthesizer]

He points with a stick.

[synthesizer]

How he wants
it adjusted.

[synthesizer]

This way and that.

[synthesizer]

My new todoness.

[synthesizer]

The last.

[synthesizer]

Blue.

[synthesizer]

Iris.

[synthesizer]

Blooms.

[synthesizer]

At the top of it's stock.

[synthesizer]

Scissor, septor,
cutting, prow.

Scissor, septor,
cutting, prow.

Scissor, septor,
cutting, prow.

[synthesizer]

♪ Keep those scissors
flashing in the world ♪

♪ of forms
on remetice. ♪

♪ Ahhhhhhhh...

♪ The cutting of the
scissor was the prow ♪

♪ of a boat
to sail him away. ♪

♪ The last blue iris
blooms at the top ♪

♪ on a warm
spring day. ♪

♪ Keep those scissors
flashing in the world ♪

♪ of forms
on remetice. ♪

♪ Ahhhhhhhh,,,

♪ Sitting in a wheelchair
bare foot touching the floor. ♪

♪ Angel of mercy pushed him
over next to Plato's door. ♪

♪ Ahhhhhhhhh...

♪ Scissor, septor,
cutting, prow. ♪

♪ Scissor, septor,
cutting, prow. ♪

♪ Scissor, septor, cutting,
prow on remetice. ♪

♪ On...

♪ On...

♪ Oooooooo...

♪ Ahhhhhh...

♪ Oooooooo...

♪ On remetice.

♪ Ahhhhhhhh. ♪

Narrator: Hellen Adam.

Cheerless Junkie's song
Seeking love upon the day

a day of summer's pride, I
left long island suburbs

for lower east side.

The train it roared
and thundered

and I sat above it's
scream,

there's a cockroach
coming towards me

but it cannot
spoil my dream.

Love love and LSD it
shall not spoil my dream.

Blue moonlight over Tompkins
Square drop out into dawn.

The village all around me and
long island suburbs gone.

In a pad far down on 4th street
soon I welcome the approach

of the rat that
loves the twilight

and the nimble
footed roach.

Love love at even tide
the gray rat and the roach.

I'm always where the
action is I blow my mind

all day while on long
island's tennis courts

the bland suburban's play.

And I respond suburban
who'd ever credit that.

No chick who saw me frogging
with the cockroach and the rat.

It's ho for horse or methodrine
to spark the swinging mood,

while rats run up
my trouser legs

roaches share
my food.

Rats and roaches nuzzle me
when it's dark and hot

love love it's all the
same mixing speed and pot

first a rat and then a roach
are both as light as not

if I can't find a fix tonight
my marrow bones will rot.

Goodbye transcendent Tompkins
Square I haven't long to stay

a double jolt of heroin
and I'll be on my way.

Let rats and roaches bury
me they'll bury me in state,

as they march from their azono
bridge down to the golden gate

clear across the continent
yonder let me lie.

In the gutters of Hatashbury
to freak the passers by

till all the tourists gape
and say brother he died.

I...let rat tails write my
epitaph brother he died high.

In the old days
before there were books,

people would get together
and sing ballads

and then they would add someone
in the audience they would--

Add another
verse--

It was more
spontaneous--

It was spontaneously collected
by the ballad singers

and this is think is
wonderful in a way

and I think part of the terrific
success of say Bob Dylan

--at his best, because he's
really a poet at his best too--

was that it was the simple
seeing words again

and not the over intellectual
point which is so difficult

for so many people,
including me,

to really understand
at all you know.

And it's a spontaneous
singing thing people have

always responded to it and
I guess they always will.

Narrator: Tom Waits.

♪ Daggers moonlight
murder the sheets. ♪

♪ The stink of $4 room.

♪ Daddy's gone hunting
for a dime bag of schoolboy ♪

♪ tied up with
a yellow balloon. ♪

♪ So hush little baby
daddy was cool, ♪

♪ I'll cover you up
with a blanket of snow. ♪

♪ By the time I make Jersey
you'll be in heaven ♪

♪ in a pretty blue
shoebox I know. ♪

♪ So sing a song a
song of $10,000 ♪

♪ with a pocket full
of dough. ♪

♪ I can't take you
to Baltimore ♪

♪ wake God up
in heaven ♪

♪ have him look
down below ♪

♪ there's a little lost angel
blooming in the snow. ♪♪

Poetry's
generally very dull.

Very pretensive.

Those who say the poet is
very private and precious

personally I
don't agree with.

Generally he's just a
dumb fiddling asshole

writing insecure lines
that don't come through

believing he's immortal
waiting for his immortality

which never arrives
because the poor fucker

just can't write.

Most poets, coets, hoets,
carrots can't even write

a simple line like "the dog
walked down the street."

Narrator: William Burrows.

Kim is a morbid slimy youth
of unwholesome proclivities

with a sensational appetite for
the extreme and sensational.

He has a dark side to his
character and he loves it.

His mother had been
into table tapping

and Kim adores
ectoplasm, crystal balls,

spirit guides
and auras.

He wallows in abominations
unspeakable rights,

diseased demon lovers,
ancient ruin sissies

under a purple sky and the
smell of unknown excrements.

In short Kim is everything a
normal decent America boy

is taught to detest.

The boy is rotten clear
through and he stinks

like a polecat judge
Ferris pontificated.

Now this was true, when angered
or aroused or excited

Kim flushed bright
red and steamed off

a rank rottish
animal smell.

"The child is not wholesome,"
said Mr. Kindheart

with his usual restraint.

Kim remembers his
father's last words,

"stay out of churches
son and don't ever

let a priest near you
when you're dying."

All they got a key to
is the shit house

and swear to me you will never
wear a policeman's badge.

As soon as
Kim walks through

the swinging door he
knows this is it.

Two men at the
bar by the door,

one is tall and thin with
a dead sour wooden face

the other tall and fattish and
loose lip with lead gray eyes.

They fan out
blocking the door,

loose lips smiles showing
his awful yellow teeth

now I don't like drinking in
the same room with a fairy,

do you Clim?

Can't says
I do, Cash.

They wanna bat it around
for a while but Kim doesn't.

I don't want any trouble you
gentlemen let my buy you

a drink, Kim is still talking
as his hand sweeps down

to his belt and then up
smooth and casual

as if he's handing
Clim a visiting card

and shoots him
in the stomach.

Clim doubles forward
and his false teeth

fly out
snapping in the air.

Clim is 45 and barely
clear of the holster

plows a hole
in the floor.

Kim pivots both hands on
the gun and shoots Cash

in the hollow
of the throat.

The heavy slug tears through
and spatters the wall

with slivers
of bloody bone.

Cash's gun jumps
back into its holster.

Clim is weaving around
trying to re-cock his 45

with numb fingers, taking his
time Kim shoots him forehead.

Both assholes are dead
before they hit the floor,

Kim's arduous training
has paid off

in hard international
currency.

As Kim looks down at the
two bodies crumbled there

spilling blood and
brains on the floor

he experiences
a rush of pure joy.

Two enemies will
never bother him again,

two lousy sons of
bitches melted into air

and powder smoke.

Because of a
summer evening in 1954,

it opened it's wings and
I received its revelation

because of summer nights
behind the mosque

because it signals the
height of summer

because of its
mathematical precision

at the infinite
disposal of curiosity

because it's markings
are the summation

of military helotry the olive
green of the English military.

Because it is a tropical species
here in southwestern Ontario

because they are nocturnal
tropical thin points

of extreme beauty,
sculptural perfection

in living
and dense wood.

Because their
chrysalis resembles a vase,

their humming flight and
the unsalable intricacy

of their
June camouflage.

Because of the size
and geodic modeling

of their pincers their
chestnut brown elytra.

Because it is so tiny it
weighs as much as a dime

because it is pale
underneath, tawny above.

Because it is
the eyes of night.

Because it is even
larger like a fox bath.

Because it is our
largest and only cat.

Because they are
capricious night gliders.

Because it is a predetor.

Because of it's inky fur,
tunnels twisting around roots.

Because it is a southern
species migrating northwards

evidence for an
interglacial warming trend.

Because of their glowing
eyes in the driveway

at night the rasping
marcupial cries.

Because of the caves.

Because of its
unearthly face.

Because it is all of night.

Because it is a falcon.

Because it is sub tropical.

Because it is a stilted
and accurate blue mist.

Because it is the north
unwarranted in an ox bow pond.

Because it is a tropical species
migrating slowly northwards

starting at Point Pelee.

Because it is a subtropical
iridescent metal.

Because it is the
arctic migrating

at the centre
of blizzards.

Because they are
astonishing aerialists.

Because the vacuum
of space is so near.

Because of a dream.

Because they
draw out the soul,

anticipation,
electric radiance,

the irresistible
approach of the ark hammer,

excitation in
the ion shadows.

Because they come after
you and seem to float

in dreams
the bend sinister.

Because of the storm.

Because of an erotic
insularity in the moist

almost tropical wind.

Because they illuminate
everything in a gray powdery

light and turn the outside
into a surreal theatre

of marvelous intent the
warmth allows spectators

to remove their clothes.

Lunacy and a Saturn alien
trance of corporeal clarity.

Because they are tropical.

Because they are both
out of place and welcome.

Because they witnessed extinct
races of fabulous creatures.

Because it is
carnivorous and wet.

Because it is a carnivorous
morning jewel in the sphagnum.

Because they are full lips and
vulvas and are all of summer.

Because they are a
tropical species

here in
southwestern Ontario.

Because it has huge
leaves and is tropical

with cerised
Jurassic fruit.

Because it is
fragrant and tropical.

Because it's
fruits are pungent.

Because it's flowers are huge
night glowing and perfumed.

Because of the pools.

Because their smooth
mahogany pebbles

are enclosed in
vegetable geodes.

Because of full
viesentrellas.

Because they flowered all
of beneath into above

and translated
it perfectly.

Because it is a
living fossil.

Because of the colour
and smoothness

of its bark the silence
and live alone floor

of the beach forest.

Because of the
fragrance of its gum.

Because of the wooden
pedals of their flowers.

Because of the waterfalls
and the morning glint.

Because it is the
memory capitol of Canada.

Because I perceived
an order there.

Because of midsummer night's
memories steeped in fire flies.

Because it
overlooks Lake Huron.

Because the cedar
pools are nearby

for it was once
submerged.

Because it is a
huge invisible river.

Because of the collections
and gray powdery light

or Toronto winter afternoons
spent in the Devonian era.

Because it is a semi-tropical
iridescent metal

on the same latitude
as California.

Because it is a
beautiful and glorious

natural shrine
of limestone.

Because it is awesome.

Because chronology
was commenced there.

Because of the black
river formation

last hold out
of the white elm.

Because of the beach
forest and what came after.

Because I got to know Lake
Erie and glacial clay there.

Because I grew up
beside them

and they taught me
everything I know.

Because it is a huge and
silent underwater predator.

Because it is
huge and primitive.

Because it cruises hovering
long snouted crocodilian.

Because it is primitive.

Thank you.

[cheers]

Narrator: Michael McClure.

A poet is someone who is
obsessed with language,

obsessed with
liberating themselves

the two have joined together
and he's acting it out.

Sure.

Let me burst again and see
who I am in this blackness

seeking middle age,
who I am by the star

on this whirling ball where I
can sense a billion galaxies

and clusters and smell the lucid
light around the cities tower

while the sky dies in rosy
layers and I remember

all the soft soft feet
and toes that crept

across my childish life
that stands as size less

as the day dreams
of a virus.

I am a pouring
flowing crystal,

I'm the midnight voices
of the mating swallows.

I'm the tow truck of the
soul that I create around me

as I cross this
blazing bridge.

I am the wolf,
the hummingbird,

the boy child and
the gray beard man.

My poetry's
quite pictographic,

I've made very complex
pictures that are put just

around the page in visual ways
to compliment the music of it.

This allows me
to feel like the poem

is like an extension
of myself.

It's like an organism
moving out into the world.

As a device it gives
me multiple options

for breaking the line, I can
break it at the breath line,

I can swing over on it so
that it carries the energy

of the body, I can use it
for the effect of impact or

the very slender poem that
runs down the page in a very

narrow way almost like the
poems are ideograms like

Chinese
or Japanese poetry.

I read one at the
cactus lounge that said:

How.

Sweet.

To.

Be.

In.

Rows.

By.

Candle.

Light.

Or a worm

by full moon.

See the
hopping flight

a cricket makes.

Nature loves the
absence of mistakes.

Often times when people
hear me read they say:

"oh now I understand how
to read your poetry,

I've looked at it
on the page and

I didn't know what
to make of it."

Well it is in the performing
of the page in a sense

but it's not that different
from other poetry

being written in the 50's
or 60's that have

a very similar sets of
poetics behind them.

It's just that for me
sliding to the centre

making it symmetrical focused
it for me it clicked in.

Milton.

THE WORKS!

My near brutal
love will grow.

Taller than skyscrapers

and more slurred
in when you...

RISE!

Up!

Above!

A high help!

Even if you have
a small room

you could find that
poem useful...to you.

Self portrait.

He wants to be a
brutal old man,

an aggressive
old man as dull,

as brutal as the
emptiness around him.

He doesn't want compromise or
to be ever nice to anyone

just mean and final
in his brutal

his total rejection
of it all.

He tried the sweet
the gentle

the oh let's hold
hands together

and it was awful, dull,
brutally inconsequential.

Now he'll stand on his
own two dwindling legs,

his arms,
his skin shrink daily

and he loves
but hates equally.

That ambivalent oblique
laconic way of speaking

it's very self defensive
but it thinks of itself

as very upfront.

A really charming guy last night
one of the musicians said

hey man you've got a
really interesting voice,

and I felt charmed he
said yeah the way

you really push it
out there it's--

You could hear every
beat that's terrific

that's precisely
the way I feel it.

Reissuance movies.

A movie of Robert
Reissuance showed

a yaght at evening
on descend.

All it's lights on
watched by two young

seemingly poor people
on a bridge adjacent.

The classic boy
and girl of the story

anyone one wants
to tell.

So years pass of course but
I identified with the young

and bittered French man
knew his almost complacent

anguish and the distance
he felt from his girl.

Yet another film of
Reissuance has the aging

Lancelot with his
awkward armour standing

in the woods of small
trees dazed, bleeding,

both he and his horse
are trying to get back

to the castle, itself
of no great size.

It moved me that life
was after all like that

you are in love
you stand in the woods

with a horse bleeding
the story is true.

Winds colder and colder.

Grounds stiffening again.

The brightest trees
I see this moment

are some aspens rising
to the surface.

Flowers are fast disappearing
but few crickets are heard.

This had one
smirk and pleasure.

Black bird as seen
against the sky.

Clintonia is abundant.

Cannot see distant hills nor
use my glass to advantage.

Algonquin and Iroquois.

The water might
have risen there,

whitens clothes
with clean dirt.

With a sharp whistling war,
heard a white throated sparrow.

Heaven had been washed
beneath a white oak.

Has the strict
leafits in the axels.

Anxious as ever,
rushing with courage,

gives expression to
the face of nature.

Reflections
in still water.

Great phenomenon
these days is the water

much sparkling
light in the air,

a pond was now a glorious,
sort of changeable blue.

See the first bird,
weather beaten appearance.

Trunks of trees whitened now
and a more southerly side.

Lighted upon the top
looked around as before.

Could find no nest,
what doth he asked.

To win on this
ground to dwell.

Like most everybody
else I read Baldin

probably when I was in
school but it wasn't until

I was in Cincinnati I think
it was 67-68 that I met--

Um-- Um--

Wendell Berry.

Kentucky poet near Cincinnati
and I went to visit him

and his family at the
farm that they owned

and that his great grandfather
owned and after dinner

he brought out the journal of
Thorough and began reading.

Just sort of opened
it at random

and the moment
I heard the words

I realized that I was
hungry for Thorough.

Very early in his life
say 22 years old

he was aware of silence
and the fact that

silence doesn't really
exist, silence is sounds.

If I stop talking
for instance now

we hear the sounds
of 6th avenue.

They continue night
and day they never stop.

And he said that what
is central to this whole

situation we live in is
silence and that the sounds

that we notice are merely
bubbles on the surface

of silence that burst.

Ahhhhhh!

Narrator: Four Horseman.

[unintelligible noise]

[unintelligible noise]

Ahhhhhh!

[unintelligible noise]

[unintelligible noise]

Ahhhhhh!

[unintelligible noise]

[unintelligible noise]

Ahhhhhh!

[unintelligible noise]

[unintelligible noise]

Ahhhhhh!

[unintelligible noise]

[unintelligible noise]

Ahhhhhh!

Narrator: Michael Ondaatje

This is a poem I wrote
for my niece in Sri Lanka

who sang me some songs
in a terrible voice

and I came across some
lines by Paul Bowls

who said the singleties
are beyond a doubt

one of the least musical
people in the world.

It would be quite
impossible to have less

than self-pitch,
line or rhythm.

So this poem is called
"Sweet Like A Crow."

For Hetti Corea,
8 years old.

Your voice sounds like a
scorpion being pushed

Through a glass tube

Like someone has just
trod on a peacock

Like wind howling
in a coconut

Like a rusty bible, like
someone pulling barbed wire

Across a stone courtyard,
like a pig drowning,

A vattacka being fried
A bone shaking hands

A frog singing at
Carnegie Hall.

Like a crow
swimming in milk,

Like a nose being
hit by a mango

Like the crowd at the
Royal-Thomian match,

A womb full of
twins, a pariah dog

With a magpie
in its mouth

Like the midnight jet
from Casablanca

Like Air Pakistan
curry,

A typewriter on fire,
like a spirit

in the gas that
cooks your dinner.

like a hundred Pappadans
being crunched,

like someone uselessly
trying to light matches

in a dark room,

The clicking sound
of a reef

when you put your
head into the sea,

A dolphin reciting epic
poetry to a sleepy audience,

The sound of a fan when someone
throws brinjals at it,

Like pineapples being sliced
in the Pettah market

Like betel juice hitting
a butterfly in mid-air

Like a whole village running
naked onto the street

And tearing their sarongs,
like an angry family

Pushing a jeep out
of the mud,

like dirt
on the record needle,

Like 8 sharks being carried
on the back of a bicycle

Like 3 old ladies
locked in the lavatory

Like the sound I heard when
having an afternoon sleep

And someone walked through
my room in ankle bracelets.

Nothing should ever be
done that should be done

it has to come out like
a good hot beer shit.

A good hot beer
shit glorious, man.

You get up you turn
around you look at it

and you're proud.

The fumes the stink of
the turd you look at them,

you say God I
did it I'm good.

Then you flush it away and then
there's the sense of sadness

when just the water
is there.

It's like writing a
good poem you just do it.

It's a beer shit.

Nothing to analyze nothing
to say it's just done.

Got it?

I'm playing with the visual
and the verbal connections,

on paper and then when
I'm reading then the verbal

and the music
come in together.

It's sound,
it's about sound.

The sound of the poetry against the sound of the music.

The way I work is improvised
or invented off of the word

is like the calling response
pattern which is an old

African pattern I am making
statements where I'm asking

questions and the music is
responding to me and I'm

responding back to them and we are listening to each other.

Making not only comments
on what you're doing

but extending that,
taking it out

and exploring the
possibilities of poetry

and the music together.

A very fine koonga
of sweat.

A very fine stomp
of the right foot.

A very fine
platform of sticks.

A very fine tube
of frictional bronze.

A very fine can of
belligerent growls.

A very fine hoop
of baboonal yells.

Very fine, very
fine, very fine.

Is their anyone finer?

Hey!

♪

[speaking African]

♪

[speaking African]

You're the one who
made a tribal

into a tattooed motivator
of revolutionary spirits.

You're the one.

You're the one who
made a baby into

an aggravated slasher of
life you're the one.

You're the one that made
dohno into an armpit

of infamable explosives
you're the one.

You're the one who made
Bono into a circle

of signified snakes
you're the one.

You're the one!
You're the one!

You're the one who made
a head strike against

the head of a bird,
every night every day

in your
crisscrossing chant

in your cross river mouth
you're the one.

You're the one.
You're the one!

[speaking African]

Okay, I say,

Is there anyone finer
than John Abozo?

[speaking English
and African]

[speaking English
and African]

Did you hear it?
Did you hear it?

Did you hear it?

Oh yeah!

♪

♪

Oh yeah!
I say! I see!

[speaking African]

♪

Narrator: Diane Deprimo.

Light poem.

Light on dry hayfields,
the cedars dark.

Nested in gullies.

Light blank on smog walls
thrown glaring light

riding the midst, a spray
at the end of the city.

Ocean.

Light on waves,
on cement wall,

light like a passion at
the back of the eyes.

Red and white lights,
a radio tower

with the moon
full between.

His light on ten
thousand faces in the sun.

The way light
glints off sweat.

Blue light in a
plastic pool.

Inner lit spaces,
dusty colors, transparent.

This pink...
these greens.

Amber gels
flash on saxophone.

Mics red and
yellow, green drums.

The web of light in the
sky like a net of wrinkles

falling across the
faces of loved poets.

Jelly fish light.

Nitroglycerin brightness, lavender pink sunset extending

clear to the east filling
the sky out of which

an eternal moon,
is that citron?

How did you get
those colors?

Light of the hand in
action, light of the hair,

gleam on the point of
this pen as I write.

Defused spaces of
light and darkened rooms.

Swamp light.

light out of flanders,
cigarettes in the dark,

a light that pours out of
can vice and into the eye.

Sending the light of the
eye out into the world.

Touch of the gays.

poured essence
through the eye,

you catch in
an upturned cup.

Your eyes on mine, light
crackling around the body.

Field.

I really hate
reading the Worth

because you're really
getting up there.

You've written poems that
you really meant alone,

you know, by
your typewriter,

then there's this crowd out
there drinking beer and all

that and you're
reading it to them,

it just doesn't click.

You're a poet and
there's an audience

and whatever happens in
between is the poem.

It takes places on the
page, it takes place in

performance and it takes
place in any sort of fashion

that connects
with an audience.

Comrades!

How long has it been since
withdrawn our swords shining?

[unintelligible screaming]

I like to be really drunk
and stoned when I work

and it's like a blade
it's actually seeing if

that's exactly what I
wanna say to somebody

whoever it is you know
and that's the beginning

of that feeling I get, that
later on if it performs well

when completely is inside of
a totally mad situation.

But I think the audience
is very important

because one is performing
all of the time

that's one of the
intentions of the poem.

We got here yesterday
we're here now

and I can't wait to
leave tomorrow.

And you had nothing
else to do today

but wait around until it
was time to see somebody

and I didn't particularly
care who it is I'm home.

Nothing is more comfortable
than watching TV

nothing is more comfortable
than watching TV

nothing is more comfortable
than watching TV

and I spent today sleeping
in the bed sheets

changing the channels.

And when I meet somebody
for the first time

I ask myself
two questions:

What is your
sexual preference?

And how much
money do you have?

What is your
sexual preference?

And how much
money do you have?

And you wanna know the
secret of this world?

Never trust anybody,
never trust anybody

never tell anybody
what you really think

never tell anybody
what you really think,

particularily if
it's true.

Never try to set
anybody straight

never confide
in anybody,

never confide
in anybody.

Swallow it quietly and
keep you mouth shut

while you're talking without
interruption on the telephone.

Never tell
your closest friend

cause they'll give you
away sooner or later.

Friends always become
enemies if you wait long enough.

Friends always
become enemies

if you wait
long enough.

Friends always

become enemies

if you wait
long enough.

And you're back in room
703 with a red broad

and it's 2 in the morning
you can't sleep,

there's nothing on
TV, you're hungry

and there's
no room service.

And getting laid is more
trouble than it's worth

so you take the elevator
down to the lobby

and work the machines peanut
butter chocolate cups,

Three musketeers,
Almond Joys and a Baby Ruth

and a couple
of cans of Coke.

We bought it, we build it,
we paid for it

it's our and we're
gonna keep it.

We bought it, we built it,
we paid for it

it's ours and
we're gonna keep it.

We bought it, we built it,
we paid for it

it's ours and we're
gonna keep it.

But I'm on the long island
railroad 420 express

and the first stop is
great neck going out

to the suburbs for
dinner where I grew up.

I'm sick I need it
and I don't got it.

I'm sick, I need it
and I don't got it.

I'm sick, I need it
and I don't got it.

I'm sick I need it
and I don't got it.

My father was the
emperor of china

and my mother an Indian
princess and I have

come here tonight to
collect my inheritance.

[cheers]

Sitting here watching
you being oblivious

to anything
but yourselves.

Sitting here watching you
being oblivious

to anything
but yourselves.

And you're standing at
the stove in the kitchen

and you're frying eggs
for yourself to eat,

you're frying
eggs and butter.

And when you crack an egg
and the yellow breaks

it is a bad sign and you know
it is really a bad sign.

I don't wanna
get married

I don't wanna be
lovers with anyone

I just wanna make it
whenever I want

the way I want,
the way I'm doing

and be left alone.

Almost feeling it,
almost feeling it,

almost feeling it,
almost feeling it,

almost feeling it.

Listen baby, you gotta do
it every once in a while

every year or two they say
and it looks like there's

no way outta of it this time
the coast is clear

and nobody's looking
so let it go.

I'm crying,

I'm crying and I
wanna keep crying.

And I wanna
keep crying,

and I wanna
keep crying.

And your lungs are locked
and the swell is pulling in

like when someone kicks
you in the stomach.

Like when someone
kicks you in the stomach,

One more time I wanna keep
doing it for another minute

it's my privilege
and my pleasure.

It's my privilege
and my pleasure.

Cause I prefer
jerking off better.

And the rememberence
of that moment

always gives me confidence
in the dumber glimmer

suggesting something mistaken
for something else.

And I know my
approach is incorrect.

And I know my
approach is incorrect,

and I know my
approach is incorrect.

None of us here
got enlightened.

None of us here
got enlightened,

none of us here
got enlightened.

Not that we knew of,
sorry to say.

And I'm going to say
goodnight cause I know

you're not into doing
what I want you to do.

And I don't wanna find myself
in your bed poking you

wishing we
hadn't come here.

And I don't wanna find myself
in your bed poking you

wishing we
hadn't come here.

And I got no problem
with it and I suspect that

since we are all here
we have a lot to learn.

We got here yesterday
we're here now

and I can't wait to
leave tomorrow.

We got here yesterday,
we're here now,

and I can't wait
to leave tomorrow.

We got here yesterday,
we're here now

and I can't wait
to leave tomorrow.

And I'm
going nowhere.

[cheers]

You're performing in
front of an audience

it's that connection you
know like that live moment

that live direct moment
and it's just an instant

and if you can--

And the thing that
one works with

that I've been working with
is that when one tries

to make those instants
happen often

then you keep
the connection going.

Narrator: Ntozake Shange.

What does it mean that Black
folks could sing and dance?

Why do we
say that so much?

We don't know
what we mean?

I saw what
that means.

Good God
did I see it.

I could have walked
on the water

fed the naked
clothed the hungry

with what dance
I saw today.

I don't mean
dance I mean

like a "closer
walk with thee"

a race through swamps
that fall off in space

I mean I saw the Black
people move the ground

and set the stars
beneath they feet

So, What does it mean that
Black folks could dance?

Well, How about a
woman like Bernadine?

who can make her body
the night-riders

and the runaways, the
children hanging

on their mama's dresses

while their father's
beat to death

The blood from the
man's wounds,

his woman's tears
the night-riders

going off
in the darkness,

The silence
of the night.

How about a woman whose
body was all of that?

Whose very presence
tumbled all but the drum,

Now that's a dance.

Like Fred careening
'cross the stage

on his stomach
there fifty feet

Sounds like possums
and rattle snakes

Mississippi undercurrent
and steamin'

hog-malls tossing him from
Decatur to south Texas

Tearing him from
contractions to leaps

His body taking space now
thirty Redwood trees,

And those sounds, those
sounds kept pushing him.

Little racing motors like
the cops was round the bend

Windows open and shut
because there are

things others
ought not hear

Feet on stairways of
burned-out homes

The sounds just keep
on pushing him,

the sounds just
keep on pushing her.

And there was a dance
that was a Black dance.

That's what it means that
Black folks could dance.

It don't mean
we got rhythm

It don't mean the slop
or the hully-gully

Or this dance in Houston
called the "white boy"

It don't' mean just what we do
all the time

It's how we remember
what cannot be said.

That's why the white folks say
it ain't got no form.

What was the
form of slavery?

What was the form
of Jim Crow,

and how in the hell
would they know?

Braided lady of
subway Simpson

Magic rings and nose
and wrists

music in the style
of islands, laces and trains

dancing in tunnels
of Haiti's Kajingle jingle,

kajingle jingle, kajingle
juju kajingle jingle,

kajingle juju.

Narrator: Gary Snider.

One of the things that
poets have always done

and at least some poets can
and will continue to speak

for the great goddess
mother earth,

planet gia and so forth.

And on even deeper and
less mythological levels

speak for original mind,
speak for Buddha nature,

speak for the clarity of
mind without opinion

mind without concept
mind without preconception.

Breasts.

That which makes milk can't
help but concentrate

out of the food of the world
right up to the point

where we suck it, poison,
too but the breast

is a filter the poison
stays there in the flesh.

Heavy metals in traces.

Deadly molecules
hooked up in strings

that men dreamed of

never found in the
world until today.

In your bosom petro
chemical complex a stray.

So we celebrate breasts
we all love to kiss them

they are like philosophers.

Who hold back the bitter in mind
to let the more tasty wisdoms

slip through for the
little ones who can't

take the poison so young.

The work that comes later
after child raising

for the real self to be is to
them burn the poison away.

Flat breasts tired buddies that
will snap like old leather.

Tough enough for a
few more good days

and the glittering eyes old
mother, old father are gay.

The writer has no
responsibility except

to jack off in bed alone
and then type a good page.

Narrator: Alan Ginsberg.

♪

♪

If you want to
learn how to meditate.

I'll tell you now
'cause it's never too late.

Never too late,
never too late.

I can't te--
I can't, I can't wait.

Audience:
Can you hear him?

Can you hear them?

Audience:
Turn your guitar down.

Turn this mic up,
turn the guitar down--

I have a Chilean nostic
Buddhist notion

which is that the art is
wild but the inside is wild

and the behavior may be wild
but there's that thing

called crazy wisdom which
is breaking up an old form

but as gently as possible
and doing it in a way

that you leave space for
a new form to rise.

Or giving space for
people to come out

from behind their cover
and speak more frankly.

So it would be radical
thought I don't think

it would be violently
revolutionary.

♪ I don't like Nationalist
Supremacy White or Black ♪

♪ I don't like the Narcs &
Mafia marketing Smack ♪

♪ The General bullying
Congress in his tweed vest ♪

♪ The President building up his
Armies in the East & West ♪

♪ I don't like Argentine Police
assasinating jews ♪

♪ Government terrorist takeover
Salvador news ♪

♪ I don't like Zionist
acting Nazi Storm Troop ♪

♪ Palestine Liberation cooking
Israel into Muslim soup ♪

♪ I don't like the Crown's
Official Secrets Act ♪

♪ You can get away with murder
in Government that's a fact ♪

♪ Security cops teargassing
radical kids ♪

♪ In Switzerland and
Czechoslovakia God forbids ♪

♪ In America it's Attica in
Russia it's Lubianka Wall ♪

♪ in China if you disappear you
wouldn't know yourself at all ♪

♪ Arise Arise you citizens of
the world use your lungs ♪

♪ Talk back to the Tyrants

♪ all they're afraid
of is your tongues ♪

♪ Two hundred Billion dollars
inflates World War ♪

♪ In the United States every
year They're asking for more ♪

♪ Russia's got as much in tanks
and laser planes ♪

♪ Give or take
Fifty Billion ♪

♪ we can blow out
eveybody's brains. ♪

♪ School's broke down 'cause
History changes every night ♪

♪ Half the Free World nations
are Dictatorships of the Right ♪

♪ The only place socialism
worked was in Gdansk, Bud ♪

♪ The Communist worlds stuck
together with prisoner's blood ♪

♪

♪

♪ Bishop Romero wrote
President Carter to stop ♪

♪ Sending guns to El Salvador's
Junta so he got shot ♪

♪Ambassador White blew the
whistle on the White House lies♪

♪ Reagan called him home

♪ cause he looked in the
dead nun's eyes ♪

♪ Half the voters didn't vote
they knew it was too late ♪

♪ Newspaper headlines
called it a big Mandate ♪

♪ Some people voted
for Reagan eyes wide open ♪

♪ 3 out of 4 didn't vote for him
That's a Landslide ♪

♪ Truth may be hard to find but
falsehood's easy ♪

♪ Read between the lines our
Imperialism is sleazy ♪

♪ But if you think the People's
State is your Heart's Desire ♪

♪ Jump right back in the frying
pan from the fire ♪

♪ The System the System in
Russia & China the same ♪

♪ Critisize the System in
Budapest lost your name ♪

♪ Coca Cola Pepsi Cola in
Russia & China come true ♪

♪ Krushchev yelled in Hollywood
"We will bury You" ♪

♪ America and Russia want
to bomb themselves Okay ♪

♪ Everybody dead on both
sides Everybody pray ♪

♪ All except the Generals in
caves where they can hide ♪

♪ And fuck each other in the ass
waiting for the next free ride ♪

♪ No hope Communism no
hope Capitalism Yeah ♪

♪ everybody's lying on both
sides Nyeah nyeah nyeah ♪

♪ The bloody iron curtain of
American Military power ♪

♪ Is a mirror image of
Russia's red Babel-Tower ♪

♪ Aware Aware where
ever you are No Fear No fear. ♪

♪ Trust in your heart Don't
ride your paranoia dear ♪

♪ Breathe together with
an ordinary mind ♪

♪ Armed with Humor Feed &
Help Enlighten Woe Mankind ♪♪

♪

The whole point is
that it's all poets

all writers all actors
making up their own prose

their own scenario so the poet
is in a position

to make up a scenario that's

a lot more vivid actually

because it's based on an
accurate observation.

[coughing]

This is a piece

from "The Book of Nods"
called "Just Visiting."

When the shooting broke
I decided to vault

the teller's window and face the fire from the other side.

I saw my forearm tighten across
the throat of the cashier

Ms. Ladermore and as my
browning was raised

to her temples they took it
back, it all fell dead.

With the silence I felt
a distance between

my trigger and the man.

I heard the reverberation
of the last stray bullet's

muffled ring, moved out
through my brain in circles

of jagged light expanding
like still water broken

by broken by the stone.

Some smart young lieutenant
arrived to take things over,

he leaned his eyes a
moment through the doors

in front and then
went around back.

Went inside a small light
room and threw the switch.

All the lights rolled out
of thin vapour tubes

from right to left the darkness
absorbed more silence

I could here the details
being assigned.

The tone of the head
man's voice was clear,

they were hot
to blow me away.

I didn't expect my hostage
would go down as a deal

I knew she signed that paper
when she took the job.

But I just wanted
some last contact,

I would've rather
some sweet clever music.

I slit the strap to her bra,
I reached under I felt my

palm rinse her breast it
could've been a radio.

I moved my lips close so
that only she could hear me,

it should've been a radio.

I whispered in my codine
voice I told her

you see all my life the
women I've been with

and that's more than you
can imagine really,

I always bypassed their
breasts I went down you know?

I went to the sauce, I
honestly don't think

you're gonna die so
don't be afraid listen,

I wanted the thunder on
my fingers on my lips.

What are a woman's breasts
its just so much adornment

they're like chalices on an
alter waiting for adoration.

Like the writing on the scroll
the handles on the erne,

the gold that lines a vessel.

I wanted the mystery
inside the thunder

and the darkest light, I
mean I feel the sharpness

of your nipple
it's flawless

there's no doubt
about that.

Just let me move it over,
oh it came out it's so red.

You must be
younger than you appear.

I know about that
kind of thing really.

Once I told this girl
that she had breasts

like bleeding lemons
she thought that was

a beautiful thing to say.

But what are they, it's
just architecture

where's the wetness
and why are they

so white
so terribly white,

whiteness frightens
me horribly.

When I was 14 years old I
went to my friends house

at the beach in Long
Island, the sun there

and the sand I remember
it was terrible

too much whiteness
I couldn't stand it

I stayed in my friend's room
for days listening to music.

His mother and his fat sister
they thought me quite insane.

I wanted to teach
myself to play the drums.

The sister was 36 years
old and so fat that

the mother had to tie
the laces on her shoes,

I hated her and she hated
me but I was just visiting

so it wasn't fair.

So really why I continued
writing even though

it came back and I got
drunk for 10 years

I felt there was nothing out
there so I had continue

because they
were so bad

not because
I was so good.

And I'm still not so good
but they're still very bad.

There's still room for somebody
to step in here you see.

And I hope he
arrives or she.

That should be enough right
there but that bottle

of 55 poets that
should cure them.

With their
malady but it won't.

Goodnight...

Goodbye...

And happy reading.