WEBVTT

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This next poem is called,
"It's not the heat so much

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as the humidity."

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[LAUGHTER]

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It was written moving on--

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upon moving back to my
place of birth Kansas City.

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And I hadn't lived there
in about eight years

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but I feel this irresistible
urge to go back this summer.

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Only a dish of blueberries
could pull me out

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of this lingering funk.

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I'm tired of taking the kids
down to watch the riots.

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No longer impressed with
fancy electrical nets.

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Sick of supersonic nightsticks.

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By myself a hot dog and a
glass of beer, that helps.

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It's hard to say who's
winning, nobody is winning.

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Boy, Kansas City, big
zoo, oriental art,

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starlight theater,
Annie Get Your Gun

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going into its 17th year.

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[LAUGHTER]

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Once I met Tab Hunter there.

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[LAUGHTER]

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4 o'clock in the
morning standing

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in line at the Coke machine.

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So tall and blond though not
much of a conversationalist.

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's good to be home.

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Trying to soften the
blow for young girls

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who are inclined to fall
off of their porches.

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Some of my best friends
are curse on those

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who do or do not take dope.

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[LAUGHTER]

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When autumn comes
or when fall arrives

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in her chemise of
zillion colors,

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I will sign noisily as if an old
and disgusting leg had finally

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dropped off.

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No more drinking beer, no
more the perpetual search

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for an air conditioned friend.

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No more friends.

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I'll take piano lessons, French
lessons, speed reading lessons.

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And if there is still time
to kill, golf at a blue

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jay tumbling out
of the maple tree.

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Cars slide by with their
windows up whispering

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of a Mexican restaurant with
really good chile verde.

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The gutters billow
with mauve death.

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A mother's sad voice sends
out a tugboat whistle

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through the purple mist.

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She worries about her children.

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And the dangerous
fishhook of melancholy

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dangles from every dog's ear.

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The dog that saved my life
that keeps on saving it

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each long humid night.

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The dead dog.

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And so a shiny baseball
hovers over the city.

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No one asks why.

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And so it passes on.

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And so a telephone starts to
ring in a widow's cake filled

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kitchen.

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A roller skate collides
with a lunch pail.

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[APPLAUSE]

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