Cara's Castle - Joni Mitchell

If you ever come to our town

On a carousel crusade

And you’re tired of fighting windmills with a nail

Cross the fence and join the dragons

Who have never made the grade

Cara’s castle and the keepers of a most unholy grail.

Oh Cara, Queen of the losers, ruler of the weak

Give the poet what he chooses till he’s too dumb to speak

There’s a clock upon the mantle

But its hands forget the time

And the windows turn their backs upon the day

And the people in the shadows

Could be all lost friends of mine

Cara’s courtiers need no light Ђ" need no light to lose their way

Oh Cara, Queen of the losers, ruler of the weak

Give the poet what he chooses till he’s too dumb to speak

From the end to the beginning

Crippled minds retrace the steps

From the burial to the birth they do retreat

Wonderin’where and when and why

Their souls were slaughtered while they slept

Cara’s courtiers know no victory Ђ" know no victory just defeat

Oh Cara, Queen of the losers, ruler of the weak

Give the poet what he chooses till he’s too dumb to speak

One by one the battered soldiers

Go slowly cross the moat

One by one they seek new castles somewhere else

With their crutches and the cravens

And I wonder is there hope

Is there hope for Cara’s courtiers Ђ" and the wars against themselves

Oh Cara, Queen of the losers, ruler of the weak

Give the poet what he chooses till he’s too dumb to speak