Are you too old?
I’m getting too old, too.
I can hardly hear the Horn Dance
Echo up and off the roofs
And when I enter the packed theater
All I see are the lights of youth.
We’re only twenty,
Sammy Tucker,
Only just out of the womb.
Hey, Sammy Tucker,
Are these fights still
Like the ones from storybooks?
Is it like you’re a little lost boy
And the World is Captain Hook?
And the cat that’s on your shoulder,
Is she your little Tinkerbell?
Or is she stuck,
Just as we all are,
In an aging outer shell?
Hey, Sammy Tucker,
Is your bathtub
Still the perfect place for tea?
And the flat roof of your warehouse
Still the place you long to be?
Can you still see the horizon,
Or just a wall of bones and skulls?
Oh, Sammy Tucker,
Are you still mad?
Will you head the battle call?
And, Sammy Tucker,
Are you wearing
All that black to keep you strong?
Are you hiding in your denim
All the things that keep you young?
Black, I wear, as I grow older.
A mark, it is, of my history.
Will you wear white or grey and lower
All your flags and mysteries?
Hey, Sammy Tucker,
I’ve got your bike here,
It’s broken down like your old ideals.
Its shoddy motor is held together
With some spit and wayward spells.
Oh, Sammy Tucker,
You’ll be the first I
Look for when I cross the edge.
When everything is closed or broken,
I’ll remember your patronage
To kids like us who grow in darkness,
Always under shadows, tall.
But I kid I am,
Nor are you, any longer
And we’ve seen things through the fall.
