During the First International Elvis Conference in Oxford,
Mississippi, Elvis, alive as ever, is asked to read aloud
“The Wild Swans at Coole,” to see what a Hunk
-a Hunk-a Burnin’ Love could do to expose the other,
more subtle, longings to the average citizen who might
be raised to contemplate a little, for God’s sake,
instead of falling into a blind beat, producing unwanted
babies and maudlin tears! Elvis fingers the page,
tries to plan what to do, sick to death without the music’s
jingo, the strings that drive it, and the lyrics that fasten
to the music and ride on through, so the body can be
the words. Meanwhile, they wait for their poem.
He starts at the first, trees in their autumn beauty,
nine-and-fifty swans that take off, or don’t, so what?
Among the rows of wan faces, nothing for the thoughts
to take off on, nothing to ease the thoughts. Poem
clamoring on instead of a song, words that aren’t supposed
to be said southern, lines that end before you’re finished
thinking, and the last question breaking through the levee
at the end of the lines. He thinks what to do, then, with
his naked and weightless body. They are listening as if
they had got the secret of life into the poem, now,
even with him flying off the end of it, trying to swagger,
one hand in his pocket, bravely cocking an eyebrow,
off into the wilds where the girls are screaming, wanting
his babies, no questions asked, ah yes, the subtle grass
of the wilds, and the drum-beat of the human heart.