Falling Trees, Blooming Flowers

It's The Old Story (finger)

Sag Harbor

Subway

Bleeding Las Vegas

In the suburbs you need a car
To get from A to B
Or to get anywhere else
All the way to Z

You’ll have to take the train
A pass for its parking lot
Set your alarm for dawn
So you’ll get a spot

You have to mow the lawn
Starting in the spring.
And you have your plot of land
It’s good to be the king.

In the fall, so many leaves
You’ll need a rake
Then the leaf blowers, good god,
Sometimes too much to take.

[CHORUS]
You needn’t spend your evenings
Sipping or playing gin
There are opportunities
For you  to engage in sin
But you must know
Before you move in
Don’t put your whiskey bottles
Atop the recycling bin.
 
Neighbors will speak of you
As you will of them
Gossip is the currency
Traded like a gem.

Some folks are unfriendly
Some kids are brats
Then there are those with dogs
Living next door to those with cats.

The taxes go up and up
And you wonder why
There are those living large
Others barely getting by.

In the end, it’s nice to have
A place that’s all your own
Even if it’s saddled
With a large mortgage loan

CHORUS

Don't Put Your Whiskey Bottles Atop the Recycling Bin

Barrington

Sunday nights were special
Everything calmed down.
They could sit on the porch,
Week-enders leaving town.
Spring had revealed herself,
Green was everywhere.
The trees were budding, and
A new season was in the air.

It wasn’t much to look at,
Could use some touch-up paint.
A hundred-year old Victorian,
Just the right side of quaint.
Sat in their Adirondack chairs,
And they drank too much wine.
Toasting the traffic heading south,
So everything was fine.

Dancing in the twilight
Steps lit by a streetlight
The music the wind through the trees.
A kiss on the forehead
Both knew where that led.
Rocked back and forth on the breeze

Her look froze her
As they held each other’s eyes
Oh how many times?
Yet each one a surprise.
They had been week-enders
Doing that long drive.
Getting out of the West Side,
Kept them sane and alive.

It was a quite a sweet life
Each had a good wife.
Their little Eden on that hill.
They weren’t exempted
Each had been tempted,
But love had determined their will. 

Now things were quiet,
The wind out of steam.
Now it was a moment,
Or was it a dream.
Slept with the window open,
For the first time that year.
Awakened by a song bird,
And no traffic for them to hear.

Barrington

The Frightening Thing

I was baptized when I was a boy
Bounced on my mama’s knee
I was treated like a toy
Everyone had to see me
And when I began to talk
I was sweet and I was mild
But when I began to walk
I started running wild.

My mama cried, “Where did I go wrong?”
Lord please keep me strong”
My daddy said, “He’s no good
He wouldn’t change if he could.
My mama said, “That’s not who you are
You’ve just strayed too far”
My daddy said, “It’s too late
“He’s got nothing inside but hate”

When I was 20 I headed east
Wandered from town to town
Found jobs that paid the least
Never wanted to settle down.
With the ladies I laid on the charm
With the boys I sat and drank 
And I never really meant no harm
I didn’t rob no bank.
When I was 40 I got a call
‘bout a long-forgotten night
She was someone sweet and tall
If I remembered right.
There was a boy, now 10
And he had my eyes
I said I couldn’t see her again
And I said my goodbyes.

When I turned 60, I was on my own
Doing whatever came along
Daddy was dead, momma in a home
I looked back, I saw I was wrong.
When I visited her, in her wheelchair.
Said I had a son, who I never knew
I wasn’t sure that she knew I was there
‘til she said “here’s what you have to do”

Since you were a boy
You’ve been my source of joy
You have sweetness, you keep it hid
Your daddy didn’t see it, but I always did
You’re still a boy, at least to me
Though too big to bounce on my knee
You were baptized right at the start
It’s still there, right in your heart.
 
When my momma died, she left a note.
I read it to myself out loud.
Said not to be mad that she wrote
She’d met my son, and he could make me proud.
His number was in her neat print
I stared at it all day.
I knew I wasn’t innocent,
I called anyway.

Now I am 80, it’s me in the home
I need help if I want to walk.
My grandkids are all grown
I like to hear them talk.
The end is coming, I’ve no doubt it is.
I think of my mamma and when I was small
The frightening thing about it is 
I’m not frightened of what’s coming at all.

The Frightening Thing

Five songs from a gig at the Coffee Lab in Tarrytown NY

"But Not Me"
"Fallen Tree"
"I'd Change Everything"
"Barrington"
"It's The Old Story"

August 4 2018 Gig Tarrytown

Close To Me: 5 in 5 Day 5, Dec. 14

Each day I wake up, and you’re still gone.
I stare at the ceiling and I carry on.
It doesn’t seem to matter what I do,
It only matters that I’m not close to you.

How many times can I call and beg you to return?
How can I prove to you that I can still learn?
I’m so sorry for what I did and said.
If you only understood how lonely I am in bed.

It didn’t seem like much,
We were on the same page.
Then suddenly my touch,
Would put you into a rage.
Your bags and you
Were gone right out the door.
And I just wished I knew,
What you were leaving for.

I’ve had my time, and now I think I know.
I had an expectation, that you’d never go.
What a fool I was, and will always be.
And won’t have you, lying close to me.

JoeGarland