WEBVTT

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Something less grim.

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A few years ago, when
the skyjacking thing

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was at its height, I saw
on the 6 o'clock news

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that they had come up with
a psychological profile

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to catch potential skyjackers.

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And I was going to be doing some
flying in the next few weeks,

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and that terrified
me because I knew I

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would exhibit all the symptoms.

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This poem is called "On
hearing the airlines will use

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a psychological profile to
catch potential skyjackers."

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Mouthful.

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"They will catch me as
sure as the checkout

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girls in every Woolworths
have caught me.

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The badge of my imagined
theft shining in their eyes.

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I'll be approaching the ticket
counter and knowing myself,

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my selves will affect the
nonchalance of a baron.

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That is what they'll
be looking for.

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I'll say, certainly is nice
that the airlines are taking

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these precautions, and
the man behind the counter

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will press a secret button.

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There'll be a hand
on my shoulder.

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This will have happened before
in a dream, and in a back room

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they'll ask me, why
were you going to do it?

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I'll say, you wouldn't believe I
just wanted to get to Cleveland.

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No, they'll say.

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So I'll tell them everything--
the plot to get the Pulitzer

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Prize in exchange
for the airplane,

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the bomb in my pencil, heroin
and the heel of my boot.

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Inevitably, it'll be
downtown for booking, newsmen

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pumping me for deprivation
during childhood--

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the essential cause.

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There is no one cause
for any human act,

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I'll tell them,
thinking finally,

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a chance to let the public in on
the themes of great literature.

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And on and on, celebrating
myself, offering no resistance,

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assuming what they assume,
knowing in a sense there's no

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such thing as the wrong man."

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