When Rock 'n Roll Was A Teenager

When rock ‘n roll was a teenager,
Great Balls Of Fire
was throwing punches
at a man twice its age
on a gravel parking lot in
Westport, Illinois,
laughing and drinking Jim Beam
straight from
the bottle,
between ducks and jabs.

When rock ‘n roll was a teenager,
Heartbreak Hotel
had its finger up the local car hop
after she closed down A&W for the night,
her hand around its hard dick,
pumping it slowly,
in the back seat at the drive-in movie,
Marlon Brando
in The Wild One
on the screen.

When rock ‘n roll was a teenager,
Only The Lonely
was in the county jail locked up for
drunk and disorderly, reading
Tropic of Cancer and writing poems
of sex, rage, and revolution,
trying to conceive a way
to escape from jail by taking its own life,
but, oh, we all know, rock ‘n roll
can never, will never die!