Buffalo

Sitting in a bar up in Buffalo Holed up with Old Cotton-Eyed Joe It’s gents nights And we’re all drinking Shirley Temples Telling stories of loose glaciers The vagrantly seeking The people with their big ideas I call my mother from a payphone in Anchorage Tell her to stop worrying about me Tell her of the ever-shifting canyons The landscapes that unfolds like the lines in my palm I never tell her of The blue yonder and the time spend alone Of the sole company I keep Sitting in a bar up in Buffalo A couple of odd gents and the usual underage kids The menial gang Looking deep into the ocean of each bottle Going nowhere and heading everywhere Leaning against the counter I sense the ghost of the man who sat here before me They tell me he’s out catching buffalos I send my father pictured postcards from Paramount Each line more shallow than the next We talk of nothing in between the concaved laughter The silence is my battle And I set to conquer with each disapproving eye-bat We’re like soldiers in war Like father and son It seems I’m heading straight for Armageddon or Waterloo It seems I’m repeating Each mistake my mother and father went through Everyday I carry the weight of my mother’s tears Everyday I wear my father’s shoes I left to fend myself Still I’m yet uncharted