I gave it up for lent
or whatever went before
and I don't think it anymore
well not so's you'd notice
but if a kiss is just a kiss
why do I miss it so?
Ah
old men and pipedreams
where it all seems so long ago
and long ago is where the old folk go
to talk their tales.

The outlaw Josey Wales had no time for that
flat out on the badlands with his big sixguns in two big hands
I wish I were him
life here is grim
like in a Northern town
where the Moon rises and never goes down
where the Sun can't be found
and daylight never touches the ground
and the soot is something we cook with.

I give notice here and now that somewhere,somehow
I will shine
or sail off in a dhow to no man's land
and will my life away in a shotgun shell
Life here is hell.

I
in my instability cannot see
what's in front of me
and irrationally
I think I'm in a bind
blind to all these other things that this good life brings
but not wise enough or even tough enough to tough it out.

About ten o-clock
when I have taken stock and the food is running low
I go again to the corner shop where I take a pop at Majid and his fancy prices
I tell him rice grows in the paddy fields
he yields and lets me off for sixpence.
I feel so grand as if he'd broken wind and kissed my hand
and now I go
before the police arrive
can't survive on bread and water
ask my daughter
she feeds me when I hunger for
chop suey from the Chinese store.

All this with just one thought
one kiss
I ramble on
Life has gone and passed me by
I try with *****,coke
a smoke or two
and it doesn't do it
life here is ****
but I remember down the pit with props and pony
only I could tolerate
second rate is what I got
not a lot but it will do
until the life I have is through
but had I been the outlaw Wales
I would have told such different tales
and life is but a coffin full of nails
awaiting on the hammer.