WEBVTT

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And I would like to start with--

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I'm just going randomly --

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when I prepare for a
reading I write down

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lists of-- if I read all
the poems on this list,

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we'd be here til one in the
morning so I spare you that.

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I just go down the
list and see what

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appeals to me at that moment.

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I sort of judge your
intelligence and so.

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[LAUGHTER]

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So I'm going to read some
old chestnuts and chestnuts.

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"The dog".

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When I was-- I wrote
this poem in Tuscaloosa

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where I was for a short while.

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Came across a dead
dog on the road.

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And I was a kind of specialist
in dead animals at the time.

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And so the poem is sort of
a self mockery of sorts.

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"What I was doing was my white
teeth exposed like that",

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the dog is talking.

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"On the side of the
road, I don't know.

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And I don't know why
I lay beside the sewer

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so that lover of dead
things could come back

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with his pencil sharpened
and his piece of white paper.

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I was there for
a good two hours,

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whistling dirges,
shrieking a little.

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Terrifying hearts
with my whimpering

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cries before I died by pulling
the one leg up and stiffening.

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There is a look we have
with the hair of the chin

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curled in midair.

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There's a look with
a belly stuffed

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in the midst of its greed.

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The lover of dead things
stoops to feel me.

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His hands are shaking.

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I know his mouth is open and
his glasses are slipping.

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I think his pencil
must be jerking

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and the terror of smell and
sight is overtaking him.

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I know he has that terrified
faraway look that death brings,

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he is contemplating.

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I want him to touch my
forehead once and rub my muzzle

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before he lifts me up and throws
me into that little valley.

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I hope he doesn't use his
shoe for fear of touching me.

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I know where he used to
know the grasses down there.

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I think I knew a hundred smells.

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I hope the dog's way
doesn't overtake him,

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one quick push barely
that in the mind

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freed something else, some
other thing to take its place.

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Great heart, great human heart,
keep loving me as you lift me.

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Give me your tears,
great loving stranger.

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Remember the death of dogs.

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Forgive the yapping.

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Forgive the shitting.

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Let there be pity.

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Give me your pity.

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How could there be enough?

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I've given my life for this.

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Emotion has ruined me.

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Oh lover, I've exchanged
my wildness little tricks

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with the mouth and
feet with a tail.

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My tongue is a parrot's.

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I have a rampant horse.

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I am a lion.

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I wait for the cookie.

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I snap my teeth because
you have taught me.

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So distant and
brilliant and lonely."

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[APPLAUSE]

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