WEBVTT

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I meant to announce this before.

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I usually have to
be mad to read,

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because I'm really
basically shy,

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and I've been getting
angry since Monday.

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And I got drunk last night,
and it was real nasty

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at this party, and
I threw people out

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of my house and stuff.

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So I'm ready.

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OK.

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I don't know the merit
of this poem, either,

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but people seem to like it.

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It's called "The Root Eater."

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The war has begun, and I see
the root eater bending, shifting

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his hands under
the soil in search

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of the arthritic
knuckles of trees.

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I see dazed flower stems
pushing themselves back

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into the ground.

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I see turnips spinning endlessly
on the blunt bitten-off tips

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of their noses.

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I see the root eater
going home on his knees,

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full of the ripe foundations
of things, longing

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to send his seed up through his
feet and out into the morning.

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But the stumps of trees
heave themselves forward

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for the last march.

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And the root eater
waits, knowing

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he will be shoved ruthless
under the brown, scaly torso

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of the rock.

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