Lyrics

The man who lived downstairs from me
Was old and crooked, cracked with years;
He’d sit and talk inside his room,
His only listeners, his ears.

His door was scrawled with love and slang
And topped with cobwebs of disuse;
The residents who passed his door
Would never knock – “no time to lose.”

I seldom saw this ancient man,
A Delphic sage in musty dark,
A withered monument to dusk
And silent prophets’ patriarch.

Scarce a sound I’d ever hear
From beneath the time-warped floor;
At night I’d lie and listen close
For movement’s noise, which he forbore.

Like Poe’s great eye and pounding heart
His quietude caused puerile dread;
-- Then, one day collecting rent,
The owner found the old man dead.

They came and took the man away;
The cause of death was ruled unknown,
No will was found or relative
To claim his sorrows as their own.