WEBVTT

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I'll read two more poems from
the book, the second of which I

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actually wrote while I was
last in Tucson, so I thought

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it would be appropriate
for me to read it

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I. Was just telling Tyler
I wrote half of it--

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an unlikely combination of
cities-- half of it in Montreal

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and the other half in
Tucson when I was last year

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back in 2018.

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But the poem I'll
read before that

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is called "Diet Mountain Dew."

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It's a beverage that's
near and dear to me,

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or it was near and dear to me
at the time when I wrote this,

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knowing that it's not
the best thing to drink,

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I've tried to curb
it a bit and I've

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had some success in
that respect but there

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was a time when I
did fully embrace it

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as a necessary
toxicity in my life.

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"Diet Mountain Dew."

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I have built my ship of death
and when a wind kicks up

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I'll cut it loose to do its
thing across an unnamed lake

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of you, a firefly sent pulsing
through the nonstop estivation

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of the verses of our South,
who in its larval phase

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would feast on bitter worms
and snails, who emerges

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from its mud chamber,
our planet's most

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efficient luminescence,
who turns chemical

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energy into radiant energy
shedding very little heat,

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so will I sail the compass of
you pleased with my cold light.

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I have built my ship of death
aglow in sturdy chemicals

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and powered up at night
like American Express.

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I'm all customer service only
minus the customer, no service

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to speak of other than death.

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You will know my logo by
its absence and slogan

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from the past ad for the sugared
style of you on TV in my youth.

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It goes like this: when my
thirst is at its worst...

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and then I let it trail off
into the unsayable, or is

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it just unsaid because my
mouth is full of you again.

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A green like no other
green in the dale,

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indelicate green or green
indecent, surpassing the fern

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and sprout in April's
optimistic leaflet

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some stop to admire in nature.

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They take photographs non
cognizant of other vehicles.

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You are too green
for pasture, you

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are my green oncoming
vehicle, usurper

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of green, assassin to the
grasshopper and its plan.

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I put me in your path which is
the path a planet takes when

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it means to destroy another.

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I think you know
I'm OK with that.

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A green like no other green
resplendid in production

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since 1940, when brothers Barney
and Ally Hartman cooked it up

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in Tennessee qua
private mixer named

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after moonshine,
its formula then

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revised by Bill Bridgforth of
the Tri-City Beverage Corp.

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in 1958, year Linwood
Burton, chemically inclined

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entrepreneur and ship
cleaning service owner,

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sold his formula for a
relatively safe maritime

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solvent to Procter
& Gamble of Ohio,

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who went on to market it
under the name of Mr. Clean

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(this is by) whose
green approaches yours,

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then at the last second
swerves into a joke.

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Yellow plays on green to make
blue jealous till it blows up

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in its face but can't
not love the smell of it,

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citrus re-imagined by an
extraterrestrial lizard which

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is to say inhuman in the
way you say inhuman to me,

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a compliment unraveled
in the drawl,

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hey you, over there: you look
so unaccustomed to temporality

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I would have sworn you were
inhuman, and time for it after

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time I fall, further
evidence of my humanity--

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I am at heart no less
susceptible to rot

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than the felt hat on the
head of the rifle toting

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barefoot hillbilly, your mascot
until he disappeared in 1969.

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Instinct says he must
have shot his self

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in the woods in the mouth
one sunrise when a frost was

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at hand and the
apples fell thick,

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and he was way too
awake when he did so,

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not to think there
would be another waiting

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like a can of you and the
12-pack in my refrigerator.

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I have built my ship
of death and enough

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already, every toxic sip of
you preparing for the journey

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to bloviation, I
have to return--

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and I have leave to return
and return to depart again

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the stronger for a satisfaction
being bound to no port

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has afforded me.

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I have built my ship of
death so that even when

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I crawl back down into
the hold of it, alive

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as what unnaturalness
and you can keep me,

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it's only to emerge
from the other end of it

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intact and perfectly prepared
to be your grasshopper.

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