He lived for four decades with only old newsprint | 1 |
stacked high alongside cheesecake glory | 2 |
girls that never dumped, except for the one, | 3 |
the girl he dumped along with himself. | 4 |
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He faked out contentment in clapboard | 5 |
on blocks at Powersville, Georgia: | 6 |
a water stop, whistle stop, all trains long gone. | 7 |
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Inside his parlor, amidst much detritus | 8 |
stood an upright Graphonola he wound | 9 |
up for me when I was eleven, | 10 |
when our family ventured | 11 |
a first and a last | 12 |
visit to meet our great- | 13 |
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Uncle Bubba: | 14 |
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thin and flame-haired, squirrelly, loquacious; | 15 |
an old spruce in gum shoes, delighted to | 16 |
vault over piles to show off his place | 17 |
to our family; family he had denied | 18 |
from himself ever since sometime | 19 |
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around 1928: | 20 |
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DAMN, bitch! You said you was barren! | 21 |
That ain't no seed of mine, you harlot | 22 |
from HELL, I ain't PAYIN' one dime for your brat. | 23 |
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I learned of that speech well | 24 |
after his death, after he wore out | 25 |
imprinting on pulp images of perfection | 26 |
in women, with only his mother's dark talking | 27 |
machine for companionship. | 28 |
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Death made a repair | 29 |
for the hermit's spurned son: the '31 Chrysler | 30 |
hidden new in the barn, and the shack, and | 31 |
Bubba's land and his bonds and stashed cash; | 32 |
all that was claimed except for a coffin that | 33 |
the son surrendered and then sent to me, | 34 |
a fourteen year old boy in Miami. | 35 |
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Uncle Bubba's Graphonola scratches still today | 36 |
from the past. It contains Uncle Bubba, | 37 |
July, 1965: | 38 |
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Boy, it works like this. | 39 |
The horn is hid behind them flap doors. | 40 |
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Back when your momma was a tiny thing, | 41 |
she points to the horn, and she says, so sweet | 42 |
and so damn cute, | 43 |
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'Oh! Is there a little person living inside?' | 44 |
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http://img489.imageshack.us/my.php?image=graphonola5mq.jpg | 45 |
1918 Columbia Graphonola | 46 |