I am tired of being an old man,

Though apparently not tired enough

To stop looking or rather lurking

In the window of the lighthouse,

 

But too tired to care much about dirt

Or the naming of pain

Or smiling on cue or smelling lost

Like a stray dog at home in the rain,

 

Searching, hungry for a tuning bone

To mouth for the sake of a song,

The tune played out in gray scale

As it never did when I was young.

 

That’s a lie, of course, but no more so

Than the song I once sang for someone

I loved, words that cannot be unsung. 

I am tired of being all heart and bone.