 I'm so thrilled that he's here. He is one of my favorite poets. He has long been one of my favorite poets I dedicated my own book of poetry to him. Please welcome David West This is my first book was published 25 years ago and I have been trying I think for 15 years to publish a poem with no luck at All because I suck and I started doing readings and hearing what I was doing wrong in this little press put out This book is called evil spirits and their secretaries The weird thing is 25 years later that press is still in business I think of all the publishers I've worked with like two of them are still in business and not only is Did they are they still in business? But they wanted to republish it for reasons that somewhat escaped me because it never sold very well or anything but You know you don't look at the sanity of a small press publisher under a microscope. That's ungrateful and it's stupid so Let's see how these old poems do The unhappy association of werewolves makes a statement to the terror industry At night we do our hunting Home is everywhere we've pissed our name is fang and who we love is not your business then we sleep We dream we're in an office. It's man eat dog out there Our hides are worth money traps are cheap and we are required to be undyingly civil on the phone We dream our claws are not there when we need them You can tell we're losing when we start to look haggard when anger learns patience and we wake up We face the mirror and see horror as familiar as a razor We're losing fur or fangs retract and we're naked at the mercy of rush hour We're not good humans turn into wolves by a curse the movies have it all backward at night You call it howling, but we sing because we're free. It's by day. We get paid to be dogs This is no, no, no, don't do that I Actually wrote one love poem. I think once This is really a long time ago roses on Friday It's spring and I find myself buying roses on Friday all the way home They quiver in my lap like rabbits. I whisper don't be afraid I take care of my roses. I am my man with the purpose. I ride the escalator I float to the street with all the other secretaries. We emerge from the subway holding our gleaming bouquets Redeeming one night from a week of Mondays with affection and lust We lift our flowers like torches on the bus and as for these roses. They are balloons. They flew me home They are for you Conversation with a hamburger joint This is a really creepy little poem Hello, King Berger. How is the queen? When three teenagers plop down in a booth booth and gobble whoppers and gossip I notice how the roof of your mouth Palpitates and saliva drips from your air ducts Make them work for you sire. They're disposable and naive in Uniforms designed by the cold eyes of insects and hair nets that can't contain the fallout of hormones their forces of nature Cheaper than plastic cheese. They also serve who sit and consume They are the future spending their temporary paychecks oozing their pubescent and profitable juices Now your majesty eat them Do one more and then we'll do get out of here I think Um These are poems this book came on 89 and you know 89 93 up to some that realm was the plague year is around here and I Don't know whether I built in an ethos that's now gone. It's Kind of hard I think for people now to remember what it might have been like to go to a funeral a week for years Just years, you know, it's not something you want to learn to be a pro at So anyhow, this is called go down Doris fish Doris fish was a queen who died in 91 And we had this little benefit for her right before she died so she could perform at her own funeral Which she had always wanted to do And it was called who does that bitch think she is I Have known men so terrified of who they grew up to be their bodies are worse than prisons And I've seen my share of elegant victories over the male Bastille All it takes is style and the courage to insist Doris even made it look graceful When her hair fell out she had wigs for days the show goes on the tide will change But it keeps taking the best we got with it Love is never needed a license to exist old men with just stone tablets Let the pecking order beware Doris fish is dead, but her drags still here Once upon a time in California friends when I was hired as the token queried a politically correct hippie shit grocery store I found myself necking with a girl in the vegetable cooler thinking what will I say if someone sees us I Didn't seem to fit in anywhere, and I wasn't sure I should I couldn't swing that 45 caliber conception of men Who are sexy depending on how many holes they can blow on their victims Doris's sluts of go-go were more fun than Sylvester Stallone, and I think a laugh is more persuasive than a gun Doris is dead, but the show goes on Now there's a difference Between the direction of the wind and a trend between accidents and tragedies Beatniks and Zen between going down on someone and coming back up again It takes all kinds of grace to sustain us Doris fell off a balcony in a show one time and kept singing while she hung to the rail I See her face on the moon and get mad again She'll never even be on a postage stamp the first man the US put in orbit Launched a political career that ended in a banking scam and he got a postage stamp. I'll vote for Doris She was my kind of man. She had demands, but they were very modest Go down Moses leave the commandments alone the promised land is a safe place to sleep It's the freedom to make your way home Unmolested loaded in heels in gold LeMay as the boys drive by in their muscle cars at midnight not applauding You haven't lived to you seen Doris do her house-frowing curlers her dumb blonde, but I'm really smarter than you routine Doris made me happy her wet was so crisp doing sexual jujitsu on those old Hollywood roles I like to imagine Doris walking down the street at high noon in small-town USA Disturbing what passes for the peace these days, and I think it's even harder to change people than the law I've met children ten years old who already learned how to his faggot I've been so sick of it. I saw myself sprawled in the sidewalk with a cup and a sign that says another sensitive soul Who couldn't hack it? Can you spare a quarter? I needed new dress Doris is dead, and I'm not depressed. I've had it. This is insane There she is on the front page and all her former health and glory right next to a budget cutback story They keep the army in the closet. They keep playing with their guns fighting the most ridiculous wars You ever heard of in Doris is dead Couldn't a few missile silos disappear in her honor? Couldn't the president just admit on the news tonight. He doesn't know what he's doing and if we knew what he was doing We'd shoot him Doris died. We have a plague on our hands. God damn it. We have a problem Doris you can't leave we need you now Schwarzenegger has his eye on the Senate. This was written in 91 They spent more money in the war with the rack and they spent on all medical research in the world combined since the century began I get up and go to work in the morning and even the Marlboro man looks sad How many must follow how long will it take? She was the queen of Vegas in outer space a pro one of the best in the biz Doris died. How dare she win you to her bad. What is that bitching? She is Thank you David West always leaves you wanting more God. Do you have copies of your book with you? Excellent excellent. I got progress in book shopping afterwards. Awesome. Awesome