WEBVTT

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OK.

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This next poem is called
"A Walk in the Park."

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It's a little bit
longer, and it starts

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because I was thinking about--

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I was thinking about
Plato's Republic.

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And in book 10 of
Plato's Republic,

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this really weird thing happens.

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He spends nine chapters talking
about the perfect city-state,

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which, by the way, he said
the poets should be kicked out

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of because we tell lies.

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But in book 10, he suddenly
tells you the myth of Er,

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E-R. Er is a soldier who's died,
and he goes to the afterlife.

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And he is given the
gift of coming back

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to the world of the
living to tell us

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all what the afterlife is like.

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And as Plato is
relaying this myth,

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he describes this thing
called the Wheel of Necessity,

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which is a spindle
that turns the orbit

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threads of the planets.

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And this turning spindle
is the primary mover

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of the souls of the dead into
their next bodies on Earth,

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a poem about embodiment.

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And this Wheel of Necessity
is attended by the goddess

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Necessity in her threefold form,
The Fates, who maybe some of us

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are more familiar with,
who spin, measure,

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and cut each length of life.

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So I'm thinking about this
while I'm walking in a park,

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and you're going
to come with me.

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"A Walk in the Park."

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To be born again, you need

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an incarnation
specialist-- a team

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from the Bureau of Needles

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to thread you through--

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Your next life

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turns

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on an axle of light--

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which Plato likens

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to a turning

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spindle-- what was that?

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I mean I knew

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what a spindle was

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from fairytales-- how it could

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draw blood

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from a testing
finger, put a kingdom

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to sleep--

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but what

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did it actually do, how

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did a spindle look

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in real life?

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I didn't know.

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As with

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so many things--

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there was fact and there was

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a believed-in dream.

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Everyone had them back

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in the ancient day,

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spindles.

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When we had to weave

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our living-shrouds

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by hand.

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"A slender rounded rod

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with tapered ends," Google said.

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Plato's,

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so heavy with thread,

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when viewed from the side,

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looked like a top--

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though most diagrams assumed

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the hawk-lord view.

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Moon threads, threads of
the planets, earth thread.

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Your thread.

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Everyone else's.

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Nested one

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inside the other, a roulette

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machine--

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If a thread could be spun
from liquid light was what

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I kept thinking--

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imagining a sluice

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of electric souls

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between the earth wheel's rims--

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there "I"

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was a piece of water, Necessity

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wheeled it around--

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Necessity,

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who was married to Time,

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according to the Greeks--

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Mother of the Fates.

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Who would measure and cut your

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paradise/shithole extra life.

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Well we all have ways
of thinking about

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why,

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metaphysically-speaking,
anyone's born--

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though the answer's
always Life's

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I AM THAT I AM

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--how it hurls and breaks!

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on Death's No there

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there--

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--which sounded
kind of Buddhist.

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According to the
teachings we were all

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each other's dream.

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And soon able to vanish--

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out of the real

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without having to die, whoever's

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got the cash-- to pay

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the brainier ones

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to perfect

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a Heaven upload-- to cut

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the flesh-tether

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and merge

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with the Cloud.

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Well we all have
ways of constructing

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Paradise.

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To walk alone deep in thought

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in a city park

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was mine

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for several minutes,

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thinking about spindles.

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Before the vigilance

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of my genderdoom

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kicked in.

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And there it was, the fact

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of my body--

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All the nerves in my scalp

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and the back of my neck,

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alive--

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How it moved through
space, how close

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it had strayed

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toward concealing trees, my

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female body--

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Jewish body-- inside my

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White body-- dreaming

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it was bodiless

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and free--

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to decide--

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how and when and if to
fill the body's hungers--

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how and when and if
to walk in thought

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through the wilderness--

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before Death comes
with its Fascist hat.

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Its Park Murder Misogyny hat.

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Its Year Ten in a
Nursing Home stink

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hat--

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However spun

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my thread.

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Anyway--

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[COUGHS] Excuse me.

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Anyway,

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it's peaceful here

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in the park, at midday,

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if a little deserted.

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I've moved to the
path that winds

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closer to the street.

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Thinking again, as I always do,

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about body and soul.

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How they

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infuse each other.

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How they

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hate each other.

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How most people
pledge allegiance

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to one or the other.

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How painful it was!

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To be

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such a split

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creature--