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