WEBVTT

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I got the idea for
the next poem that I'm

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going to read to you one morning
when I went down to my study

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with, as usual,
nothing on my mind.

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I happened to pick
up a candy bar that

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was in the living room.

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And I sat in my chair and
began to read the candy bar.

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And I was fascinated
with the ingredients

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that go into a candy bar.

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And I thought, how high
can you get on a candy bar?

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Maybe candy bars shouldn't
just be for kids.

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And so I wanted
to see if I could

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get it-- as high on a candy
bar as other people get

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on other things.

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Well, as I was thinking this,
John Keats came into my head.

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And I felt sorry
for him, thinking

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about what happened to
him when he ate the grape

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and accloyed and sunk
into a depression.

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And I wondered
whether that really

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has to happen with a candy bar.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So this poem is a ballad.

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And it's called
"Ballad for Baby Ruth."

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[LAUGHTER]

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And you've got to--

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I ask you, as I read, to think
of Baby Ruth as a candy bar,

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but also to think of
Baby Ruth as a girl.

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And the poem is also
a how to do it poem.

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So it's subtitled--
it's called--

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the whole title of the poem
is "Ballad for Baby Ruth,

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or How to Burst Joy's Grape."

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[LAUGHTER]

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"Chocolate Kisses, Milky
Way, Forever Yours,

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and Baby Ruth at home amid
the not-so-alien candy corn,

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white tipping the top, then
orange tapering fat to yellow,

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and yellow yellowing while
out there in the Milky Way,

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another fruit-flavored,
life-savouring sunset,

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orange of apricot, orange of
kumquat, cantaloupe orange,

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orange of nectarine, and
apple-red blinking blue to plum

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and banana-yellow
pulsing up from green--

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and here is a honeydew
gumdrop kiss forever yours

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until our teeth decay.

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And here is my Vanilla Bean
and here is my Milky Way,

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shaped like pears.

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Frolicking yellow
flute notes leap.

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Bassoon-round sounding plums
bulge purple to the edge.

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Are you filling up my Baby
Ruth as your quick lip-licking,

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pink tongue-tasted yet the whole
hope message of orange light,

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now mellowing yellow home
marshmallows fondle gold

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by fire flame flutter,
Tang lemon and chill,

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hot summer tea, peach marmalade
or blueberry jelly with peanut

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butter--

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And here is a honeydew
gumdrop kiss, Forever Yours

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until our teeth decay.

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And here is my Vanilla Bean,
and here is my Milky Way,

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for the candy light
comes up, surrounds.

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Yellow spreads out.

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Purple thrusts in, flavored
with malt, with salt,

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with egg whites whipped.

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And your teeth shiver.

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Your gums quake.

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Your taste buds rise,
nourished with vegetable oil,

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with syruped corn, with
butterscotch, with milk.

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And your left ear blushes to
a horn's red flare, your right

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to an oboe's blue.

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And the orange light comes
up, Baby Ruth, comes out,

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goes in for you, for me,
where last the first void was,

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and is, and will forever be.

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And here is a honeydew
gumdrop kiss, Forever Yours

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until our teeth decay.

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And here is my Vanilla Bean,
and here is my Milky Way."

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