there's a blur drizzle down the plateglass
|
as a neon swizzle stick stirrin up the sultry night air
|
and a yellow biscuit of a buttery cue ball moon
|
rollin' maverick across an obsidian sky
|
as the busses go groanin' and wheezin',
|
down on the corner I'm freezin';
|
on a restless boulevard at a midnight road
|
I'm across town from EASY STREET
|
with the tight knots of moviegoers and out of towners on the stroll
|
and the buildings towering high above
|
lit like dominoes or black dice
|
all the used car salesmen dressed up in Purina Checkerboard slacks
|
and Foster Grant wrap-around,
|
pacing in front of EARL SCHLEIB $39.95 merchandise
|
like barkers at a shootin' gallery
|
they throw out kind of a Texas Guinan routine
|
"Hello sucker, we like your money
|
just as well as anybody else's here"
|
or they give you the P.T. Barnum bit
|
"There's a sucker born every minute
|
you just happened to be comin' along at the right time"
|
come over here now
|
you know... all the harlequin sailors are on the stroll
|
in a search of "LIKE NEW," "NEW PAINT,"
|
decent factory air and AM-FM dreams
|
and the piss yellow gypsy cabs
|
stacked up in the taxi zones waitin' like pinball machines
|
to be ticking off a joy ride to a magical place
|
waitin' in line like "truckers welcome" diners
|
with dirt lots full of
|
Peterbilts, Kenworths, Jimmy's and the like, and
|
they're hiballin' with bankrupt brakes, over driven
|
under paid, over fed, a day late and a dollar short
|
but Christ I got my lips around a bottle and
|
my foot on the throttle and I'm standin' on the corner
|
standin' on the corner like a "just in town"
|
jasper, on a street corner with a gasper lookin'
|
for some kind of Cheshire billboard grin
|
stroking a goateed chin, and using parking meters
|
as walking sticks on the inebriated stroll
|
with my eyelids propped open at half mast
|
but you know... over at Chubb's Pool Hall and Snooker
|
it was a nickle after two, yea it was a nickle after two
|
and in the cobalt steel blue dream smoke, it
|
was the radio that groaned out the hit parade
|
and the chalk squeaked, the floorboards creaked
|
and an Olympia sign winked through a torn yellow
|
shade, old Jack Chance himself leanin' up against
|
a Wurlitzer and eyeballin' out a 5 ball combination shot
|
impossible you say?...hard to believe?, perhaps
|
out of the realm of possibility? naaaa
|
he be stretchin' out long tawny fingers out across a
|
cool green felt with a provocative golden gate
|
and a full table railshot that's no sweat and I leaned
|
up against my bannister and wandered over to the
|
Wurlitzer and I punched A-2 I was lookin' for
|
something like Wine, Wine, Wine by the Night Caps
|
starring Chuck E. Weiss or High Blood Pressure
|
by George (cryin' in the streets) Perkins - no dice
|
"that's life," that's what all the people say ridin' high
|
in April, seriously shot down in May, but I know I'm
|
gonna change that tune when I'm standing underneath
|
a buttery moon that's all melted off to one side
|
It was just about that time that the sun
|
came crawlin' yellow out of a manhole
|
at the foot of 23rd Street
|
and a dracula moon in a black disguise
|
was making its way back to its
|
pre-paid room at the St. Moritz Hotel (scat)
|
and the El train came tumbling
|
across the trestles and it sounded
|
like the ghost of Gene Krupa
|
with an overhead cam and glasspacks
|
and the whispering brushes of wet radials
|
on a wet pavement and there's a
|
traffic jam session on Belmont tonight
|
and the rhapsody of the pending
|
evening, I leaned up against
|
my bannister and I've been looking
|
for some kind of an emotional
|
investment with romantic dividends
|
kind of a physical negociation
|
is underway
|
as I attempt to consolidate all my
|
missed weekly payments, into
|
one-low-monthly payment
|
through the nose
|
with romantic residuals and leg akimbo
|
but the chances are more than likely I'll probably
|
be held over for another smashed weekend
|
|
-----------------
|
Nighthawk Postcards (From Easy Street)
|
| Tom Waits |
