Big nothing.
|
He stood in the road outside of town
|
With a broken clockwork toy in his hand.
|
A graveyard for childish dreams in his palm
|
A broken lifeline.
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
The mechanical amusement sputtered to life in his fist.
|
As he clenched, it whirred and died again.
|
It was a cowboy who drew his gun,
|
but the pistol was welded to the holster
|
by age and careless children,
|
So it struggled and strained
|
and it unwound its own spring.
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
He didn't need tattoos to show where he'd been
|
And who he'd loved.
|
It was the same thing that men had cried for;
|
That women had dyed their hair for.
|
The cellophane illusion of a starry sky
|
Stretched over an open sore.
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
He thought about his lost daughter
|
The way her eyes would alight at the greedy circus barker's blackmail song
|
How he wanted to smash her skull in when she parroted back,
|
'Tell mommy; tell poppy; you need this little dolly.'
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
The smoky voice of the petaled girl woke him long enough.
|
There was too much light in the room, so he unscrewed the bulb.
|
She took him to bed like an adopted dog.
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
She lit sickly incense, as he tried to tell himself
|
The resemblance were pure and coincidental.
|
He unleashed his grip on the toy and all it meant to him,
|
And it wound down forever.
|
|
Big nothing.
|
|
He woke up in a sweat, the next day.
|
With her smile still painted on his mouth
|
He walked out of a town called Big Nothing.
|
|
Big nothing. [Repeat until fade]
|
|
-----------------
|
A Town Called Big Nothing (Really Big Nothing)
|
| Elvis Costello |
