Catch that Pigeon

[vagabond]

I used to feel as smart
as a done up top button,    a nice image in connection/ contrast with smart
always sat up straight
for the spare milk.           first 4 lines make an image of self-confidence and effort
But collars get tighter,
long days turn quietly into nights,
bath-times fall flat and tepid,     the meaning of bath-times escapes me but flat and trepid seem good metaphors for slowly fading endurance under stress and little reward (spare milk).
bed-times read by themselves.

I exaggerated my responsibilities,
the fountain of all knowledge,            here I don´t quite see how a fountain of knowledge is one´s responsability and where it came from if it´s even real
drank my youth without immortality,   strong line, suggestion to consider the immortality of youth while it´s best
gulped down from the hard worker's    
poison challis.

So now they ask and I tell them,     who´s they, the younger?
they ask again so I show them.      in my opinion this line´s not necessary even if it were there to indicate a switch to some parable with the pigeon as subject
Each day my pigeon flies out the window
and returns with messages.
So I sit in the dark and read them,
I pick up my phone and I leave them,    quite a break, that phone! (at least in the story I´d come up with). makes me wonder which is the better connection to the world and why.
I feed him each day with dry crumbs
and look out across the city.     

He tells me what it's like,
what he's seen, the sights
beneath the freedom of tired flight         just for the sake of the flow I´d leave "beneath" out.
out over the skyline, down the tracks
into the country, washing high
over the coast, taking time to rest.      "rest" and " tired" weigh  the freedom down a lot in this stanza 

I turn off my desk lamp,
lock some papers in the drawer
and hope that one day he wont come back.   I´d see that as a slightly hopeful ending (because I like them)

like the development and thoughts in this one.