Greg MacPherson

Slow Stroke

Greg MacPherson


Your mama look like carol channing
She watch the sunset on an 8" black and white tv
She's got a sister in Toronto
You got an old man out in "call me when you're drunk b.c."
He was the king of corona
Dark glasses and a reason not to go back home
She fell in love with the night time
She fell in love with his fists and his cheap cologne

Your mama watch through the window
She see the trouble through the eyes looking back from the street
Completely out of proportion
Too old, too faint, too grey, too weak
She sits somewhere over the highway on the edge of town
Looking back into the noise for the slightest sound
Between the leather and the artificial lights
Nothing much new down here tonight

She says, "I wanna run away and wanna see the world but I probably never will...but I don't wanna know.
Some nights I can sink like a stone, look around me and completely 
Understand...and some nights I don't."

Your mama stood in the hallway
The cigarette smoke, slow stroke, nerves like steel
She tell you all about the old times
When everything was new more than it was real
She said, "I never had a friend that would put me down
I never knew where all the money'd go until it was gone"
Between the leather and the artificial lungs
Blowing smoke over the things she'd done