WEBVTT

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Let me read an older poem
because many people seem

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to like it, it's
called The Drunken Man.

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And it's a experience
that we all have.

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Your friend is drunk
and you're not.

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And there's no way
to deal with him.

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Everything you say is wrong.

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He misinterprets.

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He wants to start a fight.

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It's everything is always wrong.

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This is not about
anybody in particular,

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but just about all
my-- although, it

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sticks with one person.

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It really is about
every experience

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when you have a drunken
friend and you're not.

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The drunken man.

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There's nothing you can
say to a man who drinks.

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He rises in the gray mist
of morning and lights

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his cigarette knowing that
soon he'll be elsewhere.

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Out in the world, the old
men sweep their shops,

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and one barber nods.

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The full breasted woman
airing her pillows.

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She smiles and squints
and seeing it as only him,

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she closes the window.

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But it doesn't matter.

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There's no way of
hurting a man who drinks.

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His wife floats in his pockets.

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His father twists open the cap.

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His mother whispers
drink, drink.

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He moves on down the street.

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There are times when I
feel obligated to speak,

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I take my hands from my pockets.

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I slide my glass away from him.

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In earnest, I'll say something.

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Anything, the weather, my son.

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And he'll argue at me
from someplace I can't

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know because I'm not a drunk.

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Perhaps, when I stagger home,
my wife screams to shut up.

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Come to bed like a man.

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My flat, my face
reddened my shoes drop.

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I burrow into her flesh.

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But a drunk is like a cloud.

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It's like a ship that
sinks, but never drowns

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is like a feather bed.

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Already it is noon.

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His mother and his
father are half gone.

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He's weightless now.

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Don't waste pity
on a drunken man.

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At night in the bar, I am
his weakness, his hope,

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and his family.

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If I argue back, if
I arm wrestle him,

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if the bartender is
embarrassed by my antics,

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it's time to go home, go home,
go home to my noisy wife.

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