WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.570 align:middle line:90% 00:00:00.570 --> 00:00:03.850 align:middle line:90% "What We Know of Horses." 00:00:03.850 --> 00:00:06.930 align:middle line:84% "And when my brother says Swann Rd. is the world, 00:00:06.930 --> 00:00:10.140 align:middle line:84% he ignores boarded vacants, broken windows-- 00:00:10.140 --> 00:00:12.840 align:middle line:90% this place's shattered glass? 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:16.590 align:middle line:84% He tells me 'believe the world is a tenement house, 00:00:16.590 --> 00:00:18.960 align:middle line:84% a pocket full of stones, a world of ghosts, 00:00:18.960 --> 00:00:23.610 align:middle line:84% and what's left of ash and smoke after each inhale.' 00:00:23.610 --> 00:00:27.510 align:middle line:84% I visit now that a prison cell holds his world. 00:00:27.510 --> 00:00:30.570 align:middle line:84% Dead men circle every block we know, 00:00:30.570 --> 00:00:33.630 align:middle line:84% thread this world with quotes from psalms, 00:00:33.630 --> 00:00:38.520 align:middle line:84% 'the sorrows of death embrace me,' 'some trust in chariots 00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:39.930 align:middle line:90% and some in horses.' 00:00:39.930 --> 00:00:43.320 align:middle line:84% They embrace metaphor, disbelieve gravity, 00:00:43.320 --> 00:00:45.960 align:middle line:90% breathe in a haunted world. 00:00:45.960 --> 00:00:47.490 align:middle line:90% And what of my brother? 00:00:47.490 --> 00:00:49.860 align:middle line:84% Running these streets, he was a horse-- 00:00:49.860 --> 00:00:54.300 align:middle line:90% graceful, destined to be broken. 00:00:54.300 --> 00:00:55.770 align:middle line:90% Why admire horses? 00:00:55.770 --> 00:00:59.790 align:middle line:84% Why compare everything fast and beautiful to horses? 00:00:59.790 --> 00:01:01.650 align:middle line:84% My daddy's generation had a saying 00:01:01.650 --> 00:01:04.170 align:middle line:84% for men lost in the world, it was 00:01:04.170 --> 00:01:06.000 align:middle line:90% true of my uncle, my cousin-- 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:08.760 align:middle line:84% men strung out on horse, chasing the dragon, 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:11.400 align:middle line:84% shivering with the memory of that stallion gone 00:01:11.400 --> 00:01:13.080 align:middle line:90% postal in their veins-- 00:01:13.080 --> 00:01:15.600 align:middle line:84% called them lost in place, my daddy 00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:19.650 align:middle line:84% did, with cities buried inside them-- horses 00:01:19.650 --> 00:01:22.650 align:middle line:90% inside them stampeding. 00:01:22.650 --> 00:01:25.230 align:middle line:84% My brother puts his faith in horse, 00:01:25.230 --> 00:01:28.110 align:middle line:84% and there is no map to find him now. 00:01:28.110 --> 00:01:31.260 align:middle line:84% He tells me he inhales the funk of man doing life 00:01:31.260 --> 00:01:33.930 align:middle line:84% and knows he is in hell, that he has 00:01:33.930 --> 00:01:37.050 align:middle line:84% dug his grave amongst bricks that embrace him. 00:01:37.050 --> 00:01:41.760 align:middle line:84% He-- exile, with only rusted iron and bricks bracing his 200 00:01:41.760 --> 00:01:43.410 align:middle line:90% pounds. 00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:45.810 align:middle line:84% Who admits this cage embraces him? 00:01:45.810 --> 00:01:48.150 align:middle line:84% 'History is written on the back of the horse' 00:01:48.150 --> 00:01:50.760 align:middle line:90% broken by the world. 00:01:50.760 --> 00:01:52.650 align:middle line:90% We all in prison now. 00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:56.640 align:middle line:84% I stare this man, my kin ruined by embracing night. 00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:59.100 align:middle line:84% Call this place a horse collar, and watch 00:01:59.100 --> 00:02:02.250 align:middle line:84% how it cuts into skin, how the leather embraces 00:02:02.250 --> 00:02:04.530 align:middle line:90% all of our necks. 00:02:04.530 --> 00:02:07.050 align:middle line:84% Even as a visitor behind plate glass 00:02:07.050 --> 00:02:09.400 align:middle line:90% I braced myself for cuffs. 00:02:09.400 --> 00:02:12.630 align:middle line:84% This ain't Swann Rd., this burden placed on me, 00:02:12.630 --> 00:02:14.760 align:middle line:84% these memories of courtrooms and the places 00:02:14.760 --> 00:02:16.590 align:middle line:90% where bodies were found. 00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:20.220 align:middle line:84% And still, I want to start and embrace my brother, 00:02:20.220 --> 00:02:24.600 align:middle line:84% to hold him close and pause to inhale the scent of prison, 00:02:24.600 --> 00:02:27.810 align:middle line:84% to tell him what I smell, what I inhale, 00:02:27.810 --> 00:02:31.350 align:middle line:90% is still the body of a man. 00:02:31.350 --> 00:02:35.010 align:middle line:84% How can a man inhale so much violence and not change? 00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:36.870 align:middle line:90% I light my Newport, inhale. 00:02:36.870 --> 00:02:38.640 align:middle line:84% Think on how his voice has changed. 00:02:38.640 --> 00:02:41.520 align:middle line:84% My man, now a feral horse wearing kick chains-- 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.650 align:middle line:84% unable to sleep, always on guard, 00:02:43.650 --> 00:02:46.980 align:middle line:84% inhaling the air for prey, as if he is still the predator, 00:02:46.980 --> 00:02:49.830 align:middle line:84% as if he can inhale death and keep on living. 00:02:49.830 --> 00:02:52.920 align:middle line:84% Death the elephant in this world. 00:02:52.920 --> 00:02:55.950 align:middle line:84% I imagine the other men here, all in a world filled 00:02:55.950 --> 00:02:58.110 align:middle line:90% with a casket's aftermath. 00:02:58.110 --> 00:03:00.120 align:middle line:90% How much grief can you inhale? 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:01.980 align:middle line:84% My brother tells me he prays at night, 00:03:01.980 --> 00:03:03.370 align:middle line:90% he wants to leave this place. 00:03:03.370 --> 00:03:05.790 align:middle line:84% But we know all his wild hours placed him 00:03:05.790 --> 00:03:08.040 align:middle line:90% in this mural of blood. 00:03:08.040 --> 00:03:11.610 align:middle line:84% His hunger placed him in C-block, Cell 21. 00:03:11.610 --> 00:03:15.360 align:middle line:84% It suffocates and nothing replaces time. 00:03:15.360 --> 00:03:17.460 align:middle line:90% 'You OK?' I ask. 00:03:17.460 --> 00:03:19.800 align:middle line:84% But he's in a place only he knows. 00:03:19.800 --> 00:03:24.090 align:middle line:84% When he walks away he embraces the kind of rage I fear. 00:03:24.090 --> 00:03:27.510 align:middle line:84% A man killed a man near him, placed on a gurney 00:03:27.510 --> 00:03:29.280 align:middle line:90% and rushed down a sidewalk. 00:03:29.280 --> 00:03:30.960 align:middle line:84% Dead in a place where no one gives 00:03:30.960 --> 00:03:33.760 align:middle line:90% a fuck if you're breathing. 00:03:33.760 --> 00:03:37.670 align:middle line:84% To be a horse galloping away is what I want for him, 00:03:37.670 --> 00:03:41.850 align:middle line:84% he wants horse trundling through his scarred veins. 00:03:41.850 --> 00:03:47.090 align:middle line:84% Prison has taken the place of freedom, even in his dreams. 00:03:47.090 --> 00:03:50.710 align:middle line:84% And I know, this is not a 'world where none is lonely.' 00:03:50.710 --> 00:03:53.630 align:middle line:84% And I know, he is lost to the world, 00:03:53.630 --> 00:03:55.540 align:middle line:90% and I know he believes this-- 00:03:55.540 --> 00:04:00.910 align:middle line:84% 'I shut my eyes and all the world is dead,' and I know that 00:04:00.910 --> 00:04:04.420 align:middle line:84% there is still a strip, a place that he believes is the world-- 00:04:04.420 --> 00:04:08.750 align:middle line:84% Swann Rd., where he can inhale and be free. 00:04:08.750 --> 00:04:12.980 align:middle line:84% Sometimes his cuffs are on my wrists 00:04:12.980 --> 00:04:17.990 align:middle line:84% and I embrace the way they cut, and I am the one domesticated, 00:04:17.990 --> 00:04:19.670 align:middle line:90% a broken horse." 00:04:19.670 --> 00:04:21.520 align:middle line:90% Thank you.