Good Ol Night

The crystal chandelier is turned up bright And the swinging doors will answer "it's a cold, cold night" The place I'm from is far away, Used to be an old friend Now she's turning around And showing me the back of her head Take me dancing in the middle of the room Take me dancing like we've never been told The card players are scratching their heads Just as I am too Now the places we go aren't the same Without your next move Sometimes I forget that we're Walking a real fine line Then the greatest defeat of all Was having to say goodbye We were living and playing our cards Trying to knock them out of the goddamn park They day I went home, It was intensely lonely Sleeping in the car for a night Was the way I played it Make sure you're practiced When you're aiming in the canyon The more direct lines remind me of Frank O'Hara Shuffle and dealing, Taking hold of the hand Some cards are slipping out Into this lawless land A poet lost his way, Started reading his books upside down Turned around at the corner, No truth in the casino lights to be found There used to be a story There like a scene from a Johnson chapter Now he's left wondering if they ping to a satellite tower The city skyline with its buildings on high Make a straight shot to the waterline, a way to get out Driving from Reno to the border of California Time passed slowly even while we were still moving fast The trees wrapped around me like a blanket And I could care less if I left once we made it to the canyon Oh mamamia, you are my oldest friend We've been through things till the bitter end Please don't stop talking now and telling your jokes 'Cause I need them at this moment There's the idea of growing nearer as time marches on Like some say of a Dickinson poem With each century getting clearer But when you write the date at the first of the year You might make a mistake, then that urge dissipates And time grows far away Won't you stay, won't you stay This time, won't you stay and grow closer to me? Sharp like jazz walking down the rocky hillside The shifting dirt and the notes I heard soothed my mind It's a ghost town now but I'm telling you, there used to be something here I could say it in rhyme a thousand times but it would still disappear