Allons a Lafayette

Sweating professional faces
With medically induced cleavage
Gumming up the screen
With lard bottoms and tattoos
Glare at me with all their what’s what—
It’s not just songwriters and poets with the blues

Papa’s grown out his beard
They tell me it’s crisis de middle age
Greying up the texted screen—
Old man with a teener heart
Without a good hoodie excuse
Let’s just go all dancing
And shake your tit fille caboose

Best bring your Yves St Laurent hankie
Cajun dust will be floating on high
Everyone praying for some cleaner air
Broke-foot dancing or a zydeco reel, you choose
Try keeping up with the button accordion, cher—
It ain’t just gamblers who sometimes lose

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In the Dark, in the Cold, in the Quiet and All

A simple shameless shuffle
From blonde to brunette
Until he woke up again quite alone
Realizing only now it was so too late

That you really must make a considered choice—
Decide finally who you want to take to the ball,
Or you will certainly, in the end, pass all alone
In the dark, in the cold, in the quiet and all

The music was a rapture,
Fiddle and accordion entwined,
Her unfurled skirts blossomed across the floor,
All were happy, two-stepped, wined and dined.

Next morning bags were quick conveyed,
Gone Concourse C to return to her places up North;
You slow walked to the parking garage
Not realizing the so on and the so forth:

That you really must make a considered choice—
Decide on finally who you want to take to the ball,
Or you will certainly, in the end, pass all alone
In the dark, in the cold, in the quiet and all

A road trip here and a visit there
How you acted as if you were above it all
Everyone was coupled, partying, and fun
Now he wonders why is it no one ever calls.

The best ones really are all taken.
All the smart happy ones have debarked the bus.
You thought love will always be out there;
So, why should you have to make a fuss:

That one really must make a considered choice—
Decide on finally who you want to take to the ball,
Or you will certainly, in the end, pass all alone
In the dark, in the cold, in the quiet and all

Now the eyes fail, hair thins out,
And the joints no longer so strong.
Am I really the grasshopper in the end
Who must admit he was so so wrong?

That all really must make a considered choice—
Decide on finally who you want to take to the ball,
Or we will certainly, in the end, pass all alone
In the dark, in the cold, in the quiet and all