The one who loved her last
his lizard skin boots itch with a stink
in a tattoo parlour on lone street
gripping a half empty glass of bourbon
drinking tears from a crooked eye
crying for the nights
when she howled smiling in a fountains shower.
And the cello strums a lonely beat
while the girls on uptown street
dance a naked twist for the whores on the beat
three lines rhyme for no reason it aint no crime
for his gut to reject the sweetened wine
of the beauty of a grimy gutter in an empty street
as she sings his pitiful tune for the one who ran away
Down the line where the black man whines
A lament on a whiskey bottle drum
she rides her final trip on a dragon who sings no song.
The breeze it fades to up-street jazz missing an uptown funk
while the trumpet plays its last and the bourbon
swirls to the bottom of the one who loved her last
© Francie Joesph McGivney (one drunken night)