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And the last poem I'll read is
called, "Harlem Montana, Just

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Off the Reservation."

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And the reservation is the
Fort Belknap reservation

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up in north-central Montana.

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And Harlem is about
4 miles off it.

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And I've talked to
a lot of Indians

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and they feel that the
whitest people in the world

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lived just off a reservation.

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And I think this
poem reflects that.

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"We need no runners here.

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Booze is law.

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And all the Indians
drink in the best tavern.

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Money is free if
you're poor enough,

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disgusted busted
whites are running

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for office in this town.

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The constable, a local farmer
plants the jail with wild raven

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haired stiffs who beg
just one more drink.

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One drunk, a former
Methodist becomes a saint

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on the Indian church,
bugs the plaster man

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on the cross with snakes.

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If his knuckles broke,
he'd see those women

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wail the graves
goodbye, goodbye,

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goodbye Harlem on the rocks.

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So bigoted, you forget
the latest joke.

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So lonely, you'd welcome
a battalion of Turks

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to roll your women.

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What you don't know,
what you will never

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know, or want to learn,
Turks aren't white.

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Turks are olive, unwelcome,
alive in any town.

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Turks would use
your one dingy park

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to declare a need for loot.

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Turks say, bring it, step
quickly, laid down and dead.

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Here we are when men were nice.

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This photo hung in the
New England hotel lobby,

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shows them nicer than pie,
agreeable to the warring bands

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of redskins who
demanded protection

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money for the price of food.

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Now, only Hutterites
out north are nice.

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We hate them.

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They are tough, and their
crops are always good.

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We accuse them of idiocy and
believe their belief all wrong.

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Harlem, your hotel is
overnamed, your children

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are raggedy assed.

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But you go on, survive the
bad food from the two cafes,

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and pedal your hate for the
wild who bring you money.

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When you die, if
you die, will you

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remember the three
young bucks who

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shot the grocery up, locked
themselves in, and cried

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for days, we're rich.

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Help us, oh God, we're rich?"

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[APPLAUSE]

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