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
|
|
Dog-boy, atlas, half-man, the geeks, the hired hands
|
There was not one among them that did not cas an eye behind
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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
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And laying the nag's carcass in the ground
|
And boss Bellini, waving his smoking pistol around
|
saying "The nag is dead meat"
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"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"
|
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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
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The whole valley reeking of wet beast
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Wet beast and rotten hay
|
Freak and brute creation
|
Packed up and on their way
|
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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
|
|
-----------------
|
The Carny
|
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds |