Caffeinated Warriors

I settle in rooms
Permeated by the stories of a million strangers:
Their ghosts dwell in the fixtures and the walls.
And they disappear like the mist
As it rises off the highway,
Where nights are too quiet and too loud.
And they tug at your dreams in the middle of the day.
They say the devil you know is mighty better than the devil that you don't know.
But the stage lights and the miles will never show.
But the riches I bring you are nothing but trinkets;
Mere currency between strangers.
And if you ever loved me, you would let me go.
So goodbye, Antoine Saint-Exupéry
And all you intrepid wanderers.
Goodbye, Amelia and Hemingway,
You broken-hearted explorers.
Goodbye, Joan of Arc
And all you caffeinated warriors.
Goodbye, goodbye to you.
I charted my course
Through fields of unfinished cathedrals
To the pulsing, heady calling of the Southern Cross.
I watched it pour like a flood
On the surface of Lake Erie.
Been talkin’ to my GPS; I've been talkin’ to God.
I suspect it may be written in my blood.
But these castles of sand cannot stand beyond the winter,
And the crow flies in the trail of Evangeline.
Maybe we wore our hearts too freely
On the nights when we were touted
On the marquees of that fleeting drop of time.
So goodbye, Antoine Saint-Exupéry
And all you intrepid wanderers.
Goodbye, Amelia and Hemingway,
You broken-hearted explorers.
Goodbye, Joan of Arc
And all you caffeinated warriors.
Goodbye, goodbye to you.
So goodbye, Antoine Saint-Exupéry
And all you intrepid wanderers.
Goodbye, Amelia and Hemingway,
You broken-hearted explorers.
Goodbye, Joan of Arc
And all you caffeinated warriors.
Goodbye, goodbye to you.
So goodbye, Antoine Saint-Exupéry
And all you intrepid travelers.
Goodbye, Virginia and Woody Guthrie,
You weary unravelers.
Goodbye, Townes Van Zandt.
You damned and dogged ramblers,
Goodbye, goodbye to you.
Goodbye, Hank Williams
And you damned and empty-handed gamblers.
Goodbye, goodbye.
Goodbye, goodbye.