Cold Shoulders and Torn Naugahyde

 

Shivering replies in the Naugahyde booths

Cold shoulders ‘neath the heated neon

The lights cut like daggers

I’m not drunk, I’m staggering

From the loss of blood (and hope)

 

There’s a guy at the end of the bar

With a smile like an open sore

A cherry moon floats

In the Vermouth sky

And I’m out of whisky

This, of all nights

                              

Holding up streetlights

Using parking meters as walking sticks

I’m singing in the snow

Like a drunken Fred Astaire

Spilling my whisky and

Waking the neighbors

I’m battling with the booze

But, you can tell by the bruises

That I’m gonna lose

 

The morning burns

Like split lips and bourbon

The evening disintegrates around us 

As the sun creeps out of

A manhole on 32^nd street

It reeks of s**t and

Yesterday’s news