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 on the south-east ridge
And a the company crossed the bridge
With the first rain filling the bone-dry river bed
It shone, just so, upon the edge.
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 had a horse, all skin and bone,
A bow-backed nag that he named Sorrow.
Now 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 smocking 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 the dwarves perched on the enclosure gate
The Boss says 'Bury this lump of crow bait'.
And then the rain came hammering down
Everybody running for their wagons
Tying all the canvass flaps down.
The mangy cats growling in their 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 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 dow.
And no-one saw the carny go
I say it's funny how things go.
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