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Kelley Leaves Tanner's Cafe

(From "Exits on Warren Street")

Laugh. Laugh will they.

Well let them laugh.

I saw this hole when it was nothing

But a worn rag on a shoestring.

And I see it now,

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Bent old wreck that I am

With a slut of a daughter

Hanging on my back.

They'll all be bent soon enough.

Every last one of them'll be bent

Like a dead bush.

Stand there

Like fat ducks over the bar,

Always looking to see

If the next one'll suck up his words

Like his mother's milky tit:

'Hey Kelly, Hey Kelly!

How's your daughter, Kelly?

Knocked up again, Kelly?'

They'll all know soon enough.

They'll all find a yellow haired Mary

And dream big busting dreams

And build penny by penny,

Scrap by scrap,

Till all of a sudden it's forty years later

And chances don't come to broken old men

With bitches for grandchildren

And sluts for their own kids.

Let them laugh.

They'll all be stamping

On their own tongues

Before they know it.

I got time left

So's I can catch the first signs

Of their crumbling before I crack.

Old Kelly's got one laugh yet.

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