The Last Picture Show

better days

THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

In the lane behind the pool hall
Two cigarette-ends glow
The town tonight is black and white
The Last Picture Show
There’s commotion in the shadows
Behind the old high school
Articles of clothing hang
Beside the swimming pool
In the church they sing the gospel
Oil for dried out skin
In the motel off the highway
The traveling salesman
Is with a woman half his age
One he’s never met
She undresses while he sits there
Pulling on a cigarette

A man is filled with distance
Feels more than he can say
By the time he reaches for the words
The feeling’s passed away
It’s work to be that honest
What he’d rather do is play
Talk about his day all night
About his night all day
In the church they reach crescendo
The spirit comin' in
In the motel off the highway
He's where he’s always been
With a woman half his age
In each town, the same
He remembers every body, forgets every name

The wind wrestles with Main Street
Tin signs creak and sway
Sam the Lion locks the pool hall
At the dark end of the day
The voices of the revelers
Are muted now and die
The neon reads No Vacancy
The trucks go wheezing by
At the church they turn the lights out
Echoes of a hymn
Shadow boys retrieve their clothes
Baptized by their swim
In the motel off the highway
He shivers in his bed
A bible sleeps unopened
In the drawer beside his head

The Last Picture Show is over
Salesman turns the tv off
The rooms are full of other travelers
In the dark he hears them cough
He hears the wind outside the pool hall
How it slams the old screen door
He thinks about that young boy sweeping
What the hell’s he sweeping for?
In the morning bells will wake him
People singing to their God
The road is waiting now to take him
There is always one more road
For a man is filled with distance
Feeling more than he can say
By the time he comes to find the words
The feeling’s passed away

DL