WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.630 align:middle line:84% This next piece is set in Berkeley, California. 00:00:03.630 --> 00:00:06.960 align:middle line:84% Some of the landmarks there, I think you'll know in the poem. 00:00:06.960 --> 00:00:09.720 align:middle line:84% The San Francisco Art Institute is also mentioned, 00:00:09.720 --> 00:00:12.870 align:middle line:84% and Telegraph Avenue, one of the main 00:00:12.870 --> 00:00:16.590 align:middle line:84% drags there, which is such a fascinating street 00:00:16.590 --> 00:00:18.570 align:middle line:90% to be on in any era. 00:00:18.570 --> 00:00:23.780 align:middle line:84% This poem-- well, I'll say no more, 00:00:23.780 --> 00:00:27.750 align:middle line:90% except that it's a love poem. 00:00:27.750 --> 00:00:30.700 align:middle line:90% "Destiny." 00:00:30.700 --> 00:00:36.490 align:middle line:84% "I'm eating cold Chinese in Joy's friend's flat. 00:00:36.490 --> 00:00:39.130 align:middle line:84% I have been trafficked like a drug planted 00:00:39.130 --> 00:00:41.470 align:middle line:90% by a child in Oaxaca. 00:00:41.470 --> 00:00:46.270 align:middle line:84% Like this story, you are happy without me, a lie, 00:00:46.270 --> 00:00:49.530 align:middle line:90% I believe, you believe. 00:00:49.530 --> 00:00:51.420 align:middle line:84% And I am traveled like the mercies 00:00:51.420 --> 00:00:54.600 align:middle line:84% on Telegraph, the street lamps burning down 00:00:54.600 --> 00:00:57.780 align:middle line:84% the throat of this thoroughfare in Berkeley, where 00:00:57.780 --> 00:01:01.680 align:middle line:84% I lived in the 60s, and now see my book in a window, 00:01:01.680 --> 00:01:05.069 align:middle line:84% and find its theme useless in the act. 00:01:05.069 --> 00:01:08.370 align:middle line:84% Where, had I not been so privileged then, 00:01:08.370 --> 00:01:11.250 align:middle line:84% I might have had hope well humped 00:01:11.250 --> 00:01:14.430 align:middle line:90% for a quantity of uncut drugs. 00:01:14.430 --> 00:01:16.740 align:middle line:84% Out of the city on Joy's cocaine, 00:01:16.740 --> 00:01:18.930 align:middle line:84% where it's always the freeway in the hour 00:01:18.930 --> 00:01:21.930 align:middle line:84% the bars close, and no English spoken. 00:01:21.930 --> 00:01:26.370 align:middle line:84% Where men chained to each other as to an idea say, 00:01:26.370 --> 00:01:29.370 align:middle line:84% that prayer is as useful as a condom 00:01:29.370 --> 00:01:32.010 align:middle line:90% against the current cancer. 00:01:32.010 --> 00:01:35.220 align:middle line:84% Here is the black Mercedes of an acquaintance, 00:01:35.220 --> 00:01:38.850 align:middle line:84% top down and with the stars tight against my body 00:01:38.850 --> 00:01:40.800 align:middle line:90% like a drunk, I'm singing. 00:01:40.800 --> 00:01:44.340 align:middle line:84% Because in a war, you taught me your people 00:01:44.340 --> 00:01:47.220 align:middle line:90% flaunt the joyous will. 00:01:47.220 --> 00:01:48.690 align:middle line:90% How is it fair? 00:01:48.690 --> 00:01:53.370 align:middle line:84% You who have raised fairness to an exquisite pitch that 00:01:53.370 --> 00:01:56.760 align:middle line:84% sounds like the wrong gear, to go on 00:01:56.760 --> 00:01:59.370 align:middle line:84% as the ever-present red light we run 00:01:59.370 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:90% parts its mouth for a tongue. 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:04.800 align:middle line:84% Three queens high on Stevie Wonder crying, 00:02:04.800 --> 00:02:08.550 align:middle line:84% where were you when I needed you last winter? 00:02:08.550 --> 00:02:11.400 align:middle line:84% Now that it is summer, and the only person 00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:16.830 align:middle line:84% I know drives by in his cab, my name on his red lips, the sun. 00:02:16.830 --> 00:02:21.630 align:middle line:84% I call back every minute of the hours, of the days of summer. 00:02:21.630 --> 00:02:26.280 align:middle line:84% Friend, not naming him, remembering his name, 00:02:26.280 --> 00:02:29.790 align:middle line:84% and that's how it's been, one with the universe. 00:02:29.790 --> 00:02:32.100 align:middle line:84% Blanking out at the Art Institute, 00:02:32.100 --> 00:02:35.820 align:middle line:84% that expensive drug cleared to black and white, 00:02:35.820 --> 00:02:39.840 align:middle line:84% like a spaceship to another galaxy, MTV. 00:02:39.840 --> 00:02:43.410 align:middle line:84% While you are happy with someone somewhere 00:02:43.410 --> 00:02:46.710 align:middle line:84% there is the same crying and laughing. 00:02:46.710 --> 00:02:51.360 align:middle line:84% Two peasants, the one you are, and I become, one day when 00:02:51.360 --> 00:02:55.260 align:middle line:90% we aren't dead to each other. 00:02:55.260 --> 00:02:58.050 align:middle line:84% I hear the story of a stripper from her mother, 00:02:58.050 --> 00:03:01.290 align:middle line:84% how she'd studied with the National Ballet, 00:03:01.290 --> 00:03:06.600 align:middle line:84% that when the lights go on, you don't pretend you're alone. 00:03:06.600 --> 00:03:07.470 align:middle line:90% I love you." 00:03:07.470 --> 00:03:10.602 align:middle line:90% 00:03:10.602 --> 00:03:13.518 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:03:13.518 --> 00:03:16.920 align:middle line:90% 00:03:16.920 --> 00:03:18.470 align:middle line:90% Thanks.