Two Note song of the small hours

There used to be a time
I would sit out on the picnic table in the front yard
drinking beer and playing guitar late into the night
there was a big tree in the corner of the yard then
that was home to a small black bird that sang
some times till three or four in the morning
I could hear him all through the summer
While I lay awake in my bed waiting to be killed

And sometimes I would notice him on the telephone wires
under the street lights while I drank
and played and thought of death
While the fireworks went off over the skyscrapers
and he would chirp this little two note song
over and over like a heart beat
keeping me alive
and we became sort of uneasy neighbors, uneasy friends,
lamenting companeros during those hot nights
under the street lamps burning.

Each with our home, each with our
song to the passing world
And we shared that unknown truce with everything,
while the rage in me rushed
like a killing flood tide devastating a city
its murderous fingers gently ebbing away
from the redrawn coastline

I dont sit out there much anymore,
now the big tree has been cut down
Im inside tending the few little things
that are beginning to grow again
I dont hear the two note song
of the small hours any more
Or maybe Im just not listening