The New Forty

[oldmansfiles]

Every crooked beat of my heart
Strains against the faint guitar and tuneless voice

I live in the hallowed gourd at the center of town
Still while the vines of strangers' lives burrow,
Pretending they are a larger garden of stone and steel

I count; not footsteps nor conquests, instead
Feeble pulses as the night swallows the last voices
My veins are highways for humming strings
No longer quite in tune with the coming frost

Every crooked beat warns.