WEBVTT

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I hadn't planned
to do this but I'm

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going to do this because
I think since Obama

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is in the White House and has
to produce his papers and shit.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Like, really dog?

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President, got to
fucking produce papers?

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I remember being-- if you're
over 30, 35, and you're Black,

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you probably thought that
Obama's run at the White House

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was impossible
before it happened.

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And you probably thought, it
probably crossed your mind

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that if he tried and got close,
that somebody would kill him.

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Which in light of the
amount of death threats

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that his presidency
has faced more

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than all the previous
presidents combined, by the way.

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It's not a vain worry, but I
remember being in a hotel room

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in Lake Placid, New York, just
after he won South Carolina,

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and this he had
already won Iowa,

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and I was like, he's not going
to fucking win, like, come on.

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And then he won South Carolina
and I got really scared,

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and so this poem
came out of that.

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It's "American History
Looks for Light,

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a Prayer for the Survival of
Barack Obama in Five Voices."

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The epigraph is from Muhammad
Ali, float like a butterfly,

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sting like a bee.

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The hands can't touch
with the eyes can't see.

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One, The Bullet
Speaks of Purpose.

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Trajectory is everything.

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The difference between
a kiss off the rib

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cage or the blessed
blood of a riped organ.

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The brain protests the most.

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Neurons firing over and
around the Holy landing,

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trying to make sense of it.

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The wailing and the
vivid snapshots, metal

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tendrils reaching, trying
to block out the light.

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Two, Malcolm pulls Obama's coat.

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There is no doubt
in my mind they will

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come for you dozens at a time.

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Miniature fighter planes built
for just such an idealism

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as yours.

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They are amazing fish, fanning
their steel gills like razors,

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formations neat and orderly
as a school barreling

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toward the heart, spleen,
kidney, abdomen, anywhere there

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is light.

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Three, Obama plays the dozens.

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I'm so fast, I'll be
gone by trick of time.

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I'm so bad to beat
Hillary by 30.

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I'm so slick, not even
Bill could sink me.

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I'm so bad ass.

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My name is Barack.

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I'm so chameleon,
my name is Hussein.

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I'm so pretty, your
mama Canvas for me.

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I'm so pretty, your
mama voted for me.

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I'm so pretty your
mama is my mama.

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I'm so good, I
shook up the world.

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I'm so fast, I dodged
the circus of bullets.

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I'm so fast, I
flipped the switch

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and be in bed before
the light comes off.

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Four, The bullet takes the beat.

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Neither disease nor plane
crash, not knife, not hurricane

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or freak accident is
as dramatic as me.

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See the body begins to
decompose in an instant.

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See the body become particular.

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See the body become tendrils
of impressionist thought.

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See how marvelous my entrances,
how devastating my exit wounds.

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I saved my best
work for the stage.

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Five, Bruce Lee
knows from bullets.

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See this fist, this
quick a cappella

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kick Kung Fu showing of what.

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See this sidestep Tae Kwon.

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Don't you never think
steel is hard like bone.

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Barack, I legacy you, me, every
dragon flow strict mantis,

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pose struck to
cobra swift release.

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Don't you never think
steel be hard like home.

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See this river flow bones
to see how bullets bury,

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what they cannot kill.

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See how I live ecstatic, fly
jumpsuit, dramatic Barack,

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I legacy you, me, like I
loan Muhammad, the butterfly

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and the bee.

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We stay vested,
historically protected bee.

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We battled terrific.

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Fuck Chuck Norris.

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Me and Jim Kelly's got
your hood and your dome.

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Don't you never think
steel is hard as stone.

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[APPLAUSE]

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