"Dancing On The Ashes" lyrics - ROBBIE FULKS

Harry came home with an old man's eyes
Across the channel in his brother's red mac
Two crossed over, now the wrong one lies
Way downriver, where the past is

London's walled itself from the worst
Chalk heaps littered with stakes and rings
Nights they rise 'til the floodgates burst
And Harry goes back to the trenches

Down, down, a hundred years down
Down with the cold, vast wreckage of men
Listen to the sound of the little ones' feet
Dancing on the ashes

Flares rained down on the Somme that fall
Men spilled steady on a 10-mile wire
Wave after wave, they crumpled like dolls
And the shells never quit crashing

On a low bank where the small hangs think
Harry huddles over a legless wretch
"Yes, dear Jack, I'll finish you quick
And we'll leave Mother to imagine"

Lives bend, memories shake
Time turns, staggers and spins
How deep a track does one man make
Dancing on the ashes?

Crosses, monuments, sticks and stones
Turn to motes in a blank boys eyes
No one noticed how cold they shone
Under the pretty blonde lashes

Lost, he crawls in a cathode mist
Leveling cities, while worlds away
Great-granddaddy lies, bound at the wrists
And turning his face from the flashes

Down, down, a hundred years down
Down where God's hands fumble in vain
Listen to the sound of the little ones' feet
Dancing on the ashes