The Carny

And no one saw the carny go
The weeks flew by
Until they moved on the show
Leaving his caravan behind

It was parked out on the south east ridge
And as the company crossed the bridge
With the first rain filling the bone dry river bed
It shone, just so, upon the edge
Away, away, we're sad, they say

Dog boy, Atlas, Mandrake, the geeks, the hired hands
There was not one among them
That did not cast an eye behind
In the hope that the carny would return to his own kind

The carny left behind a horse, so skin and bone
That he named Sorrow
And it was a shallow unmarked grave
That the old nag was laid
In the then parched meadow

And it was the dwarves who were
Given the task of digging the ditch
And laying the nag's carcass in the ground
While boss Bellini, waved his smoking pistol around
Saying "The nag is dead meat, we can't afford to carry dead weight"

The whole company standing about
Not making a sound
And turning to dwarves perched on the enclosure gate
The boss says "Bury this lump of crow bait"

And then the rain came thundering down
Everybody runnin' for their wagons
Tyin' all the canvas flaps down
The mangy cats crawlin' in ther cages
The bird-girl flappin' and squawkin' around

The whole valley reekin' of wet beast
Wet beast and rotten hay
Freak and brute creation
All packed up and on their way

The three dwarves peerin' from their wagon's hind
Moses says to Noah, "We shoulda dug a deeper one"
Their grizzled faces like dyin' moons
Still dirty from the diggin' done

And Charlie, the eldest of the three said
"I guess the carny ain't gonna show"
And they were silent for a spell
Wishin' they had done a better job of burying Sorrow

And the company passed from the valley
Into a higher ground
The rain beat on the ridge and on the meadow
And on the mound

Until nothing was left, nothing left at all
Except the body of Sorrow
That rose in time
To float upon the surface of the eaten soil

And a murder of crows did circle round
First one, then the others flapping blackly down
And the carny's van still sat upon the edge
Tilting slowly as the firm ground turned to sludge

And the rain it hammered down
And the rain it hammered down
And the rain it hammered down
And the rain it hammered down

And no one saw the carny go
And no one saw the carny go
And no one saw the carny go
I say it's funny how things go