The Horseshoe Wreath in Bloom

American Music Club

Now here’s the story of the incredible shrinking man

of a fatal disappointment met with a frozen margarita grin

Now see him blink in time to the hour hand

a funny red nose, Rudolph jokes, memory failing

If you buy lottery tickets, you’ll win some day

A pile of dead scratchers with the gold and silver scratched away

He faces the manageress, he feels her bright disdain

Watch as she yawns all the way through his final scene

She makes it clear, my dear, in no way does she wish him ill

She says there’s no justice, no, there’s just this bill

If you buy lottery tickets, you’ll win some day

A pile of dead scratchers with the gold and silver scratched away

and your horseshoe wreath, it’ll surely bloom

If you wait in the hotel bar all afternoon

If you wait in the hotel bar all afternoon

Ten years at the Colombia Hotel

For that you should win a fabulous prize

like a lifetime room for a life that slipped away

A place to hide the asphalt and tarmac in his eyes

If you buy lottery tickets, you’ll win one day

A pile of dead scratchers with the gold and silver scratched away

and your horseshoe wreath, it’ll surely bloom

If you wait in the hotel bar all afternoon

If you wait in the hotel bar all afternoon

You’ll see Ed McMahon and his gorgeous models

emerge from the Colombia gloom

with many thanks for the life you led and the joy you made

They’ll give you a wad of paper, and yes, all your favorite balloons

and make an overly long speech

about how you never let the bastards kill your soul

But if you hammer the sun to the dawn you pound on the walls of doom

and everyday further back and in a world we’re not heroes or Superman

Tourists shine like stars and cast no shadows across the room

and end up owning only a haystack, a needle, and a spoon

They say we pardon to the degree we love

but for most of us love is only a part in a cartoon

I know we pay for what we are, but let me please observe

you’re a king, I know I saw it written on your tomb.