Amid the wear worn aluminium frames
and the flapping wind-cracked tarpaulin sheets
the perspiring features contort in pain
for hard-earned profits on Camden streets.
With screaming sinews of muscles flexed
and pleuritic effusions in cascading streams
the wrinkled brows of men’s faces vexed
as the wet permeates each stitch and seam.
A miserable days work on meagre pay,
buffeting torrents tearing trade to shreds
and that which was made must be cleared away,
strain on body dictates distress in the head.
The hard backed men of Camden lock
curse and struggle and damn their luck
gas canisters tossed like trash in the dock,
the rain increases, “Gud weaver fer ducks.“
Even in the hard stress of toil, the sky
is cleft into regions – heaven and hell
– the men now aware of the passers by
old men, preening young girls, a cyclists bell.
A stranger vision can rarely be seen
with the sky rent between black night and day
and heightened hues of a bright summer sheen
the spectrum of colours of an early May.
All now look up in a body as one
to colours stretched out across the whole sky,
as smart phones are raised to worship the sun
even the work hardened labourers sigh.
A beauty unpredicted yet joyous to see
moments of silence to look up at the sky
then back to reality and what must be
profits tomorrow or be damned they cry!
YOU ARE READING
Still Waters
PoetryA collection of metered poems of life, death and everything in between.
