daring farmers

Have you heard what they're saying 'bout handing it over
The deed to the town that we built
King Mayor shook hands with a cannonball dozer
He held a straight face in a jar of composure
And dozens of smiles on stilts

City Hall plays it off like a boon to the public
Or a sweet gravicembalo tune
It harps a chord but we're still not so sure of it
In our sinking tub sits some sinister couplet
If we get around to it, maybe we'll snub it
But not 'til the late afternoon

See, there're fields that need drinking and whiskey to plow
Through the windows, the cleaners can't see
'Cause their kittens need mending while spectacles meow
An optometrist spans the marquees
Opera singers wrap broken-up knees
While the surgeon is felling the trees
Lumberjacks strain their backs washing windows for free
Only stopping for sopping their brows

Look closer, blackgrocers discount custom errs
While the greensmith is shooing hoarse throats
The barber, a raiser of pneumatic chairs
And dullest of shaviors, leaves his patrons scared
He's tearing back towels and paring down hairs
Since your loss is his ware, he sells your own scalp bare
For a quartet of quarters and notes

Our astronomers work on a cure for the gout
While the doctor admires the sun
Sal Fisher mixed his dough with light sauerkraut
Sheriff Baker spouted a sweet seed of doubt
While honest Judge Gard'ner toss'd rolls 'long her route
And the paperboy wrestled a trout
All the roughs in the gangs are so pure and devout
While the parish gets garish and starts up a bout
And for rhymes of our reasons no-one figured out
The things we did never got done

Still, this was our home and was soon to be bought
A hefty sum someone would pay
For shingles and cellars, exemptied-out plots
If only we'd close our hotels and tell-nots
And the hunters give up their fair game and last shots
The cooks and gamblers and what's in their pots
(Though unkempt record-keeps kept the things they forgot)
We just have to unravel our rotted-knot spot
But I think that I'd rather we stay