17 concussions from the rodeo life when I finally got my vengeance, couldn't find my steak knife broken arm, confetti on my cast my liver's paid off but it wasn't built to last the drizzle made a rainbow underneath the truck used condoms and needles where the hippies used to busk all the shit I see turns into poetry crackheads in the street scream soliloquies plastic bottle whiskey drunk and feelin sick my waterproof boot floated away in the crick I'm in love with a big red caboose of a train that derailed out on highway 2 vintage playboy magazines on the side of the road they must've gotten off with the unsecured loads kiss my widow on the lips if she starts to weep don't need a rubber if she names it after me so I'm sayin fare thee well to this dog'n pony show because it started like a county fair and it's endin like a porno

now I'm not a rich man with no ex-wives but you'd think I did, the money I spent on the dives the sort of watering holes that'd sooner paint the floors than sweep em there's fingernails from derelicts and fossilized half-cigarettes caught in about a century's worth of lead-based titanium I pick a guitar but I keep it pentatonic and I love George Dickel but I keep it platonic and I've been known to caterwaul a cover song or two from time to time, I let my senses lapse when the short-order cook does tip his cap to a crumpled and disgruntled yours truly, bout half past two and a black cloud'll fill my consciousness interrupted briefly by pukin' fits til I find myself starin' cross-eyed at a dumplin stew now what miserable son of a bitch could hanker for these nightmare-come-alive-assed capers and hangovers so long you could carbon date em? well, that degenerate son of a bitch is me and I'd pawn a catholic christmas tree for a pile of quarters so high it could buy a jamison I woke up holdin a beer n a smoke like the father, son and the holy ghost in a set of sheets that stank like someone died sharin the bed was a surprise sleeper she was the spittin image of the cryptkeeper her snoring sounded like a cacklin demon bride I held my breath and I bit my tongue and I smelled the breath from within her lungs and I stretched a toe to reach the carpet floor she had a dog, if you could call it that about five inches tall with ears like a bat it was shakin like it was fixin to explode now, it's not the size of the dog, but the fight that matters but I made the most of my weight class advantage I put a chihuahua in a chokehold til he KO'd when the dog was out (or maybe dead) I army-crawled down past the bed heart poundin like I's cardiac arrestin but feeling like somethin was off a might I looked back behind, she was sittin upright bout as pretty as a litterbox neglected I admit her description's a bit belated but it's fair to say she's emaciated like an egyptian queen the locusts all neglected her hair was matted, ratty and stained like somethin fished out a shower drain eyes like gunshot wounds that got neglected her vilest feature was of course her smile teeth like a graveyard, been defiled and a span of rotten gums from ear to ear she smelled just like a pus-filled bladder the kind you'd find in a goat cadaver and it got worse and worse and worse as it got near I ran out the door and found my car crashed into a hydrant with the doors ajar and a waterfall was surging through the interior I found the keys in the ignition rusted beyond all recognition and I turned the keys with eyes on the rear-view mirror she was runnin towards me like a four-legged beast and she'd be upon me in a few seconds, at least when my jalopy came to life with a sputterin gurgle I kicked the gas pedal with so much force my foot broke through the damn floorboards and the tires screeched like a rattlesnake-bit horse when my speedometer read bout a hundred n two and she was missing entirely from my rear view I let a sigh of relief and cracked a coors now the moral of the story comes ten years past: don't fornicate with creatures from the monster mash and if you do, wear a crucifix for protection cause if you don't, you'll end up like me payin a succubus alimony with a half-demon kid of not-so-immaculate conception

I woke up in a ditch and I stank like a buzzard's beak so many stains on my shirt, I think my beer bottle sprung a leak I got a dog for a face, always beggin for more there's kibbles n bits on the kitchen floor but what in the hell did I do to deserve you? five forty in the mornin show up on the ol' front lawn backed over the cat, threw the carcass into a bog got my savings in my shotgun, I must confess recorded all the pornos on the vhs but what in the hell did I do to deserve you? but when I get sober, I'ma clean up my act gonna scrub my body with a cold dish rag I can't just yet, there's too much on my plate got a hell of a thirst I can't satiate well what's that you say? of course I'm still your man I wrote the whole damn song for you, I just don't understand I don't remember that, I was drunk off my ass but since we're here together, I just have to ask what in the hell could I do to win you back? tell me what in the hell could I do to win you back?

oh, here I go back into the cold with a hypodermic needle in my arm father time's on my side I'm kissin him goodbye the place I'm goin, I don't need my guitar and so I hope after I go someone will mismanage my estate buy some whiskey rye and have themselves a time I apologize profusely for bein late and so today I'll be on my merry way this crooked world is rotten at the root I could find myself an eve find myself a tree and maybe I could find myself some fruit sentenced to exile I could live like that a while sleepin on the stones out in the rain by the time I could recover I could kill my little brother with a dapper step I could wear the mark of cain tell it to me to be or not to be I've done all that a man like me could do so I'm punchin out I'm starin at the clouds the way I see it, my workin days are through everything thing that I lack tattoo it on my back the chips I got remainin, cashin in there's always one that warns in every deck of cards you play long enough, the house is gonna win you play long enough, the house in gonna win