WEBVTT

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So I want to thank
everybody for coming.

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You know, I've done a
bunch of poetry readings.

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Several have only had
the number of people

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that's on this front row.

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[LAUGHTER]

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A few have added the
front row with one side.

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One actually only had the
people at that back table.

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[LAUGHTER]

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And so it's really nice
to see so many people out

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to support poetry on a--

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whatever day of
the week this is!

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[LAUGHTER]

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So since we're
pressed for time, I'm

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going to just try to
read some poems to you.

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And we'll see how it goes.

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And then we'll have
a short Q and A.

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"For the City that
Nearly Broke Me"

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A woman tattoos Malik's name
above her breast and talks

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about the conspiracy
to destroy Blacks.

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This is all a fancy way to
say that someone kirked out,

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emptied five or six or seven
shots into a still warm body.

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No indictment follows
Malik's death,

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follows smoke running
from a fired pistol.

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An old quarrel-- crimson against
concrete and the officer's gun

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still smoking.

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Someone says the people
need to stand up,

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that the system's a glass house
falling on only a few heads.

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This and the stop snitching ads
are the conundrum and damn all

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that blood.

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All those closed eyes imagining
Malik's killer forever coffled

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to a series of cells, and you
almost believe them, you do,

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except the cognac
in your hand is

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an old habit, a toast
to friends buried

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before the daybreak
of their old age.

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You know the truth
of the talking.

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You know the truth
of the talking,

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of the quarrels and how history
lets the blamed go blameless

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for the blood that flows
black in the street;

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you imagine there
is a riot going on,

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and someone is tossing a
trash can through Sal's

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window calling that revolution,
while behind us cell doors keep

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clanking closed, and Malik's
casket door clanks closed,

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and the bodies that roll off
the block and into the prisons

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and into the ground,
keep rolling,

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and no one will admit that this
is the way America strangles

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itself.

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