WEBVTT

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A wonderful audience.

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I call this poem "Reggae Renga."

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And let me explain the
title, Renga purely

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means that it's linked
verse and in this case,

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it's a series of 12
haiku epigram hybrids;

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each line is end stopped
and is self-contained.

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And each moment,
which-- each moment is

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distilled moment and so forth.

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Reggae, reggae because
it's a protest poem

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and because I wrote
the first draft

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while listening to Bob
Marley's I Shot the Sheriff.

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And hence, we have Reggae Renga.

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A man flat on his back
can't go to the doctor.

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Let him die woman, so that
he will no longer beat you.

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He says, meet me at the hallowed
temple near the Buddha's

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topknot.

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He is dying, dying
fast in his delirium,

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he is ever so beautiful.

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I am late and reach only
as far as the ear lobes

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where I hear he has gone.

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There are trees on the mountains
and branches on the trees.

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My anger so clear,
I can see the hairs

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on the caterpillar and
the wind on the hairs.

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I can tell the paths
that he has violated

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by the bent lay of the grasses.

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Within him is a worm that
loves itself and forgets

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whom he is loving, his
mouth or his asshole.

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Near the tombstone
is a plum tree.

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A cock crows upon it saying,
man, you are no good.

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The people of my
country are baleful.

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They've sent me to accuse you.

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What is your ailment,
wretched white, your ailment,

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will no birds sing?

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[APPLAUSE]

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