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Continuing the religious
theme, as it were,

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the next poem is
called "Crucifixion."

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And it was written
to commemorate--

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this is sort of heavy, but
I hope you don't mind--

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it was written to
commemorate an execution

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method used in the Sudan, where
I lived for a short while.

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They've endured 40 years
of unpublicized civil war.

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I think it's as
brutal as Bosnia,

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but, you know, it just
doesn't have any press.

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"Crucifixion."

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"It's nonfiction, a
newspaper's open and shut.

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But make that "suffocation".

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It's more genteel, the way
the limbs fail the lungs.

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You want to read a
hill full of crosses,

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but Khartoum has no hills.

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It's flat desert.

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And it's not nails for the
hands and feet, it's staples.

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Big staples.

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People prefer the
touch of technology.

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Besides, you have to be angry to
pound, or have a lot of energy.

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Who in this heat?

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They're all just criminals
anyway, or political prisoners,

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Shell employees.

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There's something about post
hole digger working a cross

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into place, and the cross
recycled, the wood old blood

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sticky, sandy, the flies.

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Only occasionally did
they attach a foot rest

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to make it last longer.

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Only occasionally do they
cut them down and put them up

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the next day.

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Only occasionally
are there no birds.

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Pollution is catching up though.

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Soon, no scarlet-tailed hawk
or owl with tinfoil claws.

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But who believes this?"

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