WEBVTT

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You can hear me well?

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Mhm.

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This next poem is titled
"Venice Beach 2008."

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If you thought I
was going to stay

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in Eastern Europe for the rest
of the evening, you're wrong.

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The poem was originally
titled "Venice Beach,"

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and then there was a major
breakthrough my writing career,

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And I thought that "Venice Beach
2008" was the right, title.

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And I'm listening to
Mendelssohn's piano concerto,

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a kites distance from the ocean.

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And there's a bottle of ketchup,
and enough orange marmalade

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for a family of 12
next to my elbow.

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And I'm feeling
older than my years.

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And herein lies
what I'm being told

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to write by the academy
of important poets, who

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take their toast buttered
with 18th century symphonies,

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and string quartets that float
out to sea in a Claude Monet.

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As the milk stands by the salt,
but the pepper is forlorn,

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and the Formica is the
truth, and truth is a word.

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Where have you
gone Walt Whitman?

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Come have breakfast with me now.

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