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    Scott Cook

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    1. The Poet Game (by Greg Brown)

    From the recording One More Time Around (2013)

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    The Poet Game (by Greg Brown)

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    Scott Cook's album One More Time Around

    www.scottcook.net

    Lyrics

    Down by the river, junior year, walking with my girl
    We came upon a place
    There in the tall grass where a couple had been making love
    And they left the mark of their embrace
    I said to her, "Looks like they had some fun"
    She said to me, "Let's do the same"
    And still I taste her kisses and her freckles in the sun
    When I play the poet game

    A young man in the hill country, the year of '22
    Went to see his future bride
    She lived in a rough old shack that poverty blew through
    And she invited him inside
    She'd been cooking, ashamed and feeling sad
    She could only offer him bread and her name
    Grandpa said that it was the best gift a fella ever had
    And he taught me the poet game

    I had a friend who drank too much and played too much guitar
    And we sure got along
    Reel-to-reels rolled across the country near and far
    Filled with letters, poems, and songs
    But these days he won't talk to me, and he won't tell me why
    I miss him every time I hear his name
    I don't know what he's doing, don't know how our friendship died
    While we played the poet game

    The fall rain was pounding down on an old New Hampshire mill
    And the river wild and high
    I was talking to her while leaves blew down with a sudden chill
    There was wildness in her eyes
    We made love like we'd been waiting all of our lives for this
    Strangers know no shame
    But she had to leave at dawn, and with a sticky farewell kiss
    She left me to play the poet game

    I watched my country turn into a coast-to-coast strip mall
    and I cried out in a song:
    If we could do all that in thirty years, please tell me you all
    Why does good change take so long?
    Why does the color of your skin or who you choose to love
    Still lead to such anger and pain?
    And why do I think it's any help for me to still dream of
    Playing the poet game?

    Sirens wail above the fields, another soul gone down
    Another Sun about to rise
    I've lost track of my mistakes, like birds they fly around
    And darken half my skies
    To all of those I've hurt, I beg you to forgive me
    I to you will freely do the same
    There were just so many things I didn't see, with my eyes turned inside
    Playing the poet game

    I walk out at night to take a leak underneath the stars
    Yeah, that's the life for me
    There's Orion and the Pleiades and I guess that must be Mars
    All as clear as we long to be
    I've sung what I was given, some was bad and some was good
    And I never will know from where it came
    And if I had it all to do again I am not sure I would
    Play the poet game

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