Hi Bob,
I think this piece works. Shame about the need to use asterisks, but it
doesn't mess up the reading I don't think.
>
>In The Dock In Wallsend
>
>*It’s only here I believe in ghosts,* Big Steve says
>as he takes a sip, speaks quietly, his back to the bar.
>*And these days I know I look like him in the photographs
>my Mam has in the drawer below the model we’ve kept
>that he returned to each time he was laid off –
>some Clan Line Freighter he and Grandad helped build –
>and he’d hunch over it in silence for hours.
>It took years to complete, getting things just right.
>And it’s the same length as him, too heavy for Mam,
>so I dust it when I call by, polish the brass.
>He was canny with his hands, kind once
>in a while, but a real bastard when drunk.
>All those pints and chasers on launch days
>before he’d turn round on our doorstep
>and yell down the road at the gap in the sky.
>Then barge into my bedroom, “Son,” he’d say,
>“if I ever find ye in a pub ah’ll kill ye.”
>The last time I saw him was on the day he died
>when he just looked back as if wanting to speak.
>But he never did.* And Chris downs his 80/-,
>says, *So,* - then knocks back the Teachers –
>*on the odd time I come here, I always watch the door.*
>
>
>Bob Cooper
>
>"80/-" (pronounced "Eighty Shillings" is a beer.
>"Teachers" (ironically named, perhaps) is a whisky.
>Oh, and "The Dock" is a pub named after, wouldja believe, the docks!)
>
>
>
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