Cemetery Guns

Elizabeth

That thundercloud is creeping up the Empire Hill

There's shadows on the overpass

And puddles in the old dirt path

Peoria

Lay silent still in the belly of the overgrown

All quiet on the open plain

Footprints to the family plot

Where evermore will restless sorrow sleep

In a broken heap

Cemetery Guns go bang bang bang

Shooting all the sky full of holes

Twenty-one times in row

For the blue war widow in the gray raincoat

On the green grass down below

Elizabeth

Our fathers came and settled where the ground was flat

Drew water from the Indian wells

Cut timber from the rolling fells

Grandaddy-o

Bled hearth and home for oiling the company gears

No rest for the errant ones

Godspeed their reckless sons

Who evermore play their forefathers' hands

On the foreign sands

Cemetery Guns go bang bang bang

Shooting all the sky full of holes

Twenty-one times in row

For the blue war widow in the gray raincoat

On the green grass down below