Someday my hands will grow old and weak
They will stiffen up and fail
Oh I hope by then, like an autumn leaf
I’ve learned to live with snow, with hail
Because we know it’s all
More important than how you pluck and bend some strings

A knight who fights through the tightest of arthritis
Fends off fire-breathing, flying, roaring, torrid, tendinitis
And can’t imagine that his passion will come crashing down around him
As he muddles through the puddles, the muck and mire of carpal tunnels
He knows it’s all
Just a matter of time before his final chord rings and resolves
Waiting
Thinking

Maybe I’ll just cut them off
And watch them decompose without me
Maybe I’ll just lop them off
Quit; find some other friends and hobbies

Someday my friends will grow old and weak
They will wrinkle up and pale
One of their kids will spot a cottage on the beach
Move there and end their fairy tale
They’ve always known it’s all
More important than how you write, recite to keys

A pilot caught flying through the toss and turn of turbulence
Through lightning, thunder, frightening crash of wasted youth and common sense
Looks down between his thighs knowing the nigh: his peers’ rejection
A photo of his wife to be, a flashing, untouched button reads: Eject!
He knows it all
Just a matter of time before his final chord rings and resolves
Waiting
Thinking

Maybe I’ll just cut them off
And watch them decompose without me
Maybe I’ll just lop them off
Quit; find some other friends and hobbies
Maybe I’ll just hack them off
Find humor in the way that I bleed
Maybe I’ll just saw them off
And be the one doing the severing for once

Tie the arm, the tightest notch upon the belt
Bitten lip, nerve ends few should have ever felt
An earsplitting pitch reverberates and swells
Regret screamed in tongues no letters long to spell

And I bled and bled and stumbled near the end
A Bond victim’s sight, a blurring, dripping red
If there’s a god with the means
To sew me tight, bind the seams
And grant this fool one more chance
Make this a cruel, cruel, cruel dream

Wake up all choked up when I see
A favorite all-time scene
Benny running the bases alone