All the Little Places Around the Town - Greg Brown

Mary Beth is that fancy woman

Standing over there

The expression on her face

Is just like her underwear

Carefully chosen, easy to see through

2 a.m. when the game is up Tempting to undo (?)

But dawn breaks on her sad smile

And I’ll see you around

All the little places around the town

Gabriel was painter

A good one in his youth

Between poverty and a hustle

He chose a substitute

Tenure and a greenhouse

And little trips to Mexico

An affair with a deep-eyed girl

Every couple years or so When he looks inside at what he hasn’t done

He comes tumbling down

To all the little places around the town

The university poets

Buzz around in their little japanese cars

They hit the parties for the out-of-towners

You don’t see them much at the bars

All their thin and stiff little books

Not too much to say

Yaking at eachother in the APR (?)

While the years slip away

The horseman passes by the classroom scene

And a cold wind blows around

All the little places around the town

Julie and me we see eye to eye

When we stand toe to toe

And I surely will not soon forget

That day in her studio

The colors all got brighter

Than the corona of the sun

It’s action painted while we moved it (?)

And still life when we was done

I’m always hoping I will run into her

When I’m out catting around

At all the little places around the town

The faculty wives they get gray and tattered

Like the books upon their shelves

They’re sitting around by their big bay windows

Reading fiction about themselves

Dreading the hour when they hear

That well-heeled step once more

And see those sad eyes through the glasses

He bought at the professor eyeglass store

Couldn’t she have shopped around a little longer

While she was out checking it out

At all the little places around the town?

Charley had a habit of going

Too many rounds with the wall

He’s drinking to celebrate the spring

He’s drinking to mourn the fall

He made it out to Colorado

When he got tired of the flat

I ain’t too worried about that boy

He don’t wear no cowboy hat

I sure miss him on these winter nights

When the blue snow settles down

On all the little places around the town

When you were here I never went

To any of these little joints

We spent all of our time outside

What else is the point

What else but the railroad tracks

Gleaming in the winter sun

What else but the spring graveyard

Showing the ghosts how it’s done

But you left like everyone does

And I found myself going down

To all the little places around the town

Well the lights go red, the lights go green

Traffic moves on through

The lights go up, the lights go down

You get a flash of who’s who

Who is true and who is one (?)

And who ain’t really sure

Who has seen too many times

What they’ve already seen before

Who is free to come and go And who will forever be bound

To all the little places

All these little places

All the little places around the town