WEBVTT

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This next poem-- by the
way, most of the things

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I write about are
things that go on.

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There's enough madness around
without imagining anything.

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This is about my first romance.

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I was 15 and the
girl's name was well,

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Regina Clink Hammer
but she got to be

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known as Kenny Clink Hammer.

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And she rode a
motorcycle and guys,

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and people would not only
ride on the same motorcycle,

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they would not ride in
the same pack with her.

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I was 15 at the time
and I didn't know.

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I thought it was great.

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What do I know?

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I figured she knew
what she was doing.

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She didn't.

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When I was 15, you
were 19, getting

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me drunk in a low-slung
back of a 49 Olds

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that never took us anywhere.

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Rum and Coke, you'd
sing until I OD'd

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trying to fit my head
out the half open window.

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Do you remember old
cars by any chance?

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Like old cars, I don't know
why but the windows only

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rolled down in the back halfway.

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True.

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And I think in one
way or another,

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it is responsible
for more misshapen

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heads than anything
else, despite what

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the government will tell you.

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OK, we're getting back now.

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I had my head out the window.

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Now we're going somewhere else.

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Then into grass when spring came
onto the back of your cycle,

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for zig-zag midnight
rides, huddled

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against your cracked
leather, fingers

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numb from the morning frost.

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Back to the city of
the broken cement

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steps like the mouth of an
old man, down that grease

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yellow hall to your
constantly unlocked door.

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Struggling with our clothes,
stumbling over shadows.

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My head spinning with the
room, you whirling beneath me

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like a deranged Ferris wheel.

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The smell of gasoline
upon your body.

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I became addicted, I move
against your warm back.

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The spinning stops.

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Together we cruise
down dark country roads

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slick from the rain.

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