The Fair And The Dark
See the mighty waltzer as it spins around
And hear the piercing cries and screams
It’s every teenager’s great night out
Full of thrills, of hopes, of dreams
Watch folks emerging from the ghost train
Faces wearing masks of joy and fear
Stumbling down the exit steps
Wondering what other treats are near
The flashing of coloured bulbs and neon strips
Lighting up the night-time sky
The blasting and pounding of the music
As the cars go whizzing by
Catch the drifting smells of sizzling hot dogs
The candy-floss and buttered popcorn
The slowing of the circling wheels
Rides ended by the hooting of the horn
The swing-boats and the carousel
The helter-skelter and the ferris-wheel
But best of all the dodgem-cars
Dashing round on their plates of steel
But behind the scenes things are rather darker
Amongst the shadows where there’s little light
A different world of trucks and cables
Hidden in the foldings of the night
The rusting, oily lorry couplings
A glamorous world this surely ain’t
The sooty smell of burning diesel
The peeling layers of gaudy paint
Here the engines keep on running
The generators pumping out their smoke
Dumping out their blackened fumes
Keeping power flowing with every stroke
And in those hidden spaces round the back
When the teenagers collect and huddle
Where there’s no-one around to see
The occasional kiss and cuddle
And in the morning, when it’s all been shut down
And the heavy men knock it all apart
Collapsed and loaded on the painted lorries
The magic’s gone and they’re ready to depart
Only the tyre-ruts that cut into the Green
Shapes of faded, trampled grass
Betray the evidence of what was once here
But not its story, nor how it came to pass
Copyright Andy Fawthrop 2022
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