WEBVTT

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The last poem in of those books.

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And it was a poem that kind
of ended a way of writing.

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It was the title poem of
the last of the books,

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and it was called The
Drunk In The Furnace.

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And I guess it's
always as good way

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of leaving those poems as any.

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"For a good decade
the furnace stood

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in the naked gully, fire-less
and vacant as any hat.

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Then when it was no more to
them than a hulking black fossil

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to erode unnoticed with
the rest of the junk hill

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by the poisonous
Creek, and rapidly

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to be added to their ignorance.

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They were afterwards astonished
to confirm one morning

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a twist of smoke like a pale
resurrection staggering out

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of its chewed hole.

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And to remark than other tokens
that someone causally bolted

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behind the eye hold iron
door of the drafty burner

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had there established
his bad castle.

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Where he gets his
spirits it's a mystery.

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But the stuff keeps him musical.

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Hammer and anvilling
with poker and bottle

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to his jagged bellowing.

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Till the last groaning clang as
he collapses onto the rioting

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springs of a litter of car
seats arranged on the grates

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to sleep like an iron pig.

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In their tar paper church,
on a text about stoke holes

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that are sated never.

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Their reverend lingers.

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They nod and hate trespassers.

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When the furnace
wakes though, all

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afternoon their witless
offspring flock like pipe rats

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to its siren crescendo.

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And agape on the crumbling
ridge stand in a row and learn."

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I maybe should have put a little
bit of introductory material

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in front of that.

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I mean, my father's and
mothers both their families

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come from Western Pennsylvania.

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Sort of unrecognizable now as
it would have been to my father

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as a child.

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But it was small steel mills,
and coke ovens, and so forth

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along the river.

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And then wild
country up behind it.

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And it all follow the river.

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And they were mainly very
fundamentalist protestants

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and very anti drink.

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Of course, naturally quite
a few of them drank and--

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[LAUGHTER]

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