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The Carny

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And no-one saw the carny go

And 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 said



Dog-boy, atlas, half-man, 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



And the carny had a horse, all skin and bone

A bow-backed nag, that he named "Sorrow"

How it is buried in a shallow grave

In the then parched meadow



And the dwarves were given the task of digging the ditch

And laying the nag's carcass in the ground

And boss Bellini, waving his smoking pistol around

saying "The nag is dead meat"

"We caint 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 thean the rain came

Everybody running for their wagons

Tying all the canvas flaps down

The mangy cats crowling in ther cages

The bird-girl flapping and squawking around

The whole valley reeking of wet beast

Wet beast and rotten hay

Freak and brute creation

Packed up and on their way



The three dwarves peering from their wagon's hind

Moses says to Noah "We shoulda dugga deepa one"

Their grizzled faces like dying moons

Still dirty from the digging done



And as 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 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 no-one saw the carny go

I say it's funny how things go