WEBVTT

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Then-- this is just
called "Some Stories."

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This is really one prose
poem, but it's a whole group

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of little tiny stories.

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And the idea I had is
that stories evolve

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and the stories which we
now think are about robins

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were once about something else.

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"Some Stories."

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"The story of the
shepherd's crook

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was once the story
of an impotent man.

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Now his sperm are sheep.

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He wanted them to go so he
said to them again and again

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until it became a song.

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This time, I am serious.

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The story of the
beggar and his hat

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was once the story
of someone's belly.

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The rich man, who thinks
the beggar is blind,

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pours cream over the
money in the hat.

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And now the beggars curse
is called a heart attack.

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The egg yolks smear in the
blood like oil slicks, butter,

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oysters.

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I don't want to spoil
the story for you,

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maybe you know it anyhow,
but the beggar was not blind.

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Some scholars think that the
phrase the mind's eye refers

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to the navel and this story
is crucial to their argument.

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The story of the stupid
son was once the story

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of someone's hand,
possibly a weaver's.

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The thumb was the runt
of the litter, the deck,

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the nestle-tripe, the squeaker.

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In those days, all such
stories were about males

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but maybe the thumb
is really a daughter

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with four taller brothers.

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And when she bakes for
them, and kneads the dough,

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and places the long
loaf in the warm oven,

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the threads of blood
in her hands glow.

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The last story was the tongues
before it was the gravestones.

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It's like no story
you've ever heard.

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Nothing happens.

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You sit, and after
a time, you realize

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you've hardly moved
any more than grass

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at a gravesite moves except
when bent by insect traffic.

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You wait.

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You grow darker.

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The story is happening
to you now, you realize.

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It's amazing.

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It's the greatest
story ever told."

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