Lush Life

I used to visit all the very gay places

Those come what may places

Where one relaxes on the axis of the wheel of life

To get the feel of life...

From jazz and cocktails.

The girls I knew had sad and sullen gray faces

With distingue traces

That used to be there you could see where they'd been washed away

By too many through the day...

Twelve o'clock tales.

Then you came along with your siren of song

To tempt me to madness!

I thought for a while that your poignant smile was tinged with the sadness

Of a great love for me.

Ah yes! I was wrong...

Again,

I was wrong.

Now life is awful again,

And only last year everything seemed so sure.

Life is lonely again,

A troughful of hearts could only be a bore.

A week in Paris will ease the bite of it,

All I care is to smile in spite of it.

I'll forget you, I will

While yet you are still burning inside my brain.

Romance is mush,

Stifling those who strive.

I'll live a lush life in some small dive...

And there I'll be, while I rot

With the rest of those whose lives are lonely, too.

BILLY STRAYHORN

November 19, 1915 - May 31, 1967