Nice And Blue (Part Two)

You were a song I couldn't sing

caught like a bear by the bees with its hand in the hive

who complains of the pain of the sting

when I'm lucky I got out alive!

a life at best left half behind,

the taste of the honey still sweet on my tongue

and I'd run (Lord knows I've tried)

but there's no place on Earth I can hide

from the wrong I've done

then I saw a mountain and I saw a city

steadily sinking but suspiciously calm

it wasn't an end, it wasn't a beginning

but a ceaseless stumbling on

there, strapped like a watch on my wrist

that's finished with gold but can't tell the time

was all or what little pleasure exists

seductively sold and uselessly mine

our horse was fast and first from the gate

with the lead of a length at the sound of the gun

and the last of our cash laid down to fate (at 17 to 1)

but by the final stretch in the rear of the pack

that nag limping bad in the back

we reluctantly gave all the money we'd saved

1/5 to the commonwealth and the rest ot the track

then I saw a forest grow in the city

and a driftwood wall of birdhouse gourds

and I'm still waiting to meet a girl like my Mom

who's closer to my age

the true light of my eyes is a Pearl

equally emptied to equally shine

and all or what little joy in the world

seemed suddenly simple and endlessly mine

I was once the wine and you were the wineglass,

I was once alive when you held me,

but G-d became the glass,

all things left are emptiness

but oh, you're just a little girl

if you look out and see a trace

of a dark red that was once my face

in the clarity of such grace,

you'll forget all about me