I was born a day late and a dollar in debt,

A few sandwiches short and I ain’t finished yet.

Mama just shook her head, kissed me and cried

“Fine feathers, poor bird.” Then she stepped back inside.

 

Thin gruel for schooling, small beer for a brain,

Wouldn’t wash and wouldn’t do, they said it plain.

Wouldn’t pass the test, wouldn’t come up to scratch.

Maybe so, but come nightfall I struck every match.

 

Grew up where the lake wind can peel off your hide,

Milwaukee in winter, there’s nowhere to hide.

A nickel short of coffee, a dime short of grace,

I tried outrunning the cold with the snow in my face.

 

Close but no cigar, not worth a damn,

A cracked little vessel, a secondhand man,

Sixty-seven years of not quite the thing.

A bell with no clapper that still tried to ring.

 

Took my poor excuses to the Arizona sun,

Thought the desert might fix what Wisconsin had done.

But a fool and his money still part company fast,

I was hard luck walking in a desert that knew my past.

 

Nebraska taught patience, Illinois taught debt,

Been a day late and a dollar short everywhere yet.

Like a gate on a fence that won’t stay where it’s hung,

Still heading somewhere with a map half undone.

 

Built my love on sand with a promise and a shrug,

A hollow reed rattling, a cracked coffee mug.

She said, “You’re a sieve, boy—you won’t hold the rain.”

I said, “Baby, you’re right,” and stood in it just the same.

 

Worked every job like a three-legged horse,

Not fit for purpose, but I held my course.

Didn’t amount to much—well, they got that right.

But I punched every clock and showed up every night.

 

Close but no cigar, not worth a damn,

A cracked little vessel, a secondhand man,

Sixty-seven years of not quite the thing-

A bell with no clapper that still tried to ring.

 

All hat, no cattle, all thunder, no rain,

Great cry, little wool, and a slow-moving train.

Not worth the powder to blow it to hell…

But I loaded her up and I fired her well.

 

House with one wall, clock with one hand,

One oar in the water, one foot in the sand.

Cut from poor cloth and held together with spite,

A patchwork of maybes that made it through the night.

 

All noise, little substance, all flash, little gold,

A sorry specimen left out in the cold.

Found wanting in substance—it’s carved in stone.

Still I kept at it, kept at it, and kept at it alone.

 

Close but no cigar, not worth a damn,

A cracked little vessel, a secondhand man,

Sixty-seven years of not quite the thing,

A bell with no clapper that still tried to ring.

 

Now the clock’s gone to rust and the joints file complaints,

A lame horse, a penny short, a man of no saints.

Not worth a hill of beans, not worth a spit..

But I drank every drop of the life that was it.

 

A poor excuse for a man—go ahead, write it down,

Poor-cut stock in a secondhand town.

Not worth the candle—maybe so, maybe true..

But I burned every candle I was given clear through.

 

So here’s to the half-baked, the short and the slight,

The barely passable stumbling toward light.

Not worth a tinker’s damn, not worth a dime…

But I spent every penny and I spent all my time.

 

Close but no cigar, not worth a damn,

A cracked little vessel, a secondhand man,

Sixty-seven years of not quite the thing—

A bell with no clapper—

that finally rang.