Shinbone Alley

(album: Homebelly Groove...Live - 1992)

Moonlight through the chicken wire, humming windowpane,
Lukewarm water gasping down a rusty drain
Big town's in need of mending, street lights make tooth some seams
Denim shadows shuffle in between the beams.

Different strokes for different folks so
Mind your manner and easy on the ethnic jokes
It's a dumbbell curve, your trying to tally,
All the way down to shin bone alley

Streets are metacarpal and flesh of asphalt calm
Buildings rise like fingers from a concrete palm
Yellow lit apartment trickle through the drapes
Windows frame each history hidden even from the fire escapes
Sullen winter sparrow lends wing to expanse of grey
Six-thirty-two in the morning on Thanksgiving day
And the bums they hit their corners, the thunderbird rubs their bones
And the crack addicts stare at the snowflakes zigzagging down to greet jones

Different strokes for different folks so.....

Seven-thirty-two on the same day, your bare feet on the parquet
And the light so papery white shining past the microwave
Knuckles to eyeballs and elbows on the table
Spend the day gazing from the window gable....