WEBVTT

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I seem to be
somewhat out of touch

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with the feelings of
the women's lib movement

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because I understand
that this poem has not

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pleased all women--

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my wife doesn't mind it at all.

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Here is a poem which has
pleased some women's lib people,

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because it rather makes
fun of Playboy magazine

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which has made a business
of portraying women

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as sex objects.

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This poem called
"Playboy" is a description

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of one possible reader
of that magazine.

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"High on his stockroom
ladder like a dunce

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the stock boy sits, and studies
like a sage, the subject

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matter of one glossy page.

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As lost in curves
as Archimedes once.

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Sometimes, without a
glance, he feeds himself.

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The left hand, like a
mother bird in flight

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brings him a sandwich
for a sidelong bite,

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and then returns it
to a dusty shelf.

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What so engrosses him?

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The wild decor of this
pink-papered alcove

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into which a naked girl has
stumbled, with its rich welter

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of pelts and pillows
on the floor.

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Amidst which
kneeling in a supple

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pose, she lifts a goblet
in her farther hand

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as if about to
toast a flower stand

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above which hovers an
exploding rose fired

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from a long-necked
crystal vase that

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rests upon a tasseled
and vermilion cloth, one

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taste of which would
shrivel up a moth?

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[LAUGHTER]

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Or is he pondering
her perfect breasts?

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Nothing escapes him
of her body's grace

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or of her floodlit skin,
so sleek and warm and yet,

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so strangely like a uniform.

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But what now grips
his fancy is her face,

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and how the cunning
picture holds her

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still at just that
smiling instant when

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her soul, grown sweetly faint,
and swept beyond control,

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consents to his
inexorable will."

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