Shovelling Sand

Shovelling the sands of time
Shovel off this mortal coil
Soon the sand will blow over the line
Sand in my eyes, wind of toil

Soon the wild wind will whip
The sands from their heap
And I will build another sandcastle
On another shore of sleep

Sleep, sleep, the long eternal
Sleep in the sandy bay
Sleep like a sandman
Coming from the grains
Under the bed of hay

Sleep is a doorway
Into the land of the dead
Sleep upon your sandy pillow
Sandy Sue go rest your head

Filling the sand bags
Filling the hand bags
Throwing the women over my shoulder
Carrying them like a fireman
Out of the tower of older
Burning like a conflagration
Like a funeral pyre
Sand is thrown onto the flames
Sand blasts blown much higher

All the grains of time will stand
Will stand shoulder to shoulder
And the seconds
And minutes and hours
Will fuse into one
Glass Tower
Shine like a chimmney plume
Rising up to heaven
My glass elevator
My Siege of time's power

But no name, no fame, no nothing
Can make a war on time
Eventually the cracks will show
And the tower will shatter

Then all the pieces will be returned once
More to the shore
Washed up in the tumbling waves
To become sand grains once more
Blown across the face of graves