Two Days in Tucson

Two days in Tucson in the blazing sun
Rattlesnakes rattle and the roadrunners run
Cougar in the canyon, high on a rock
Got forty-eight hours, don’t look at the clock
Run out of Pittsburgh and Dallas too
Wanted in three states for things I didn’t do
Last night in Las Cruces was one big lie
I’m just a man with a Mustang and no alibi
So tired of hiding, so tired of the chase,
So tired of walking with the sand in my face
I’m here in one piece though, this town’ll do fine
Can’t go no further, it’s the end of the line
I don’t mind sleeping under the stars
I can live with my memories, I can handle the scars
Scatter my ashes over all that I see
Two days in Tucson are enough for me

I’ve spent enough time in the circles of hell
Things’ll be better in the Congress Hotel
Put my head on a pillow, turn the radio dial,
Some cowboy singer’s bound to make me smile
Have a beer in the Boxyard, catch a show at the Fox,
Toss a coin to the old man with the jack-in-the-box
Meet a hippie gypsy down on Fourth Avenue
She’ll read my palm, then carve me a heart-shaped tattoo
Stop in for a burger at old Bob Dobb’s bar and grill
A few shots of tequila put me high up on a hill
Make love to a woman I meet on the street
Take her back to the Congress and the honeymoon suite
Step into a pawn shop, buy me a guitar
Write a song about someone who shoots at a jar
I might look like a robber, don’t believe what you see
Two days in Tucson are enough for me

If I had me some more time and a few dollar bills
I’d buy me a bungalow in the Catalina hills
Out there among cactus and the great horned owl
Where tarantulas tango and the coyotes howl
I’d sit atop Mount Lemmon, staring up at the sky
I’d sing to the sunrise and watch bald eagles fly
I ought not to be greedy, but I don’t care to hang
I got nothing to do with John Dillinger’s gang
Daddy never rambled, never gambled or swore
He never drank whiskey, never messed with a whore
I took me a pathway, well, it’s right or it’s wrong
Whether now or later, I won’t live so long
I’ll take what they give me, I won’t waste a word
I’ll live with the love of a tune that I heard
Fall asleep in the blossoms of an ironwood tree
Two days in Tucson are enough for me

Tucson

January 2023

Copyright © 2025 by Michael Kim Roos

A man playing an acoustic guitar and singing into a microphone in a classroom with a yellow wall and a whiteboard, with the text 'SONGS IN PROGRESS' overlaid.