WEBVTT

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I'm glad to be back in Tucson.

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I also want to add my
thanks to the Poetry Center,

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University of Arizona press,
and to Odilia and Francisco

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for editing the Poetry
of Resistance anthology.

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This is, my teaser.

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[LAUGHS]

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It's a new poem,
I just wrote it.

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And it's about the first
documented hate crime committed

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in the name of Donald Trump.

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It was not in Arizona, but
rather in Boston, Massachusetts

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less than two months after
he announced his candidacy.

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The characters include two
brothers, Scott and Steve

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Leader, a homeless Mexican
immigrant, Guillermo Rodriguez.

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And, of course,
Donald Trump himself,

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who provides the epigraph.

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The title of this
poem is, "Not for him,

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the fiery lake of
the false prophet."

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Epigraph.

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When Mexico sends its people,
they're not sending their best.

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They're bringing drugs,
they're bringing crime,

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they're rapists.

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Donald Trump, June 16, 2015.

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They woke him up by
pissing in his face.

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He opened his mouth
to scream in Spanish,

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so his mouth became a
urinal at the ballpark.

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Scott and Steve,
the Leader brothers,

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celebrating a night
at Fenway where

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the Red Sox beat the Indians.

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And a rookie named Rodriguez,
spun the seams on his change

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up to hypnotize the tribe.

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Later that night, Steve urinated
on the door of his cell.

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And Scott told the
cops why they did it.

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"Donald Trump is right,
all these illegals

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need to be deported."

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He was a Mexican, in a sleeping
bag outside JFK station

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on a night in August.

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So they called him a wetback,
and emptied their bladders

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in his hair.

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In court, the lawyers
spoke his name.

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Guillermo Rodriguez,
immigrant with papers.

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Crop-picker in the fields,
trader of bottles and cans

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collected in his cart.

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Two strangers squashed
the cartilage in his nose,

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like a can drained of beer.

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In dreams, he would
remember the shoes digging

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into his rib cage.

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The pole raked repeatedly
across the cheekbones,

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and up raised knuckles the
high five over his body.

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"Donald Trump is
right," said Scott.

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And Trump said, "The people
who are following me,

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are very passionate."

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His hands fluttered as he spoke.

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A demagogue's hands, no blood
under the fingernails, no whiff

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of urine to scrub away.

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He would orchestrate the
chant of, "Build that wall,"

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at rally after rally,
bellowing till the blood rushed

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to his face.

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Red as a demagogue in the
grip of masturbatory dreams.

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A tribute to the
new conquistador.

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The wall raised up by
Mexican hands, Mexican hair,

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and fingernails bristling in the
brick, Mexican blood swirling

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in the cement like raspberry
syrup on a vanilla sundae.

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On the Cinco de Mayo, he
leered over a taco bowl

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at Trump Tower.

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Not for him, the fiery
lake of the false prophet

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reddening his ruddy face.

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Not for him, the devils
of Puritan imagination,

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shrieking in a foreign
tongue and climbing

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in the window like
the immigrant demons

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he conjures for the crowd.

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Not even for him, 10,000
years of the Leader brothers

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streaming a fountain
of piss in his face,

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as he sputters forever.

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For him, hell is a country
where a man in a hard hat paving

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the road to JFK station sees
Guillermo and dials 911.

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Hell is a country
where EMTs kneel,

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to wrap a blanket around
the shivering shoulders

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of Guillermo and
wipe his face clean.

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Hell is a country where the
nurse at the emergency room,

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hangs a morphine
drip for Guillermo

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so he can go back to sleep.

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2000 miles away,
someone leaves a trail

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of water bottles in the
desert for the border crossing

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of the next Guillermo.

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We smuggle ourselves across the
border of a demagogue's dreams.

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Confederate generals
on horseback

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tumble one by one into the
fiery lake of false prophets.

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Into the fiery lake crumbles
the demolished wall.

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Thousands stand sledgehammers
in hand to await the bull horns,

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and handcuffs await the
trembling revolvers.

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In the full moon
of the flashlight,

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every face interrogates
the interrogator.

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In the full moon
of the flashlight,

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every face is the
face of Guillermo.

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