WEBVTT

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For those of you who were
at Philip Levine's reading

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last night, he has a poem called
"They Feed They Lion," which

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I like a lot.

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And I, usually I
don't like poems

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that gringos write about
Blacks and probably vise versa.

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Anyway, but I think
it's a pretty fine poem.

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Somehow it comes
across very strongly.

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And I sort of have been trying
to write a sort of tribute

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to it.

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I use lion in here,
L-I-O-N, toward the end.

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It's called "Woman to Man."

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And what lion means--

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You might have-- lion
heart, it's strong.

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It's just a simple
use of the word.

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"Lightning hits the
roof, shoves the knife,

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darkness, deep in the walls.

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They bleed light all over us.

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And your face, the fan,
folds up so I won't see how

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afraid to be with me you are.

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We don't mix even in bed
where we keep ending up.

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There's no need to hide it.

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You're snow.

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I'm coal.

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I've got the scars to prove it.

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But open your mouth.

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I'll give you a taste of
black you won't forget.

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For a while, I'll let
it make you strong.

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Make your heart lion and
then I'll take it back."

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And this is not about
Black and white.

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It's about-- see, my
use of men and women

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is basically like dualism
sort of like Daoism.

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It's the opposites
that I bring together.

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So they're sort of symbols
if you'd like to use that.

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Somehow or other they're
supposed to meet,

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when I die probably.