Poet’s Resumé

Washing dishes at a no-name diner

Worked his way up to line cook on the weekdays

But his daydream is burning

His dish towel it turned in

Another dead-end job on a poet's resumé

So, he followed a lover out west

Where the sun sets on Pacific palisades

When she slept with an old boyfriend

It tore him up to no end

Put all that pain on a poet's resumé

When you work in heartache you still earn those callouses

Words on a napkin in dead languages

Everybody loves him but no one ever stays

Another whiskey to unwind

Another less than perfect rhyme

Another wasted line on a poet's resumé

Fine line between being free and being lonely

It's blood from a stone and stoned on Percocet

He don't believe in God but he's praying

He'll find something worth saying

In a new way no one's ever heard it said

When you work in heartache you still earn those callouses

Words on a napkin in dead languages

Everybody loves him but no one ever stays

Another whiskey to unwind

Another less than perfect rhyme

Another wasted line on a poet's resumé

And he knows it's in his blood

His blood is on the page

And the page will always turn

That's how it goes when you're young

When the only thing you're scared of is running out of words

When you work in heartache you still earn those callouses

Words on a napkin in dead languages

Everybody loves him but no one ever stays

Another whiskey to unwind

Another less than perfect rhyme

Maybe this will be the line on a poet's resumé