For Real

from East Asheville Hardware
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- (by Bob Franke)

Death took the husband of a neighbor of mine
On a highway with a drunk at the wheel
She told me keep your clean hands off the laundry he left
And don't tell me you know how I feel
She had a tape that he'd sent her from a Holiday Inn
That she never played much in the day
But when I heard him say I love you through the window at night
I just stayed the hell away

Chorus:
There's a hole in the middle in the middle of the prettiest life
So the lawyers and the prophets say
Not your father nor your mother nor your lover's ever gonna make it go away
Now there's too much darkness in an endless night
To be afraid of the way we feel
Let's be kind to each other
Not forever but for real

My father never put his parachute on
In the pacific back in World War II
He said he'd rather go down in familiar flame
Than get lost in that endless blue
Well some of that blue got into my eyes
And we never stopped fighting that war
Until I first understood about endlessness
And I loved him like never before

There's a hole in the middle in the middle of the prettiest life
So the lawyers and the prophets say
Not your father nor your mother nor your lover's ever gonna make it go away
Now there's too much darkness in an endless night
To be ashamed of the way we feel
Let's be kind to each other
Not forever but for real

Lucky my daughter got her mother's nose
And just a little of her father's eyes
And we've got just enough love
That when the longing takes me
It takes me by surprise
And I remember that longing from my highway days
When I never could give it a name
And it's lucky that I discovered in the nick of time
That the woman and the child aren't to blame

For the hole in the middle of a pretty good life
I only face it 'cause it's here to stay
Not my father nor my mother nor my daughter nor my lover
Nor the highway made it go away
But now there's too much darkness in an endless night
to be afraid of the way I feel
I'll be kind to my loved ones
Not forever but for real

Some say god is a lover, some say it's an endless void
And some say both, and some say she's angry
And some say just annoyed
But if god felt a hammer in the palm of his hand
Then god knows the way we feel
And then love lasts forever
Forever and for real

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Bob Franke, all rights reserved