Shroud of Flames The Residents

Sitting on a hillside, ominous and black
A massive tank of petrol bled beneath the tracks.

Seen as steaming smokestacks in a sea of fire,
The engine nearly vanished, embraced by searing spires
The raging yellow river branded like an iron
As a scream betrayed the torment of a child

Along the railway bed, a vast amount of oil
Had waited for a flame to parboil, bake and broil.

Engineer Pat Sexton and fireman Billy Young
Saw the engine bathed in incandescent tongues,
Flames that licked and laughed and danced about and sung
Causing every breath to scorch their livid lungs.
Sexton drove until roasting flesh and pain
Forced evacuation. Still his hands remained
Fastened to the throttle as his flesh sustained
Charcoal colored blisters macerating him with pain

But language fails to tell the sorry state of those
Trapped inside the coach where flaming oil exposed
Their callow bodies to a merciless inferno
Extending from their faces to the tips of torrid toes

Meanwhile, in the wake of the rushing pyre,
Victims rolled around in the snow like tires
Desperate to escape the philosophy of fire
Making every moment mad, malevolent and dire