Put a Penny in the Slot

I apologize
I seem to have arrived
Home with items in my bag from your house
There's cutlery
A tablecloth, some Hennessy
And a book on presidents deceased
I'll have them Fed-Exed to you
It was a strange thing to do
I hope we can still be friends
Ah, it was not me
But someone else, you see
Twisting the steering reins

Put a penny in the slot and make an
Artificial light shine
Leave, go, my Golden Arm

I don't give advice
But be wise and think twice
Before getting involved in a game
Where the minority
Face the majority
Who are faceless and born without name
Was it Knocksink when
We came across three men?
They had church candles wrapped in newspaper
I bought two from them
And I lit one for you
I hope the message made its way down the wire

Put a penny in the slot and make an
Artificial light shine
Leave, go, my Golden Arm

The soul of a dog
He's alive and not gone
To the farm like the others said
A Rhodesian Ridgeback
Off the beaten track
In a furniture shop down on the Quays
For the loneliness you foster
I suggest Paul Auster
A book called Timbuktu

Put a penny in the slot and watch the
Drunken sailor boy dance
She will not let you be
Her lover
She goes out looking for
The taxi
Her phone is ringing straight to
Message-minder
Send out a battalion to
Find her

Put a penny in the slot and count the
Swans through a telescope
I can't help from cryin'
I wish you were mine

When I was seventeen
I followed my dream
Up into a high-rise block
The adventures of Augie March
By Saul Bellow
Was all I had for company
At night time I'd lie
In Beckenham Park
With tears like flashbulbs
And recall my treasure-
Searching days
In the rock pools as a kid

To the remains of
The chair-o-planes
Or around the bonfire in Naylors Cove
Good company and grief
Sit like a dock leaf
Sits beside a stinging nettle

Put a penny in the slot and make an
Artificial light shine
Leave, go, my Golden Arm