Bar & Grill Poem by David McLansky

Just another cowboy clown
Rolling into some hick town
Slowly nursing my left wheel
Lord preserve its belted steel

Just another Bar & Grill
Here to give a weathered thrill
To all the rowdies at the bar
Here to see a fallen star.

Where does all the glory go
From playing in the big-time show
When your time has come and past
A shooting star fading fast,

I sit and play the well-strummed tunes
In the dark and dingy rooms
Someone falls and breaks a glass
Someone grabs the waitress' ass.

I had some hits in ‘sixty-eight
Boy that year was really great
The money was just rolling in
What a year of blazing sin

Just another Bar & Grill
Think I'll take another pill
A pair of knees in the shade
Think I need a bath and shave

Having played my standard set,
Having booked my football bets;
Checking out the barroom babes;
A meal and lodging nightly saved;

I ain't complaining how I lived
I've done the wife and family gig;
Nights of beer and whisky sours;
Confessions in the midnight hours.

Just another Bar & Grill
Lord the whiskey that I've spilled
I don't expect to hit it big
Just pray the Lord, another gig.

Another night I can forget
The promises that I ain't kept
Another night of shame and fear
Playing for my gas and beer.

Just another Bar & Grill
A memory of star-struck thrill
Another night of my old tunes
Sung out to dark empty rooms.

The vision of a shooting star
Seen from the stool at the bar
A singing cowboy on the stage
Trying to act half his age.

And when I die, please bury me
Beneath an old magnolia tree
Near a lonely roadside tavern
So I can dream I am still traveling.

Another dingy Bar & Grill
Another smokey hazy thrill
Playing old forgotten tunes
To lonely drunks in darkened rooms.