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And no-one saw the carny go |
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And the weeks flew by |
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Until they moved on the show |
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Leaving his caravan behind |
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It was parked out on the south east ridge |
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And as the company crossed the bridge |
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With the first rain filling the bone-dry river bed |
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It shone, just so, upon the edge |
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Away, away, we're sad, they said |
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Dog-boy, atlas, half-man, the geeks, the hired hands |
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There was not one among them that did not cast an eye behind |
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In the hope that the carny would return to his own kind |
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And the carny had a horse, all skin and bone |
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A bow-backed nag, that he named "Sorrow" |
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How it is buried in a shallow grave |
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In the then parched meadow |
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And the dwarves were given the task of digging the ditch |
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And laying the nag's carcass in the ground |
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And boss Bellini, waving his smoking pistol around saying "The nag is dead meat" "We caint afford to carry dead weight" |
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The whole company standing about |
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Not making a sound |
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And turning to dwarves perched on the enclosure gate |
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The boss says "Bury this lump of crow bait" |
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And then the rain came |
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Everybody running for their wagons |
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Tying all the canvas flaps down |
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The mangy cats crowling in ther cages |
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The bird-girl flapping and squawking around |
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The whole valley reeking of wet beast |
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Wet beast and rotten hay |
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Freak and brute creation |
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Packed up and on their way |
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The three dwarves peering from their wagon's hind |
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Moses says to |
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Noah "We shoulda dugga deepa one" |
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Their grizzled faces like dying moons |
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Still dirty from the digging done |
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And as the company passed from the valley |
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Into a higher ground |
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The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow |
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And on the mound |
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Until nothing was left, nothing at all |
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Except the body of |
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Sorrow That rose in time |
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To float upon the surface of the eaten soil |
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And a murder of crows did circle round |
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First one, then the others flapping blackly down |
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And the carny's van still sat upon the edge |
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Tilting slowly as the firm ground turned to sludge |
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And the rain it hammered down |
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And no-one saw the carny go |
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I say it's funny how things go |
