All Of My Heroes Died Nameless

All of my heroes died nameless in boxcars
Or loveless in back alleys looking for whores
Or freezing in heroin squats with near strangers
Or rented apartments they couldn't afford

All of my heroes died nameless in transit
In parking lots, stairwells and derelict bars
In rancid tents stinking of piss in a beer can
Or curled in the cold on a bed of damp card

All of my heroes died nameless mid-stanza
Penning the piece they would never perform
Dreaming and daring and drinking and dying
Out here on the whim of a frost or a storm

All of my heroes died nameless, the hoboes
The vagabonds, troubadours, outlaws and clowns
Laughing and spitting and screaming and dying
To live on forever but, more, to get out

All of my heroes died nameless so I don't
Try to be anyone I know by name
I just hope anonymity leads to my heroes
Then, posthumously, we are one and the same.

Whisky & Wine

I've broken down in public
I've bared my soul to a crowd
I've sat all night in the dim bar light
Drinking til I pass out
I've been thrown in a cell for fighting
I've lost every girl that I've loved
And I stole one or two that I already knew
Would never be crazy enough

See there's this darkness in my mind
I bet there's one or two of you here that know the kind
But there's something 'bout whisky and wine
Makes everything alright
With this tobacco
There's something 'bout whisky & wine
That's kinda like pouring a light
Over the shadows
It lifts the shackles

When the sun comes up in the morning
And you're still howling for a moon
And the end of the world is the end of a bottle
That always comes too soon
I got this beast in my mind howling all the time
I've got to kill it just to shut it up
Most nights he'll sit here and write about what it must be like
To fall in love

So if there's anybody here that don't wanna go home
Rest assured that you're not alone
Let's all get drunk as fools
Howl at the moon like a pack of wolves
There's a party at mine
I have both whisky and wine

Scrap Paper in a Darkened Room

It's tragic how many voices just trail off, unheard.
How many sirens sing to empty bar rooms,
Poets scrawling on scrap paper in cold, darkened
      rooms that they'll later burn for heat and light.
How the soap-box has been destroyed,
      trampled by armies of deaf-eared, heads-down
            strangers on their way to somewhere sterile,
                  unchallenged and silent.
There are more ears in this civilization than mouths,
      more eyes than tongues,
And yet our art,
      our messages,
            our wisdom,
                  our freedom of thought,
                        our stories and songs are being taken
To the dirt,
      to the grave,
            to OUR graves,
                  to the worms,
Who earlessly wriggle through the dirt to feed on our bodies
As strangers earlessly writhe through the streets
      to feed on our souls.

A Happy Song

I've tried drug-lords and street-gangs and prostitution rings
I've tried begging, stealing, selling just about anything
But my hands and my mouth and my feet don't move fast enough
And when you work that kind of job and it all goes wrong
You're on your own, ain't none of your con friends gonna take your fall
And the cops'll be the first to remind you there ain't no one you can trust

So I'm gonna write me a goddam happy song
As soon as something happy comes along
Down life's lonesome road, I suppose you never know what's rolling 'round the bend
All the roads I've been down - nothing happy's shown up yet

I've tried humanitarianism and I've tried vegetarianism
I've tried Buddhism, cataclisms, nihilism and narcissism
But none of that shit seemed to suit me right
I want a six-shooter Magnum and a big ol' hunting knife
A 12-gauge, shots and snares, a big ol' box of fireworks and a rocking chair
I want to make some real noise at night

Well, I've tried loving women but all that I can tell is that they always leave
I've had three wives, four mistresses, a daughter by a priestess and a queen
And with my heart in pieces, sick of women, I got me a dog
Well, that young pup softened me up and I got sweet again
This time with a green-eyed girl by the name of Gemma-Anne
Three months later Gemma-Anne ran off with my truck
And my dog

I won't take no more drinks now boys, I remember last time I took too much
I'll get sick tomorrow morning and I ain't got nowhere to go and sober up
But I thank you for your company the frustration in my life comes from the loneliness
That and I can't get a job 'cos I ain't got no fixed address
And I can't get a fixed address 'cos I ain't got no job
And you want me to write a goddam happy song