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
What the old men call 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, baby wide