WEBVTT

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[CLEARS THROAT] I wrote a
poem in a very wide format

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called "cinemascope."

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And I asked the publisher to
consider doing a gatefold,

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having the poem
actually fold out.

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And my editor said, well,
we'll be much more open to that

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if you could write a poem to
fit the other side of the page.

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And I thought, like I'm
going to-- like lightning

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is going to strike twice.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And I was walking down
the street thinking,

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what could I write that
would work as a foldout?

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And also, one of
the things that you

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should know about the
organizational conceit

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of "Chronic" is that all
of the titles of the poems

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either begin or end
with the letter C.

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So that was a constraint
that I had to work with.

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And I was walking down
the street, literally,

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thinking about this problem.

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And in the gutter--

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gutters are great, aren't they?

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[LAUGHTER]

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In the gutter was a discarded
pornographic magazine.

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And I thought, centerfold.

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"Centerfold."

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"Into every life some
possible lover should come.

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You don't quite catch his
name the first time through.

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Call him Brian or Ryan.

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You met him at the
antelope petting zoo,

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or on the steps of city
hall at the yearly die-in.

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He was a body among
so many other bodies,

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some furry and with horns,
some able, some blistering

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and sweat, some you heaved upon
like amphibious D-Day craft

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quitting the ocean.

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Some unable to stand erect,
their soft boy parts pressed

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against you the
way lunchmeat feels

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when it falls from the
sandwich onto your legs.

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All the untouchable figures
outspread upon the asphalt,

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as if it's natural to recline
this way, playing possum,

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flashing the word
"vacancy," glowing,

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snuff-colored, against
the motel background

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of a pornographic
magazine carelessly

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tossed against the curb.

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Recognize one face among
the 23 airbrushed faces,

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slightly withdrawn,
obviously stoned,

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nimbused in a union of elapsing
smoke and incandescence.

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Isn't he the one who looked
upward into your gawp,

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as if a deathbed
held him against you?

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He was living then.

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You both were living.

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And the vessel protruded,
your hull dragging up

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onto the beach, his carcass
already a carcass on the sand.

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No, he was a darling critter, a
feral thing, but he struck you.

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He bit you, and
you broke inside.

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And the condom broke.

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Shoddy piece, princeling,
posturer, dirty, dirty beast."

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