The Carny

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, 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

And the carny left behind a horse, all 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 the dwarves that 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 was dead meat"

"We caint afford to carry dead weight"

While 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

Everybody running for their wagons

Tying all the canvas flaps down

The mangy cats growling in ther cages

The bird-girl flapping and squawking around

The whole valley reeked of wet beast

Wet beast and rotten hay

Freak and brute creation

All 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 Charlie, the eldest of the three, said

"Guess the Carnie ain't gonna show."

And they were silent for a spell

Wishing they'd 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 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