Consolation
by George Albert Leddy
I was tending the bar in a cheap café;
My spirits were light and my heart was gay;
I had a job and I knew I could eat,
And a bed to lie on when I wanted to sleep.
When a guy shuffled in; he looked like a bum,
And he threw down a quarter and ordered a rum.
Well, I'd been a bum, so it's easy to see
Why I gave him a smile and a welcome "Howdy!"
Then he looked at me with a sort-o a grin
That showed me the place where his teeth had been.
Then his eyes seemed to fill with a luminous light,
Like a man who is seeing a ghost in the night.
Then he looked at me, and he called me Lou,
And my heart stood still, for at once I knew,
'Twas the lad who once I had called my pal;
The lad who had stolen my Little Sall.
Then I thought of the years since I'd left my home,
With a broken-heart and to roam alone;
Cursing the traitor who'd wrecked my life;
Stolen my sweetheart to make her his wife.
Well, the days were dark and the nights were long;
The hate in my heart had become a song;
Singing to music to deaden my brain;
Singing to music to sharpen the pain.
I've traveled the mountains, the desert, the plain;
Fought through the cold, the heat, and the rain;
Slept in my bedroll on hard, frozen ground
With coyotes and wolverines sniffing around.
I've list'd to the whippoorwill calling at night;
Gazed at the stars as they twinkled so bright;
Listened to the thunders rending the sky,
But not for a moment, forget them could I.
Then my pal sort-o whimpered and dropped to the floor,
As a three-hundred-pound cyclone barged in the door;
She was rugged and burley, her face it was red,
And her hair, like a haystack, stood on her head.
Well, he ducked to the corner, but she was too quick,
And soon she was dragging him out by the neck.
Though I've found my pals, I'll continue to roam,
For I am convinced – there's no place like home!
***