As the gramophone in the corner spins Stravinsky
i lie wake in a puddle of my own *****.
I can wash off the smell of pubs and whiskey
but can never run away from it.

As the devil drags me again by my hand
to the tear-stained paper at my old table,
i could tell you that I'm keeping my mouth dry
but you wouldn't believe this fable.

It'd be just not to trust it, there is reason, for
a man who had tried drinking away pain
is a man who'd succumbed to a bottle before
and a man who will do it again.

one eye so nearsighted that i can't see tomorrow/
the other so farsighted i can't see today.

As i am writing this i am drinking my poison cold,
counting on gray hair all the years that are gone

liquor and love are the poor man's gold
and a man's wealth - dying loving or dying loved.

I don't remember if it was happiness
or of thereof lack
but the jack in the box looks
now like a box of jack