WEBVTT

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Well, the "Last Lie" was a
strange rip-off of Keats.

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You recognize that, right?

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But just having
fun with the dead.

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OK.

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I call this a haibun.

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That is this Japanese
poetic prose form punctuated

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by fits of verse so haibun.

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"Song of the Sad Guitar."

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"In the bitter
year of 1988, I was

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banished to San
Diego, California

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to become a wife there.

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It was summer.

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I was buying groceries under the
yin and yang sign of Safeway.

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In the parking lot--

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in the parking lot the puppies
were howling to a familiar tune

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on a guitar plucked with a
zest and angst of the '60s.

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I asked the player her name.

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She answered, 'Stone Orchid.

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But if you call me,
that I'll kill you.'

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I said, 'Yes, perhaps Stone is
too harsh for one with a voice

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so pure.'

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She said, 'It's the
orchid I detest.

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It's prissy, cliche,
and forever pink.'

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From my shopping bag I
handed her a Tsingtao

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and urged her to play on.

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She sang about
hitchhiking around

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the country, moons and lakes,
homeward honking geese, scholars

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who failed examination,
men leaving for war,

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women climbing the watchtower.

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There were courts, more courts,
and innermost courts and scions

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who pillaged the country.

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Suddenly I began to feel
deeply about my own banishment,

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the singer I could
have been, what

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the world looked like in spring,
that Motown collection I lost.

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I urged her to play on.

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Trickle, trickle,
the falling rain.

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Ming, ming, a deer
lost in the forest.

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Surru, surru, a
secret conversation.

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Hung, hung a dog in the yard.

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Then she changed her
mood to a slower lament,

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trilled a song
macabre about death,

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about a guitar case that
opened like a coffin.

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Each string vibrant,
each note a thought.

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Tell me, Orchid,
where are we going?

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'The book of changes
does not signify change.

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The laws are immutable.

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Our fates are
sealed,' said Orchid.

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The song is a dirge
and an awakening.

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Two years after our
meeting I became deranged.

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I couldn't cook, couldn't clean.

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My house turned into a pigsty.

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My children became delinquents.

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My husband began a long lusty
affair with another woman.

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The house burned during
a feverish Santa Ana.

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And I sat in a pink cranny
above the garage singing

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at 20 I marry you, at 30 I begin
hating everything that you do.

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One day while I was
driving down Mulberry Lane,

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a voice came over the radio.

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It was Stone Orchid.

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She said, 'This is a song
for an old friend of mine.

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Her name is Mei Ling.

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She's a warm and sensitive
housewife now living

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in Hell's Creek, California.

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I've dedicated this
special song for her,

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'The Song of the Sad Guitar.'

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I am now beginning to understand
the song within the song,

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the weeping within the willow.

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And you out there walking,
talking seemingly alive may

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truly be dead and waiting to be
summoned by the sound of the sad

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guitar."

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