Corner Boy's Lament

There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you

When I die, I intend to walk alone

Through the streets where the corner boys commend me

For making peace with the inner child from the mobile home

I am handing back the medals that you pinned to my chest

We’re at war

It’s not safer in the open

And the padlock that you’re wearing around your neck

Is a target for the cold, hungry halfwits at dawn

Who are struggling to compose another drinking song

I feel safe amongst the hawkers and the gawkers

Telling stories scribbled down on decks of cards

Flicking marbles through a mud-stained maze of secondhand ideas

You draw a drag whilst admiring the sweet heads

Of a city in the morning by Jack B. Yeats

Who’s that at the door?

That’s only reality

Sure, let him in

Make sure he wipes his feet clean

Let us dissect the words from the markets and the factories

Bring me two glasses

There is work to be done

Fetch me two glasses

There is work to be done

Let us compare mothers and the madness in their methods

Let us compare fathers and the shape of their jawlines

Let us compare regretful sexual encounters

Let us compares addictions past and present

Let us compare voices that dance in our heads

Let us make a pact now

Let us spit in our hands

Let us compare songs that we wish we had written

Let us console one another

There is something I’ve been meaning to tell you

When I die, I intend to walk alone

Through the streets where the corner boys solute me

For making peace with the inner child from the mobile home

For losing sleep with the inner child from the mobile home

For counting sheep with the inner child from the mobile home