WEBVTT

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And then I'm going to
end on one final one.

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So Rebecca Seiferle
did a great translation

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of Vallejo's Black Heralds.

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And that's my
favorite translation.

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And so in it, there's
a poem where the poet

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is addressing the beloved.

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And so it was after reading that
poem, and I have a habit of--

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I find a poem that
does something,

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I write it down by hand.

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And then I keep it in my
pocket, and I carry it around.

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And I don't have a lot of
free minutes during my day,

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because I do language work.

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But if I'm waiting for an
elder to be ready, or to do--

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you know, so I'll pull it out.

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And I don't have time
to bring out a book,

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but I'll just carry that poem.

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So I carried that poem
with me for quite a while--

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a few weeks.

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And so, this is what
happened the next time

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I sat down to write.

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And it was a direct
result of her translation.

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"Ode to the Beloved's Hips"

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"Bells are they, shaped
on the eighth day.

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Silvered percussion in the
morning, are the morning.

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Swing, switch, sway, hold
the day away a little longer,

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a little slower, a little easy.

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Call to me, I want to
rock, I, I want to rock, I,

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I want to rock right now.

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So to them I come--
struck dumb, chime blind,

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tolling with a throat
full of Hosanna.

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How many hours bowed against
this infinity of blessed

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Trinity, communion of pelvis,
sacrum, femur, my mouth,

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terrible angel, everlasting
novena, ecstatic devour.

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Oh, the places I
have laid them--

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knelt and scooped the amber
fast honey from their openness.

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Ah Muzen Cab's hidden
temple of Tulúm,

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licked smooth the
sticky of her hip.

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Heat thrummed ossa coxae.

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Lambent slave to
ilium and ischium--

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I never tire to
shake this wild hive.

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Split with thumb, the
sweet dripped comb,

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hot hexagonal whole,
dark diamond--

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to its nectar dervished queen.

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Meanad tongue, come drunk,
hum tranced, honey polar,

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for her hips I am strummed,
song, and succubus.

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They are the sign, hip, and
the cosign, a great book,

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the body's Bible opened up
to its good news gospel.

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Alleluias, Ave Maria's, Madre
Mia's, Ay-ay-ay's, ay dios

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mios, and hip-hip-hooray.

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Cult of Coccyx, culto de
cadera, oracle of orgasm,

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Rorschach's riddle--
what do I see?

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Hips, innominate bone,
wishbone, Orpheus bone,

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transubstantiation bone, hips
of bread, wine wet thighs,

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say the word and
healed, I shall be.

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Bone butterfly, bone wings,
bone Ferris wheel, bone basin,

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bone throne, bone lamp.

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Apparition in the bone
grotto, sixth mystery,

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slick rosary bead, déme de
gracia of a decade in this

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garden of carmine flower.

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Exile me to the enormous orchard
of Alcinous, spiced fruit,

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laden tree, in paradise me,
because God, I am guilty.

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I am sin frenzied and
full of teeth for a pear

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upon apple upon fig.

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More than all that,
are your hips.

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They are a city.

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They are a kingdom.

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Troy, the hollowed horse
and army of desire,

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thirty soldiers in the belly,
two in the mouth-- beloved,

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your hips are the war.

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At night, your legs,
love, are boulevards

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leading me beggared and
hungry to your candy

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house, your Baroque mansion.

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Even when I am
late and the tables

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have been cleared in the kitchen
of your hips, let me eat cake.

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Oh, constellation of pelvic
glide, every curve a luster,

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a star.

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More infinite still,
your hips are cosmic,

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are universe, galactic
carousel of burning comets

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and big, big bangs.

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Millennium Falcon,
let me be your Solo--

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we always find the
nerds on that one.

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Oh, hot planet, let
me circumambulate.

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Oh, spiral galaxy, I am
coming for your dark matter.

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Along calles de tus
muslos I wander.

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Follow the parade of
posts like a drum line.

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Descend into your
Plaza del Toros,

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hands throbbing, Miura bulls.

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Your arched hips, ay, mi torera.

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Down the long corridor,
your wet walls

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lead me like a traje de luces.

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All glitter, glowed,
I am the animal

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born to rush your
rich, red mulattos.

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Each breath, each
sigh, each groan--

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a hooked horn of want.

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My mouth at your inner thigh,
here, I must enter you.

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Mi pobre Manolete, press
and part you like a wound.

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Make the crowd pounding and the
grandstand of your iliac crest

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rise up in you and cheer.

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Thank you so much.

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