Curmudgeon

I Like This One

Curmudgeon

I smoked a thousand cigarettes and thought that would calm my nerves

Like politics it made me angry I guess that’s what I deserved

I choked myself on coffee just like the shops did to my town

And sometimes courted whiskey when it seemed the ladies let me down

 

With nothing left inside but a song to scream

A cold broken heart and a shattered lonesome dream

I sit down by the marshes even though it always stinks

And strum this beat up dreadnaught to the bayou and the breeze

 

I’ve earned a makeshift kinship with lost poets and artists starved

My vocal chords are shredded drown out by the locomotives cars

The gadabouts they tell me I should change my way of life

That there are lush green pastures past the barbed constraints of time

 

So won’t you come along and share a song with me

The words might upset you and the melody slightly out of key

The rhythm may excite you so dance around my friends

And we’ll drink to our frustrations to the sounds of a shoddy violin