WEBVTT

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When I read my poems I like
to read by the Monty Python

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principle.

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You've seen that show
some of you I know,

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and they're always moving from
segment to segment by saying,

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and now for something
completely different.

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This is another poem
which I think I probably

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read seven years ago.

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It's my poem about
poetry readings,

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and I love to read it
at poetry readings.

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It's a new genre of
poetry by American poets,

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the poem about poetry readings.

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If you write out of
your life and spend

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a third of it doing
poetry readings

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you're bound to get
to it sooner or later.

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They are always very
snotty and superior poems

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about poetry reading because
poets love poetry reading

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so much that they are
ashamed to admit it.

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This poem is called
to a waterfall.

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So you may have heard of it.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Waterfall enters and
exits rather quickly.

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Women with hats like the
rear ends of pink ducks

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applauded you my poems.

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These are the women
whose husbands

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I meet on airplanes who
closed their briefcases

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and ask, what are you in?

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I look in their eyes.

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I tell them I am in poetry.

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And their eyes filled with
anxiety and with little tears.

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"Oh, yeah," they say developing
an interest in clouds.

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My wife she likes
that sort of thing.

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Ah.

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Ah.

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I guess maybe I'd
better watch my grammar.

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[LAUGHS]

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I leave them in airports
watching their grammar

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and take a limousine to
the women's goodness' club

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where I drink Harvey's
Bristol Cream with their wives

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and eat chicken salad with
capers with little tomato

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wedges.

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And I read them the erotic
crocodiles and eating you.

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Ah, when I have concluded
the disbursement

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of my sonorities crooning
high on thy side I cry high.

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And so forth.

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They spank their wide hands.

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They smile like jello.

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And they say, "Ha, ha,
ha, my goodness, Mr. Hall,

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but you certainly do
have an imagination."

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"Thank you indeed," I say.

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"It brings in the bacon."

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But now my poems now I
have returned to the motel,

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return to the l'eternel retour
of the Holiday Inn, naked,

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lying on the bed watching
Godzilla sucks Mount Fuji.

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Addressing my poems, feeling
superior, and drinking bourbon

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from a flask disguised to
look like a transistor radio.

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Ah, my poems, it is true that
with the deepest gratitude

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and most serene
pleasure and with hints

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that I'm a sexual
Thomas Alva Edison

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and not without collecting
an exorbitant fee

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I have accepted the
approbation of feathers.

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And what about
you, you laughing,

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you in the blue jeans, laughing
at your mother who wears hats

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and at your father
who rides airplanes

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with a briefcase
watching his grammar.

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Will you ever be old and dumb
like your creepy parents?

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Not you.

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Not you.

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Not you.

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Not you.

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Not you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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