WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.010 align:middle line:84% We are in an interesting political season. 00:00:04.010 --> 00:00:07.490 align:middle line:84% I'm going to say something and I don't-- 00:00:07.490 --> 00:00:09.325 align:middle line:84% this may have been our last election. 00:00:09.325 --> 00:00:12.140 align:middle line:90% 00:00:12.140 --> 00:00:13.740 align:middle line:90% I live in Texas. 00:00:13.740 --> 00:00:19.770 align:middle line:84% I'm often engaging our Texas state legislature, 00:00:19.770 --> 00:00:23.670 align:middle line:84% and I can tell you from the great state of Texas, 00:00:23.670 --> 00:00:25.030 align:middle line:90% fascism is already there. 00:00:25.030 --> 00:00:27.860 align:middle line:90% 00:00:27.860 --> 00:00:31.160 align:middle line:84% And so this poem came out of an experience 00:00:31.160 --> 00:00:34.520 align:middle line:84% of testifying in front of the state legislature 00:00:34.520 --> 00:00:39.620 align:middle line:84% and watching legislators turn their back on me, because I 00:00:39.620 --> 00:00:42.590 align:middle line:84% disagreed with a bill that would have limited what 00:00:42.590 --> 00:00:46.470 align:middle line:84% we could say happened in America in terms of American history. 00:00:46.470 --> 00:00:50.570 align:middle line:84% I watched Republicans get up and leave. 00:00:50.570 --> 00:00:57.810 align:middle line:84% So this poem doesn't do the memoiristic approach to it, 00:00:57.810 --> 00:00:59.360 align:middle line:90% but you'll see. 00:00:59.360 --> 00:01:02.840 align:middle line:84% It's called In The House of Senators. 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:07.740 align:middle line:84% Better the decency of living with lions rather than saints 00:01:07.740 --> 00:01:11.480 align:middle line:84% who stand at a bank of elevators in the heavenly shaped parking 00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:14.780 align:middle line:84% garage, ignoring you who were once a colleague, 00:01:14.780 --> 00:01:18.020 align:middle line:84% in touching the ear back mouth of a soul 00:01:18.020 --> 00:01:21.630 align:middle line:84% and shattering it into ink, ecstasy, profit. 00:01:21.630 --> 00:01:26.310 align:middle line:84% Now you who were a golden hand are an antelope languishing 00:01:26.310 --> 00:01:28.450 align:middle line:90% in the low church of the city. 00:01:28.450 --> 00:01:32.070 align:middle line:84% A common animal too feral for firm jobs 00:01:32.070 --> 00:01:34.180 align:middle line:84% in the firmament of righteous labor. 00:01:34.180 --> 00:01:38.250 align:middle line:84% So the saint looks down at his calfskin covered feet, twists 00:01:38.250 --> 00:01:41.890 align:middle line:84% the knot of silk at his neck, coughs into his blue hands, 00:01:41.890 --> 00:01:47.020 align:middle line:84% mumbling of unclean animals at every turn of his off eye. 00:01:47.020 --> 00:01:51.420 align:middle line:84% Better to live with lions who take you into the grass 00:01:51.420 --> 00:01:54.060 align:middle line:84% after having prayed for your delivery and blood 00:01:54.060 --> 00:01:56.760 align:middle line:84% not for its change, but for its sustenance 00:01:56.760 --> 00:02:02.160 align:middle line:84% and pulse as is funky in the vernacular of its horn, split 00:02:02.160 --> 00:02:04.170 align:middle line:90% hooves and heavy running. 00:02:04.170 --> 00:02:08.410 align:middle line:84% Better what can be outran and bows to its loss. 00:02:08.410 --> 00:02:13.800 align:middle line:84% The lion in its loss bows to that which outruns it. 00:02:13.800 --> 00:02:17.280 align:middle line:84% Unlike the saint in prayer, who sends his heart wrapped 00:02:17.280 --> 00:02:20.160 align:middle line:84% in sashed and purloined silk, robed 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:23.380 align:middle line:84% in arrows onto the back of a black stallion made of ash, 00:02:23.380 --> 00:02:27.910 align:middle line:84% sends it anywhere his eye fields the unclean thing, 00:02:27.910 --> 00:02:31.450 align:middle line:84% the unclean spirit, and calls for a miracle, 00:02:31.450 --> 00:02:33.430 align:middle line:90% which is the death of living. 00:02:33.430 --> 00:02:35.800 align:middle line:84% Living without the need for miracles, 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:37.770 align:middle line:84% which is a living I would rather: 00:02:37.770 --> 00:02:39.660 align:middle line:90% life at the mouth of lions. 00:02:39.660 --> 00:02:41.510 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:02:41.510 --> 00:02:48.000 align:middle line:90%