Down Come the Mickey

It’s a particular taste in the mouth
Difficult to describe
I checked the secretaries on the subway
Blank pages with paper-punch eyes
And the black boys fresh out of prison
Are saying it’s easy on the inside, it’s just tough on parole
Hey man, we don’t need your money
Yeah, we’re just checking your pockets for holes
And the night crawls by with every cigarette drag
All shallow and twisted like a birth scream
No flash of light, no spark of life, no goddamn tunnel
Just a water-bug in a jet of steam
Down come the Mickey
Down come the Mickey
One more time
Down come the Mickey
My friends are bad Bukowski
And I’m a bad joke that’s repeated at parties
Don’t write it in stone unless it’s an epitaph
These things are worth one laugh
Down come the Mickey
Down come the Mickey
One more time
Down come the Mickey
A hit from behind
Hit from behind
Hit from behind
And this one’s for the ones that got it better than I got
And this one’s for the ones that got it worse
And this one’s for the ones that took it hard with a cheap shot
This one’s for him that wrote this verse
Down come the Mickey
Down come the Mickey
One more time
Down come the Mickey