Dead Drunks

Limousines and polished cars flee and bars and steal their way south
To the broken river mouth where wives are moved to tears
By the clubhouse chandeliers where men swap tales and boast
Of brushes with their ghosts and the birds with no voice boxes were all asleep
And the night just rolled in thick like black vaseline
Fires that burn and bleed and flicker on the beach
Send word to the captain’s post there’s parties on the coast

I saw them from the boast lose their minds on chardonnay
Saw them stumble on the earth saw them screaming at the surf

Is this to be our end am I to be your final friend
Are we promising ourselves out of having anything?
To remind us we’re alive to overthrow our enemies and spies
To love and in return burst into cinders and burn

Hands like broken china mugs steer this fleet
Of loser part time thugs into a moonless bay
Into the jet-black waves a single lamp hangs from the mast
Like an icon in our wake though it’s much too cold for stars
We crane our necks as far as we can too see this mess
Hanging over us like death so we raise our glasses
And button up our coats and we think about the good times
In the belly of the boat

I saw them from the house first jack-knife and then capsize saw them leave this little earth saw them swallowed by the surf

Is this to be our end am I to be your final friend
Are we promising ourselves out of having anything
To remind us we’re alive to overthrow our enemies and spies
To love and in return burst into cinders and burn.

In cold silence we’ll make our way to the great windows that frame our bay
And we feel she’s sick cause we know her soul
And we’ll save the men whose lives she stole
And we’ll lift our heads above our hearts
And we’ll find some more drinking cups
Cause tonight…

We’ll pull
The drunks our from the sea
They’ll be pale and dead but free
And we’ll line the balconies
Searching for our friends
And we brave what fortune brings
But we won’t give up our things
For kilometres along the coast
We’ll be toasting dead men’s ghosts

Raise your glasses
Raise your glasses
Raise your glasses
And set their spirits free
Evoking the dead drunks of the sea