The Cemetery Men

[Daddy Bear]

With the trenches dug

and the tombstones laid

the crew picked up their tools

and left the graveyard for the day

and when the sun was down

and the moon was crowned

as the silence stretched forever outward

from the western town

some curled up with jars of whiskey

others, books by Dostoevsky

on their boxes made of pine and fell to dreaming

 

one, he'd dream that dancing girls tugged coyly at his beard

and fished his dusty pockets clean of gold

another saw the men he'd shot rise up as he had feared

and see to it he, too, would not grow old

a worse scene yet befell a third

his true love left without a word

just like, in real life, she had fled their home

the fault was his own

 

the rest of the men

on the Boot Hill crew

had tired of dreams and sleeptime screams

and they knew what to do

so at night they'd crawl

in the alcohol

and in their trance there was no chance

that nightmares could get through

such an unforgettable sad song

that shovels rang out all day long

and the men, they envied those who'd gone

as they packed the dirt on brothers freed from dreaming