On The Bus Mall

(Album: Picaresque - 2005)

In matching blue raincoats,
Our shoes were our show boats
We kicked around.
From stairway to station
We made a sensation
With the gadabout crowd.
And oh, what a bargain,
We're two easy targets
For the old men at the off-tracks,
Who've paid in palaver
And crumpled old dollars,
Which we squirreled away
In our rat trap hotel by the freeway.
And we slept-in Sundays.

Your parents were anxious,
Your cool was contagious
At the old school.
You left without leaving
A note for your grieving
Sweet mother, while
Your brother was so cruel.
And here in the alleys
Your spirits were rallied
As you learned quick to make a fast buck.
In bathrooms and barrooms,
On dumpsters and heirlooms,
We bit our tongues.
Sucked our lips into our lungs
'til we were falling.
Such was our calling.

And here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup
And pocket your pills away.
We're kings among runaways
On the bus mall.
We're down
On the bus mall.

Among all the urchins and old Chinese merchants
Of the old town,
We reigned at the pool hall
With one iron cue ball
And we never let the bastards get us down.
And we laughed off the quick tricks
The old men with limp dicks
On the colonnades of the waterfront park.
As 4 in the morning came on, cold and boring,
We huddled close
In the bus stop enclosure enfolding.
Our hands tightly holding.

But here in our hollow we fuse like a family,
But I will not mourn for you.
So take up your makeup
And pocket your pills away.
We're kings among runaways
On the bus mall.
We're down
On the bus mall.
We're down
On the bus mall.
Down on the bus mall.
Oh ooh oh