Hi Arthur,
This is fine writing! The mood and atmosphere of the event is well captured 
in your words and phrases (and I love the way the word "eked" helps to place 
it in time (it's an old word in itself) and gives a flavour of the place 
(its a traditional word and one I associate with northern culture!). I also 
like the alliterative phrases - they capture the excitement, the thrill of 
the experience:
"the canvas mass that bellied and bloomed
in the great green acres of our park
every wondrous gabbling golden summer." is, as they say, lush!
I've only 2 small nits...
The word "betray" distracts me... couldn't the line be reworked so the 
concept isn't needed? And...
I find I'm stumbling a little over the abruptness of the start of the last 
stanza:
"I do not go there now, for all things change,
they do not sell the things I seek these days.
I stand instead upon the evening hills and watch..."
The words "I do not go there now" seem too harsh a way to introduce what you 
want to say. Perhaps saying "But I don't go there now..." might soften it a 
little? Or starting the stanza:
"I stand instead upon the evening hills and watch..."
and maybe, then:
"for all things change, I do not go there now,
they do not sell the things I seek these days..."
might make it easier to accept. (But the phrases "for all things change" amd 
"I do not go there now" are implied by the fact that you're stood so far 
away anyway, aren't they? So are they really needed?)
Oh, I've three nits!!! Because the phrase "happy as a sand boy" is a fully 
fledged cliche for me - that's only working as a cliche.
But it's a canny poem that makes me want to re-read (for my own reasons) 
Philip Larkin's Show Saturday which I think is one of his best poems. But I 
think your will stand up to it very well.
Bob






>From: arthur seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Fete and Gala Day
>Date: Tue, 10 Dec 2002 19:49:04 -0000
>
>
>
>                             Fete and Gala Day
>
>My stomach looped, my head snapped up and eyes glittered
>
>as the news thundered round school like a dodgem car,
>
>the grinned conspiracy of whispers, “The caravans are here!”.
>
>Glittering gypsy swallows that heralded the gala;
>
>the canvas mass that bellied and bloomed
>
>in the great green acres of our park
>
>every wondrous gabbling golden summer.
>
>
>
>Days we had, to wander through the painted maze
>
>of stalls and swooping rides and bannered tents
>
>old favourites and new mysteries of dare
>
>ringed and hemmed-in by throbbing diesels
>
>that spread thick black cables, sinuous as tree roots,
>
>to web and betray our pitch and playing field.
>
>Days we had, to plot and spend money we did not have.
>
>
>
>The time came when lights blazed and music blared
>
>coconuts tumbled, pennies rolled and chairs flew round
>
>and over our dizzied heads and the rides swept by in blurs,
>
>wormed, screeched and clattered in a great racket
>
>that dinned us into bewilderment and rapture
>
>as the big wheel trundled over the night sky
>
>and war was a rumour from another world.
>
>
>
>I eked out my scant coins over the afternoon
>
>on brandy snap, chips and toffee apples,
>
>three legged sheep, boxing booth, darts, airguns
>
>and the gut-gripping wheel where I watched the magic
>
>and the mill drift beneath me, head in the stars,
>
>happy as a sand-boy in the dream of a day
>
>soothed and rocked in the arms of a midnight sky.
>
>
>
>I do not go there now, for all things change,
>
>they do not sell the things I seek these days.
>
>I stand instead upon the evening hills and watch
>
>their fireworks hose the sky with sudden stars;
>
>hear their clamour and cacophony, faint and dulled
>
>by intervening trees; watch their lights flicker,
>
>distant as galaxies, dimmed by the space between us.


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