Sure, this is the life
I tell myself
graveyard shift
guarding turnstiles
in a train station
A lucky stiff with my
Neal Young
on the Walkman
Read William Carlos
Williams, write
down lost pretty
blonde thoughts
in raincoats with nice
legs
Remember when I was a kid
hopping freight on
the Hudson River, wishing
I was a man already
and now I am, now I am
gigging at the low end
of the wage scale
for some twenty
surmont years
and the way I feel
now and then
is gypped my fate
which is this little
Philippine wisecracker shoots
past and cackles
gleefully: "You makin EEEE-Z Money!"
And each night I crow back:
"You got that right!" but not really believing it.
"EEEE-Z money" he chortles, hurrying
to his nut-busting job, "EEEE-Z money!"
"Hey!" I shout, pissed off:
"Screw you! It's work!"
And he nods his head, calls
as he rides the escalator
up to Market Street:
"EEEEEEEE-Z money!"
And laughing with a death-voice,
fucking asshole
Scratching my balls
at my security guard post
in Powell Street Station
my face blacked out with lushes
choked
to death on their own
puke and undercover cops
tackling purse-snatchers
who turn out to be
undercover cops
as Willy the broom pusher holds a one
man revival tent meeting by the poster
for Wonderbra
I've got the stink
in my nose
and the windburn in my eyes
of this damned town
this damned
life
all winding down
all winding down
and I don't understand
what got me here
or happened between now
and twenty years ago
I had a drink and a babe on my knee
and it seems like the death train
just came tearing into town
one day too soon
and I rose it
passed out drunk
too many stops into the dark.