WEBVTT

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After the pool was
drained for the season,

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they arrested the kids who
marched to the white school.

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Who stood and sang "Like a
Tree Planted by the Water."

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They took them to the
jailhouse in school buses.

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They took them to the drained
pool in sealed 18-wheelers.

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The Sheriff told them they
were to be taken to the woods

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and there shot.

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Then the Sheriff told them
they would be taken to the pool

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and there drowned.

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Granddaughter of V's babysitter,
who was put in the pool.

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She had never seen
before then, he

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was one mean man, that Sheriff.

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A pool, a dry, drained
pool, whatever else it is,

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is a big hole in the ground.

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A sealed truck, whatever else
it is, is a sealed truck.

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Headline, the Negroes
failed to move.

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The weather would break.

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The Sheriff's button says never.

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The children's minds
say never waver.

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V, rising to contempt,
and that Sheriff,

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may he be taken to the
woods and there made

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to sing "Like a Tree
Planted by The Water".

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May he be linked to
the first rib he broke,

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and it be fashioned of bronze.

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And run through the
end of his nose.

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He may then be taken
to the pool and they're

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taught the dead man's float.

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And then be taken to
the library and there

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will his hideous pink
testicles be removed

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by the assistant
librarian and put

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in the terrarium with
the resident spider.

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The ethical this,
what we really want,

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says my friend Harry is to get
the present in the present,

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that which is not this.

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To feel and transmit.

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Dear Abby, friends
of ours have a son

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who has gone the hippies route.

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When we inquire
about their children,

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they have others who are married
and one who is in the service.

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Should we ask about
their hippie son

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or should we just not
mention him like he is dead?

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We know that they are pretty
sick about the life he leads.

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Dear needs to know, knowing
that your friends would

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be humiliated or embarrassed
by the mention of their hippie

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son, don't mention him.

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Everybody has a problem.

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What's yours?

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These are verbatim.

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Radio ministry, now the
non repentant homosexuals,

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they're declaring
war on the gospel.

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Now the infidels are
dying from the neck-up,

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now I didn't write the Bible,
and now your old-line churches

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are losing members.

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Now, if I'm going
to be saved, I have

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to be saved from something,
the vile and the dirty

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and your low-downs.

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It's not like joining the
rotary club, salvation,

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it's a heaven or hell issue.

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Now V, she wanted something
entirely different.

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To feel and transmit the
ethical this, that is not that.

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The gospel helps
some bear the pain.

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Helps bury the hate.

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The swimming pool is
also buried therein,

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and therefore this
petition for relief

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awakened to the task, call
for calm, waver never.

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Forever forward,
backwards never,

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it says on the
ex-invaders machine.

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The dirt up there on the
ridge is called Loess.

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Wind blown stuff, good
for growing peaches.

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Hemingway penned some
of a farewell to arms

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on the ridge when he was married
to Pauline, wife number two.

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I think I'll move a
little further in, here.

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Dear Abby, my mother-in-law
said she read in your column

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about how to make dirty
diapers disappear.

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Dear misinformed, I
am not a magician.

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Everybody has a problem.

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V, deep down, she may have
been as sad as a cover band.

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She might have felt drier
than a clod of Arkansas dirt.

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Lonely, lonely, lonely, like
the hunter green suitcase

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that hadn't been used
since her honeymoon.

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Some honeymoon she
later told Gert,

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with that off color smile.

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She almost had to rape him.

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She said this near death as her
executive organs were shutting

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down and she was finishing
the New York Times crossword,

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September 2nd, in ballpoint.

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What is the suffix of book?

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Ish.

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Who is a major exporter
of coconut oil?

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Samoa.

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A colorless liquid.

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ouzo A defeatist's words.

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I no space lose.

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The artist of the
etching and aquatint,

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el sueño de la razón
produce monstruos.

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Does it follow that the sleep
of monsters produces reason?

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Some would say she was in
full pursuit of her ruin.

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Some would call it her
pathetic adventure.

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I would say, you
did not understand

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the magnitude of her longing.

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I say, where was the
suitor to her senescence?

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Another disaffiliated
member of her tribe.

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I say, do we have to go through
this every time, the shunning

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thing?

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Any simple problem
can be made insoluble,

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such as how to share an Elberta
with the fuzz still on it.

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Crickets in the house are good.

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A Crow is a bad sign.

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Empty rooms love the dark.

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The key to tranquility
is equal opportunity.

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When the siren sounds,
it's time for our curfew.

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Old moon, a wrecking ball.

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The town under
demolition from within.

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Color provides a structure,
albeit soul sucking.

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The woods were felled
by Chicago Mills,

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an Arkansas arc is not a
rainbow, but an iron bridge

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over troubled waters.

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Dear Abby, I am 11 years old.

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But I know all the
facts of life because I

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live in a dirty neighborhood.

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My problem is that in our
family, we get pregnate quick.

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My sister got pregnate
when she was 16

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just by sitting next
to a boy in church.

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Can this be?

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Dear young miss, No,
somebody must have moved.

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An object unworthy of
love she thought she was.

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It was a cri de coeur.

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Those of our get had given
her a nom de guerre, V.

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A Simple act to join
a March against fear

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down an old military road.

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We were watching an old movie
the night the table started

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walking toward us and there
was trouble on Division.

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She became a disaffiliated
member of her race.

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I'm one of them now, she
said, upon release from jail.

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I'm an invader.

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To feel in conjunction with
the changes of my time.

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The most alive I've ever been.

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My body lifted
itself from the chair

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it walked to where I
saw a silent crowd.

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To act just to act that
is the glorious thing.

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Yet it has come to my attention
that a whisper campaign

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has been directed against
the main character,

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an invisible woman.

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She could have buried her
feelings like power lines.

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Walked around free and common
as air that bathes the globe

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or sued the
chickenshits and gone

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to live in Provence smelling
of gauloises and cafe au lait.

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You have your life
until you use it.

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You forfeit the only life
you know, or go to the grave

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with a song curdled inside you.

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No more damned if you did,
and damned if you didn't.

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For me, it has always
been a series of doors.

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If one is open
precipitously, a figure

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is caught bolting from bed,
if another, a small table,

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a list of demands
on school paper

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if another, a child on
the linoleum, saying she

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wants a white doll.

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A woman sitting on a bed
holding a folded flag, a shelf

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of trophies behind her head.

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An ironing board
bottle of bourbon

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on the end, sewing
machine on a porch.

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To walk down the road without
fear to sit in a booth

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and order a sweet soft drink.

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To work at the front desk.

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To be referred to as gentleman.

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To swim in the pool.

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To sit in the front row and
watch Run Wild, Run Free.

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Next week, Death
of a Gunfighter.

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To make your way to
the end of the day

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with both eyes in your head.

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Nothing is not integral, you
want to illumine what you see.

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Fear reflected off
an upturned face.

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Those walnuts turning
black in the grass.

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It is a relatively stable
world, gentle reader,

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but beyond that door,
it defies description.

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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