The Palace Ballroom Chatteris,

star of the fens

accessible by pilgrim's journey

with cloak and dagger

petrol

at the county's end.

The eyes of the dashboard

watched me like moons

in a distracted dream,

either side ditches

dragging the reeds,

fatal attraction to the unwary.

The ghosts of families,

celery, beetroots

with their carpets of damp miasma

clung to the lonely car on the way.

The ballroom stepped out

with its glitzy beckoning,

the stage bedecked for Christmas reckoning.

The trio played haunted melodies that hung

in musical festoons,

fondly remembered tunes,

backstage a singer and comedian

prepared to take their chances

with the farmers and their wives

with shorts and speckled hens,

when glamour tried to infect the fens.