- guardian.co.uk, Saturday October 7 2000 15.57 BST
They're closing down the travelling fair this week.
The crystal balls are packed, the last sword swallowed,
And the geek has shaved and caught the night bus home.
Beyond the dimming generator lights we stick it out,
blind masters of the dying arts, by night, by winter rain,
squatting in the rotting straw of our cages.
The recordreader strokes a disc and snaps back
Gould, The French Suites . The booksniffer naps,
face pressed to the uncut pages of the life of Keats
that he has just inhaled. The last haruspicator
snacks on hay with the phrenologist whilst I perform
another brilliant twist in the Mercan Variation
of the Queen's Gambit! History, made, fades away
unseen - as interest in exhibition solo chess
has markedly declined. But you, you inspire us,
frighten us, with your extraordinary abstinence,
obscurity and silence.Only a soft chittering
tells me you're there now, naked, knitting,
with tweezers, small flames - dark gold flash
of brass foil, spring coil, and gear - into tonight's
unsold array of clockwork crickets
