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This poem is taken from PN Review 36, Volume 10 Number 4, March - April 1984.

C. & W. Michael Hofmann

Musicians from the cradle . . . Birth, marriage
and death, to the whine of steel guitars.
Rows of petticoats - high kicks at the hoe-down.
You start putting a few words together
for a song, and they turn into a complaint.

I'm a simple man. Living is never easy,
but women are flowers when you can get them.
And they can be mean, or they cheat on you . . .
...


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