WEBVTT

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I didn't know I was
the most boosted poet.

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This poetry reading
might be called

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the last frontier and where
it went or who stole it.

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I'm going to pick out
poems on that theme.

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To begin with a prose
journal from yesterday.

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"High noon, high night Salome,
Arizona October 9, 1967.

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Two day's hard driving from San
Francisco in a VW bus not built

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for these wide open
ranges staying tonight

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in a big old stucco Adobe Motel
in the middle of high desert.

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100 miles Northwest of Phoenix
Adobe buildings and wood roof

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veranda and a swimming
pool full of leaves,

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green water, and algae,
bugs, and cigarette wrappers.

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A few soggy cigarettes float
about like water bugs left over

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from some other civilization.

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1:30 in the hot
afternoon, too hot

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to continue in VW TP
over the fried horizon.

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High noon lasts all
afternoon out here.

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Nothing moves in the white sun,
shadows black wherever there

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are any and there aren't many.

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Highway 60 stretches away.
straigh in both directions

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Salome, where she danced
is the full official name

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of this spot on Earth.

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Salome pronounced Salome
not salami or salami,

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altitude 1875, home according to
a local guidebook of Dick Wick

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Hall, 1877, 1926 Arizona's
first widely known humorist who

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credited the town with an annual
growth of 100% a year quote,

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'19 people in 19
years,' unquote."

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[LAUGHTER]

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Looks like they've been
adding one a year ever since.

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"You my Indian country, gold
rush country Park Walhalla Gold

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Mine discovered by humans
while high on peyote.

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That high netted $15 million,
state narco agents note.

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Sheffler's of Salome, the name
of the motel Inn restaurant

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bar I'm at, the
main restaurant room

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a barn like affair with
about 100 dusty horned heads

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of all kinds of animals mounted
high on the brown board walls.

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I asked the counter
lady, how long

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those heads been up
there staring down

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at everybody, lady?

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She says, 'don't rightly know.'

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'Know anybody rightly whoever
shot any of these animals,

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lady?'

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She gives me a strange
look and goes away

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looking very sorrowful.

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When she has to come back
past me I hit on her again,

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'they've been up there long
looking down at you may be 100

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years, lady?'

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She gives me another strange
look, 'anything else you want,

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mister?'

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'Yes ma'am, I'll take two
of those glass elk's eyes

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on toast,' I tell her.

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They look like they're about
to fall in my plate anyway.

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She looks at me like I'm
John the Baptist or something

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but doesn't start dancing.

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Even though she looks like she'd
like to have my head to hang

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up, 'who danced for
all those heads?'

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I fling at her as she
retreats to the kitchen

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where I imagine her
unsheathing a large scimitar.

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antlers sprout from my head.

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And my predecessor's
stare down at me,

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oh, the weird conversations
that have gone on here

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under those dusty antlers.

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Five men in cowboy hats just
piled in out of a pickup truck

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line up at the counter
laughing and joking

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and slapping each
other on the back.

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A drunk silver haired Los
Angeles tourist staggers out

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of the dark cabin like bar
with a good looking young chick

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in tow.

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And the cowboys I heard they've
never seen a woman before.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And they'll travel all
the way to San Francisco

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to see what Salome
looks like topless.

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The chick steers her silver
haired friend to the counter

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and they plunk down
right next to me.

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She whispers in his ear and he
points to a door in the corner

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and she gets up and goes.

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He shrugs and leers at
me, been stopping here

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every week for six months
so I guess I ought to know

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where Salome's crapper is.

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Now it's my turn to
regard a tourist darkly.

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I catch myself asking, 'anything
else you want, mister?'

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The dusky wagon wheels overhead
hung with dim light bulbs

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turn and turn in the
dusk of eternity.

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I get up and walk around
reading the various goofball

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inscriptions quotations
by Dick Wick Hall

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all over the place, including
a postcard of an awful poem

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about his thirsty frog who
wears a canteen in the desert.

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Horrible way to be a poet--

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easy way.

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In the lobby on burlap walls,
old canteens and branding irons

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hung up along with
black Bart's boots

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cared what big feet he had.

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Evidently passing through
Salome one hot night

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he took them off to
dance with you-know-who.

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And bye, bye black Bart.

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Wears his head.

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When I fall out it's
dark and the town

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has come alive suddenly
in the desert at night.

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All the daytime signs are
neonized and blare out

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down the street highway.

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Sheffler's Motel, your cafe
gas, a half moon very white

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hangs over and the vibrant
mysteriousness of the desert

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seems to close in on
all sides reminding me

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of Albert Camus phrase about
night's primitive hostility.

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A great gleaming silver aluminum
truck roars out of that night,

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flashes through the
four blocks of neons,

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and plunges back into the
darkness of the universe.

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Salome dance through my night.

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Woke up very early
hearing voices

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through a wall and thought
of a woman's deep voice

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heard in Spanish through a wall
in a hotel in Malaga years ago.

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She was moaning and moaning
coming in the night.

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She was a long time coming.

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Now, still heard
on great Southwest

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plane in the heart
of another world

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and will go on the
primitive inchoate

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nightlife of the world,
life against the night,

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boy shored up against darkness
and what has been will be.

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[APPLAUSE]

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