WEBVTT

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I hate to preface
poems with stories,

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but I think this
one is necessary.

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I lived last year in Berlin,
and a lot of the apartments

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there have these nice
angels on the ceiling.

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So the poem is about the
angels on the ceiling, entitled

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"Angels on My Ceiling."

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This city has demons, a
German friend told me.

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Yes, but it has angels as well.

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I see them every
morning in my apartment,

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staring from the ceiling.

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I counted 25 or so with
tiny wings and tired faces

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as if about to say something.

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But they just stare silently.

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What do they want?

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Sometimes I forget that they
are there and go about my life

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until the day one of
them broke its wings

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and fell next to my bed.

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Its head scattered
all over the floor.

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Was it tired of
its heavy burdens?

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It's not that easy being
an angel these days.

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I did not touch it.

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The Lord appeared
the next morning--

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a landlord, that is.

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The Lord appeared
the next morning,

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looked at it with no pity
whatsoever, swept its remains

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with a broom, threw the
wing into the trash,

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and said in a heavy German
accent, it's an old building,

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you know?

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I'll get someone to fix the
cracks in the other ones.

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Hopefully no more
fallen angels, yeah?

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