Hi Harlem #14

#14 Counting Song

This is failing territory, where we will die
of prostate cancer or sweet pneumonia,
after we hang our coats up in the broom closet.
This old man played nick nack on my drum.

Ambition, the devil, has descended to details
and every meal is eaten with Dissatisfaction.
Give, my Love, the long-dead dog a bone.
Paddy whacked, this old man rolled home.

Friends go before us—who knows where.
The doorbell rings for other men, our door
opens to the mocking grin of thinning air.
This old man played nick nack on my shoe.

Look, our eyesight is deserting us, o parody,
They say hearing, HEARING, the first to go.
Sans eyes, sans ears, sans smell, sans taste,
paddy whacked, this old man rolled home.

What have we left? The furniture of memory.
Dining table your dad made, the ghostly TV,
 the ghastly hooks of animal horn on the wall.
This old man played nick nack on my tree.

A house of sadness when we intend joy,
it will be a property, a prop, for tired feet.
After the drill square and the stroll garden,
 paddy whacked, this old man rolled home.

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