WEBVTT

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I'll read just two more poems.

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[INAUDIBLE QUESTION FROM
 AUDIENCE]

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No.

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Thank you.

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You do questions,
I give you answers.

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I mean, I'm a poet tonight.

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[INAUDIBLE] I don't
have to tell you,

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either I don't suppose what
a circuit writer used to be.

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No, I minister with many
small churches to the poem

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called, "The Circuit."

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It's particularly
significant to me lately

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having not too many months to
go, going on a poetry circuit.

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That's what they call it.

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This particular one, the upper
New York state poetry circuit

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I felt a greater significance
in this piece than before.

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My circuit-writing
great grandfather

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rode off on horseback
through the hickory woods

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each week to galvanize
five Methodist churches.

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And once, tapping the
Sabbath breaking auction,

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and shout it over
his shoulder-- $0.15

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they caught him miles
away and saddled him

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with an old grandfather clock.

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What got you up on your
horse in the morning, sir?

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Did you rehearse damnation
until the trees fell crossways

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like a corduroy road?

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Did anyone catch his death
if you caught yours coming

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to hear you freezing in a shed?

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Nobody mentioned anything
you did except the clock.

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No name dropping of God.

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No chiming added.

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A joke thrown back of a
horse has lasted longer

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than your rule and reason.

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I call you stiff as a
pin tied in your bed,

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next to a basin and
a worn out Bible.

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Your beard aimed at the
ceiling like a sermon.

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Over the distance I
can hear you shouting,

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where in the name of
God is the name of God

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and all these damned
unsingable useless poems.

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Your family fought
harder for the clock

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than they did for soul.

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And now they know
it tastes better

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than yours having
replaced the words.

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Beards are no longer
hanging out of pulpit.

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If God speaks from a
bush, it's only by chance.

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I save my face and wait.

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But bid for every clock
I lay my eyes on just

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for the hell of it.

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Your hell and mine.

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Like you, I'm doing
time in the hardwood.

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Tracking myself in circles.

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A lost preacher.

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Thank you.

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