Medusa

Can you hear the shuffle of boots?
Old men in polyester suits
Ties like regimental colours flying

Who they are I do not know
I just watch them row upon row
Every single one of them is crying

They are marching along the old dirt tracks
Looking up ahead and never looking back
Scared they'll catch the eye of some Medusa

Here they are now one two three
Four and five and more and many
Six and seven, eight and nine
Here they come
In a long long line
Count a dozen
Count a score
There might be a hundred more

Can you hear the clatter of boots?
Kids and packs and khaki suits
And ragged regimental colours flying

Swallowed whole by the cold steel rain
Just a little fresh bood in the serpents manes (?)
And its a sharp shrill whistle
Call to attack
And theyre running up ahead
And theyre never coming back
Caught right in the eye of some medusa

Here they are now one two three
Four and five and more and many
Six and seven, eight and nine
Here they come
In a long long line
Count a dozen
Count a score
There might be a hundred more

Can you hear the sidewalks clicking
And the telephones bulling
And the clocks all ticking
And raining still on the embers
No one cares, no one remembers
Names like footsteps chiselled in stone
Row upon row

Here they are now one two three
Four and five and more and many
Six and seven, eight and nine
Here they come
In a long long line
Count a dozen
Count the score
There might be a hundred more