Full title: Above a dirty bookstore off Euclid Avenue: Saturday Nights In With Tom Waits

The devil's in your bedroom -
under the bed, romancing
a waitress.  He's reciting
the names of cars
you wish you owned
like a psalm: T-Bird.
Cadillac.  Buick.  Olds.
(He sounds like something
halfway between Charles Bukowski
and a motor powered by razorblades
and forty cigarettes a day.)
He drinks far too much  -
rot-gut perfumed gin -
his jeans are worn through
at the knees and he laughs
like an extractor-fan
and plays a mean piano.

He makes you yearn
for fried food in the early hours
from some backstreet diner
where they don't wash the plates
and the counter-girl
has tattoos like a sailor.
He makes you search
the ashtray, the fireplace
and the slick, wet windowsill
for any cigarette-end
that might yield
another grudging lungful.
He makes you wish you were old,
makes your whisky taste like tin -
makes you feel drunk
and cheap by candle-light,
makes On The Road
sound like a travel guide.

The devil's in your hallway,
calling up old girlfriends,
burning all the matches.
He's already claimed
your shoes for his own,
pocketed your lighter
and your Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
He's installed a jukebox
in your mind's eye,
and it plays Mack The Knife
over and over in the dark.
You won't sleep tonight,
because you know
he'll steal your car,
the absinthe you've been saving
and all the loose change
he can find.