Arthur,

Vivid, clear and resonant. You are an able songster.

The refs to war beyond and the last stanza looking through time and changes
in the human frame made it for me, increasing the depth of the poem.

I liked 99% of the poem but by now you'll have guessed that I'm not going to
say more about that, just the 1%.

"wondrous" is like one of those used up-words that I have in my poems. Goes
well with summer though. Used up words like beautiful and magnificent can be
used in poems but I'm not sure that I understand the rules by which they are
used, cf Auden's "watching traffic of magnificent clouds". It depends on
what is happening in the the rest of the line, allowing magnificent to be
subordinated and incorporated, I suppose.


new mysteries of dare
ringed and hemmed-in


"dare" is phenomenonlogically strong, carries with it certain associations
not fitting in well with mystery or being ringed and hemmed-in, that come
before and after. This makes it heard to summarise the meaning as I go
through it. I don't mean intellectually. I mean in the way the poem is
immediately felt as it is read.

I liked the first line of the poem much more once I had read the whole poem
through. First time round it put me in mind of an epileptic seizure. Second
and third time it fitted in perfectly.


Colin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: arthur seeley [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, December 10, 2002 7:49 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Fete and Gala Day
>
>
>
>                             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.