Alabaster

It was something bout a train
Bound for Brooklyn in the rain
Something bout a certain something in the air
And isn’t that the way it always is with smells
They last longest and then when you want to bring em back theyre gone

They’re gone—collapsing like house of cards
Imploding like the twin towers, gone gone gone
And were they ever there at all

It was something bout a face
Miles of open space
Words that promised nothing
Eyes that promised everything
The cold and the rain and the leaves blowin round
And always, always, always, the rumbling of the train

And I could wait for you even now
Stagger cross the curbs and the gutter drains somehow
Fight against the current with all the fight the gods allow
With my cut and scarred and stitched-up brow
Imagined sacred memories, imagined sacred cow
But I’m letting go, I let it go

Alabaster, you were the girl
Showed up all around the world
When I was beat, you lifted me up high
When I was strong, you stroked me with your songs
But there aint no L train to Brooklyn, not now, not tonight

Alabaster, I still love you
Now and always will
Everytime I smell that wet jacket air
When I pass the nite time cross and it’s your pillow, it’s your hair
Everytime I pass a stack of Vanity Fair
When I’m rolled and strolled and scrolled and sprolled and stoled

Alabaster—Alabaster
I have stopped crying to the moon
I have stopped worshipping the Blue
And I—have stopped—
Looking for you

(lyrics: Dan Bern)

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