WEBVTT

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I want to read you some
stuff from the Tijuana

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Book of the Dead.

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This poem I usually like
to open with because--

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I don't know how
many poets are here,

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but sometimes, you
write lines that

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are difficult to
say to the public,

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and you'll hear
the ending of this.

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I'm going to keep my clock,
so I can watch the time.

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And this actually
came out of doing

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a lecture for the Tin
House writing conference.

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I don't know if
you know Tin House.

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Very hipster, you know.

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And we got there one year,
and the director said--

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the weirdest thing is happening.

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I said what.

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And they said people
here are asking

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for more soulful content.

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Those darn people.

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And I said, wow, that's what?

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And they said, we need you
to do a closing speech for us

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and bring the thunder.

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I'll never forget that.

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I was like, bring the thunder?

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What?

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So I didn't keep
any of that speech.

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It went over, OK, I liked it.

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But I kept the ending.

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And you'll know when
the ending comes.

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This is directly toward you--

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the ending.

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It's called "You Who Seek
Grace from a Distracted God."

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"You, who seek grace
from a distracted God,

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you, who parse the
rhetoric of empire,

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who know in your guts
what it is but don't know

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what to call it, you, good
son of a race of shadows--

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your great fortune is to have
a job, never ate government

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cheese, federal peanut butter--

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you, jerked to light from
secret dreams under your sheets,

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forgotten by 5:15 false dawn--

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you, who fall asleep where
you fall, sleep beside women

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not yours who keep
you warm, sleep

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in spare rooms of
your brothers, sleep

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in the old bed in the back
of your mother's house,

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sleep where you are
closest to a bus line--

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you, who can't believe
your mom rose at 4:45

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to fry one huevo,
one slice of bologna

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laid on a corn tortilla--

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border benedict--
here's your chance

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to drag home eighty dollars
a week, for her electric.

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Food.

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What's left you spend on used
paperbacks, a matinee, amigos,

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bus fare--

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pay the ticket back to work.

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You kneel in mom's broken
tub now, no shower--

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no heat-- plastic tarp
over crumbled wall--

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going to fix that
for real one day--

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soon-- no shampoo?

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Scrub your scalp with dish soap.

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Shiver.

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5:35.

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Hop-to-- got a mile to
hustle to the express stop.

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You, who have no car, rush past
houses windows bright behind

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driveway Cadillacs-- neighbors
you never speak to stir

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their money in golden pots for
all you know, heat turned high,

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showers running-- and up
boyhood's hill you biked down

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all those gone years ago, head
alight with high school hopes--

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the poetry of Becky's
eyes, Colette's laughter,

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Li'l Mousie's big black
avalanche of hair, letters

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in your back pocket from
someone else's sweetheart--

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walk on blood stains brown
now where the duplex bully

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crashed his stolen dirt
bike into a trailer hitch

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last month.

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You, who have Echo and
the Bunnymen hair, go.

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Go.

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Hike fast, man.

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It's 5:45.

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You long to sleep beside a
woman you cannot possibly love.

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You reach the bench by 6:00.

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Still dark, but far
mountains flame.

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In orange light coming
on-- around you,

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coughing angels smoke,
Guadalupes whisper--

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maids in sweaters, men in
work boots and Levi's watching

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for the 50 to come,
watching the clock,

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working for kids, for
families, for parents,

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and already the
radio pharisee vomits

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rerun clots of fetid
blood upon their heads,

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these calloused
children, these mothers,

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these illegals, these greasers,
these wetbacks, these narcos,

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these gang-related
Hispanics, these beaners,

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these pepper-bellies, these
spics, these taco-benders,

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these Aztecs, these
social-security savages,

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these gitanos, these
papists, these aliens--

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someone laughs, so do
you, all together now.

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Bus comes, gasp, doors unfold
like aluminum scorpion jaws--

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Oh Christ everybody
there just dug

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panicked between couch
pillows for enough coins

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to pay the fare--

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one more late day and you're
all fired and some of you

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wept while digging.

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Praying the invisible
man's prayer; ay,,,

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por favor, por
favor, por favor--

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doors chew closed.

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You're in.

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You drop downhill
toward black water

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and veer south to
the sleeping city--

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bays and harbors full of oil
don't invite any one of you

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to swim.

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Bus transfers in grim
fists worried and twisted--

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busmen catching more buses,
riders catching red trolleys

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to get the jobs nobody
wanted but everyone needed,

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catching hell from foremen who
have never read a single poem

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and never will--

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gardeners nails
soiled black, they're

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sleeping now, harrowing small
hedgerows of last dreams,

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mouths open, men and women
borrowing more seconds of life,

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of home, of Spanish, of
grandparents, of mangos,

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of bailes de primavera, of days
before heavy work boots or maid

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shoes, days of never
ending nothing,

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o Elohim, old days they swayed
like alamos in breezes, days

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before headless men were left in
the topaz dawn on the pueblo's

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plaza, before the
desert women were left

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dismantled for buzzards.

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And you, who cannot sleep,
you bless these great unseen,

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you stare at the world
made of Alka-Seltzer,

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fizzing away in the light.

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Still.

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You pull the cord.

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7:00.

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Same old downtown street.

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Same day every day, you blink
on Avenue C-- fog disembarks

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at the docks, follows
sailors drunk and whoring

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before breakfast down Broadway.

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Strange days.

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Echoes flee the county jail
cold beside you-- voices--

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hymns of rage-- inmate
and trustee, some of them

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your cousins, sing
night's vigils.

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They're over now.

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Offer-- hosannas of longing--

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Patri et Filio-- in
tedium you walk silent,

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counting your manifold
sins, to the plaza,

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stand in the crush
of your family--

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these children heading
for trade school,

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the wheelchair man, the
woman and her shopping cart,

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the nodding hooker with
blue tears on her cheek,

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paisanos, y borrachos, Ticos,
Boricuas, Xicanos, Apaches,

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Tainos, Habaneras,
cariocas, Mayas, tattooed

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cholo samurai'd and
inscrutable leaning back,

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hushed as he watches you.

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And you to, you want
to, you're burning

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with it, you who
have no words, you

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want a cup their
cheeks in your hands.

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You want to hold their
faces between your palms.

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You want to say it-- say it,
you have nothing to lose--

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say it-- say I love you.

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I love you.

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I love you.

00:08:42.179 --> 00:08:43.500 align:middle line:90%
I love you.

00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:44.880 align:middle line:90%
I love you.

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I love you.

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I love you."

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Amen.

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[APPLAUSE]

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