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I'm called "Palominos."

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I tend to over talk this poem,
I'll try not to in the preface.

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In the poem, there are several
unreal palominos and at least

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one real palomino.

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And I think of the
palominos, the word palomino,

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the speaker thinks
of the palominos

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as symbols of the
imagination in some way.

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And perhaps you could think of
the way in which the imagination

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can possibly save us in
the ways in which it can't.

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"Palominos."

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"In Manhattan, when
the flies gathered

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around the mouth
of a wino sticking

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in the muscatel on his chin and
dying, I was feeding a palomino.

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I have always been
feeding a palomino.

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When the tanks rolled
in Athens, the palomino

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I needed for departure
finished the last of my apples.

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In Spain, when the guardia
raised his machine gun,

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I was feeding a palomino
though my hands appeared

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to be reaching into the air.

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I could do it in my sleep in a
room half the size of a palomino

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if I had to.

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It's a luxury, the way escaping
through the window of an office

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that never existed
is a luxury, only men

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who feed palominos really know.

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Can you understand?

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Beneath my shirt where my heart
once was a small orphan palomino

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moans when women slip
their hands inside.

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This is his only food and he
hasn't been eating well lately.

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Once in Aruba, the dark
hands of a prostitute

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turned him into a stallion.

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And in Denver one
cold afternoon,

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I tried feeding him
with my own hands,

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but he knew the difference.

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Bit at my shirt, bit at my
invisible palomino monogram,

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left me naked, open to ridicule.

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But I would never stop
feeding palominos.

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At dinner last night in
that peculiar silence that

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follows burnt vegetables,
overdone beef, several palominos

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licked my fingers
beneath the table.

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One of them was pregnant,
she ate like a horse

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and I climbed on her and
she took me for a ride

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where other palominos were and
the dinner became meaningless,

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and I loved my wife.

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That is what palominos will
do for you if you feed them,

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it is their special dignity,
their hunger for the loose hay

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we all have lying around.

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Right now, there are
carrots in my pocket that

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look like palominos
would love them

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if the occasion ever arises.

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But here on this farm outside of
Syracuse, things are so quiet,

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the summer is practically
over and there's a palomino

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out back who is so real.

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I must feed her every day.

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Happy or not.

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She is very beautiful,
but she cannot be counted

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on in emergencies."

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[APPLAUSE]

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