Dockyard Crane

by Neil Fulwood / June 19th, 2016

See it from above – a helicopter shot
in a movie – and it’s a piece of equipment
doing a job. The arc of the gib
steady, measured: cargo shifted to ship.

See it from the ground and it’s as if
the iron man from the children’s story
had done twenty years on the day shift,
survived the lay-offs, paid his union dues.

See it by night under a whittled-down moon,
nothing moving but the watchman’s torch,
tomorrow’s paper full of bad news –
it seems like a relic, a skeleton of rust.

Neil Fulwood has published three collections with Shoestring Press, ‘No Avoiding It’, ‘Can’t Take Me Anywhere’ and ‘Service Cancelled’. A collection of political satires, ‘Mad Parade’ has just been published by Smokestack Books. Neil lives and works in Nottingham. Read other articles by Neil.

This article was posted on Sunday, June 19th, 2016 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.