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The first one I'm going to
read is called "Masquerade"

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and it's an ekphrastic poem,
which means a poem based

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on a work of visual art.

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And this painting
is by Max Beckmann,

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who was a German who fled
Germany in front of the Nazis

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and stayed in
America and, in fact,

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taught at Washington University
in St. Louis briefly,

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which is where I teach now.

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And this was painted in
1948, so right after the war.

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It's called
Masquerade, and there

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are two figures in cat
masks and a man and a woman.

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"Masquerade, after Beckmann."

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We're sitting here quietly.

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You're feeling your arm,
I'm feeling my face.

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We're supposed to stay quiet
and live the waiting life.

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We were told to be a
portraitist's object

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and imitate a sad fate.

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We are a skull times two.

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We're supposed to stay quiet.

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Herr Moment is looking
at a watch that says now.

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Its red face reminds me
of the eye of an ogre.

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Its shiny rim reminds me
of Herr Moment's handcuffs.

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I don't want to speak about
what can't be fathomed--

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mourning and missing, rings
cut from corpses, Herr Moments

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refusal to show his real face.