Riverside Hotel

Monday morning sidewalk man, sits back to watch the show
The rebar and the wet cement, transistor radio
He takes a pull from a paper bag, across the street on an old park bench
The big machines and rolled blueprints, stir something in his soul
A memory comes winding through the ruin of his mind
The hardhats and the heavy boots, the nail gun’s ringing whine
A jungle with the same sharp sound, his brothers falling all around
They built them up, just to tear them down, and left him half alive
Someday i’m gonna laugh about it, looking down from heaven’s golden plain
But for now i found some peace down by the water, just to watch a building rise
up in the rain
He waits each day til evening comes, the men all drive away
The echo of their hammers linger, voices slowly fade
The lights along the path come on, the scaffolding a skeleton
All the things he dreamed and then forgot, the promises he made
Someday i’m gonna laugh about it, looking down from heaven’s golden plain
But for now i found some peace down by the water, just to watch a building rise
up in the rain
And the moon shines on the river like a dream, and he smokes a cigarette and
falls asleep
And the wind it wanders slow through empty rooms without their walls
And a silence settles over everything
And from the ground it rises up, a riverside hotel
The sidewalk man, he comes to watch near every day until
The ribbon cut and the curtains hung, the reservations filled and gone
And the owner tells him move along, go linger somewhere else
Someday i’m gonna laugh about it, looking down from heaven’s golden plain
But for now i found some peace down by the water, just to watch a building rise
up in the rain