WEBVTT

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I've only read that
one once before,

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and this one I
never read at all.

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I can read a bunch of poems
I've never read before.

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This one's called "Homage
to Cesare Pavese."

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Cesare Pavese was an
Italian poet and novelist

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who died in 1950 by his
own hand in a hotel room

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in his hometown, Turin, Italy.

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Probably the most significant
contemporary novelist

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that Italy had up to that
time, and perhaps even still.

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And this poem takes
off from some of his--

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a couple of his poems and some
lines from his autobiography.

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I did several poems where I
was working with texts, which

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is to say I wasn't sharp
enough to do the translations,

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so I did variations.

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They're not exactly imitations,
but they are variations,

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and then have some of my
own stuff in here too.

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The first line is a
very-- in the poem--

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that repeats is a very
famous line of a Pavese poem.

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"Homage to Cesare Pavese."

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He killed himself because of
an unfortunate love affair.

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But it was the last of a series
of unfortunate love affairs

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that he'd had.

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And he killed himself
over an American actress.

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You never heard of her, so I
won't even tell you her name.

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"Homage to Cesare Pavese."

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"Death will come and it will
have your eyes from morning

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to morning, sleepless,
an old remorse.

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Your eyes will be
vain words of silence

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you'll see as you lean out
to the mirror each day,

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the one look that
it has for everyone.

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It will be like
ooze from the sea,

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like stopping a
vice and the sin.

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It will be like
stopping the sin.

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It will be the dead face in the
mirror listening to shut lips.

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It will descend silently,
ceaselessly, into whirlpools.

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Death will come and it will
have your eyes, ridiculous vice

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and the same look.

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You are the great weariness.

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You are scorched and
burned back by the sea.

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You say nothing, and
nobody speaks to you.

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This is a balance sheet
and the names don't count.

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One nail on top of another,
four nails make a cross.

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Nothing can add to the past--

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woman is as woman does, and
night is always the night.

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With its black heart and its
black hands it lays me down."

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