Lather

Lather was thirty years old today

They took away all of his toys

His mother sent newspaper clippings to him

About his old friends who'd stopped being boys

There was Harwitz E. Green, just turned thirty-three

His leather chair waits at the bank

And Seargent Dow Jones, twenty-seven years old

Commanding his very own tank

But Lather still finds it a nice thing to do

To lie about nude in the sand

Drawing pictures of mountains that look like bumps

And thrashing the air with his hands

But wait, oh Lather's productive you know

He produces the finest of sound

Putting drumsticks on either side of his nose

Snorting the best licks in town

But that's all over

Lather was thirty years old today

And Lather came foam from his tongue

He looked at me eyes wide and plainly said

Is it true that I'm no longer young?

And the children call him famous

And the old men call him insane

And sometimes he's so nameless

That he hardly knows which game to play

Which words to say

And I should have told him: No, you're not old

And I should have let him go on smiling, babywide