Augie March - One Crowded Hour

Now should you expect to see something that you hadn't seen
In somebody you'd known since you were sixteen;
if love is a bolt from the blue, then what is that bolt but a glorified screw?
and that doesn't hold nothing together
Far from these nonsense bars and their nowhere music it's making me sick
And I know it's making you sick
There's nothing there, it's like eating air
It's like drinking gin with nothing else in
And that doesn't hold me together.

But for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

And I know you like your boys to take their medicine
From the bowl with a silver spoon
Who run away with the dish and scale the fish by the silvery light of the moon
Who were taught from the womb to believe till the tomb
That as far as their bleeding eyes see
Is a pleasure pen, meant for them, builded and rent for them
Not for the likes of me
Not for the like of you and me

And for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

Oh but the green-eyed harpy of the salt land
She takes into hers my hand
She says, "Boy I know you're lying
Oh but then, so am I,"
And to this I said "Oh well."

Well put me in a cage full of lions, I learned to speak lion
In fact I know the language well
I picked it up while I was versing myself in the languages they speak in hell
That night, the silence gave birth to a baby
They took it away to her silent dismay
And they raised it to be a lady
Now she can't keep her mouth shut

And for one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
And I sailed around all those bumps in the night to your beacon in the gloom
I thought I had found my golden September in the middle of that purple June
But one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin

For one crowded hour, you were the only one in the room
Well I played a few songs for those bumps in the night
In fact I played this very tune
You said, "What is this six-stringed instrument but an adolescent loom?"
And one crowded hour would lead to my wreck and ruin.