Don’t you think the fair’s a lot of fun?
The dodgems, the spinning wheels that run
without a person they’d still give the ghosts their joy,
the Helter Skelter, say ‘land ahoy’
when you start at top and finish below,
and the plastic prizes to your dartboard throw.
It’s at the fair that people change, so strange,
we’re all the same in the hall of mirrors
everyone’s themselves and yet no-one’s as normal
and the call of ‘bingo’ becomes so formal
as all eyes turn, clickity click on the red,
“you’ve won this lovely teddy to cuddle in bed!”
The fair is life but is life fair?
the fair folk beckoning “hey you over there!”
“Want to see the fat lady or the man with no hair?”
“No thanks mate,” you say, “got better things to do,”
going up to Oxford, gonna join the crew
or maybe Southend, roll a penny or two.
Copyright: Anthony Leonard Ostheimer (ALO), 14 April 1972