WEBVTT

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I have three more for
you, two of them are long

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and one's a little bit shorter.

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I started this
poem on February 3

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and it's about the
Atlanta child murders.

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And I started of course,
before the series was on TV,

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but they were showing
those scenes from it

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the whole time and that.

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And one night I
was just thinking,

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I felt like writing a poem
and that popped into my head

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and then I said oh, I don't want
to, but it is really sometimes

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as if you aren't--

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you're not quite in control.

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Sometimes I read my
stuff and I feel, wow,

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what is going on in that brain.

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Anyway I couldn't
really work on it

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at night it was too
creepy for me to write,

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and I write like from 11
to midnight and 10 to 12

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in the morning when I'm
not teaching or something.

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So I just worked in the morning.

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So anyway it's so
recent that it's still

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got all these little things I
think that it is finished now,

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but if I make a mistake
because I haven't really

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read it before.

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This is called
The Good Shepherd:

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Atlanta 1981, 81 is when the
murders I guess basically

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stopped.

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I lift the boy's
body from the trunk,

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set it down, then with my foot
push it over the embankment.

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I watch it roll
down into the river

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and feel I'm rolling with it.

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Feel the first cold
slap of the water,

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then I wheeze and
fall down on one knee.

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So tired, so cold, Lord I need
a new coat, not polyester,

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but wool, new and pure like the
little lamb I killed tonight.

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With my right hand, that same
hand that hits with such force,

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I push myself up gently.

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I know what I'd like, some
hot cocoa by the heater.

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The boy's bones scraped
clean and ground to nothing.

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Oh, come lie down with me.

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Once home I stand at the kitchen
sink letting the water run

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till it overflows the pot.

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Then I remember the blood in
the bathroom, and so upstairs.

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I take the cleanser, begin
to scrub the tubs, tile,

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the toilet bowl, then the
bedroom, mop, vacuum, and dust:

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rag work, work
for the joy of it,

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for the Black boys who
know too much but not

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enough to stay away.

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And sometimes the girl, the
girls too: how their hands grab

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at my ankles, my knees,
and don't I lead them

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like a good shepherd?

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I stand at the sink
where the water is still

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overflowing the pot,

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turn off the faucet, then
heat the water, and sit down.

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After the last sweet mouthful
of chocolate burns its way

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down my throat I open
the library book,

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the one on mythology,
and begin to read.

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Saturn, it says,
devours his children.

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Yes, it's true, I know it.

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An ordinary man, though, a
man like me, eats and is full.

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Only God is never satisfied.

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[APPLAUSE]

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