Bill Callahan Follow

I painted names on boats for a Summer
For luck you keep the same first letter
You don’t want you don’t want you don’t want bad luck at sea

Rich Man’s Folly and Poor Man’s Dream
I painted these while beavers built dams all around me

Come September come Fall
Holding a job was not believable behavior at all
So I split
But like a beaver is a dam builder you never really quit

I made some dough / Socked it away
I always said for a rainy day

I never truly knew who I was working for anyway
The rich or the poor / Who am I working for
The rich or the poor?

When the hurricane hit some found it suspicious
That I’d just since left the frame
Like all that time spent down by the water
Had somehow given me control over the rain
Some people say wrongly that I wash things away
Guess I got my rainy day

Like a sorcerer’s cape!
The rain ripped the lips off the mouth of the bay
Rendered the eye / Sleighted the hand / Tricked the land and
Blew the air away

Then came a quiet no one should know

Rich Man’s Folly and Poor Man’s Dream
I’m painting these
While beavers build dams all around me.