New Orleans

She said she didn't know what I wanted from her I said "That makes two of us" with a smile So she hopped a Greyhound back to Illinois And her tears clicked off the miles 5th Street ain't no kind of place for a child to roam But I'm not a kid anymore, am I? I try to remember the implosive feeling of youth But memory's truth is a lie The Man in the Moon mocks me with his smile Want to knock his teeth straight down his throat I howl at him in a language learned wild While this Benzedrine slowly makes me choke This Thunderbird's the only wine that comes close to being holy But it feels like fire, don't you know? Baptized by an old junkie down back of the alley Who calls me "Son" before he goes Lie back in a gutter with the Genius of Rain While I laugh with a memory made of smoke Give laments for a wet dream I had about New Orleans Give praise for no punchline to His joke And the people some call "lowlife" are high class to me now I'd journey back to the world, but I can't remember how The Man in the Moon mocks me with his smile Want to knock his teeth straight down his throat I howl at him in a language learned wild While this Benzedrine slowly makes me choke