353. After midnight …

Close to midnight arrive home

After afternoon shift

Hands coppered green (despite gloves)

Smelling of metal, metallic mouth.

Wash it all away & feel brand new.

Onto the porch,

River & plains stretching below night sky.

Everyone’s asleep.

Sit, watch, listen

Melt into the night.

The silence, solitude, tranquility

Touched with beautiful melancholy.

Extra:

This wasn’t written back then but expresses the feeling of those nights after finishing work at Crane Enfield. The song was written by Jimmy Webb but this instrumental version from Pat Metheny & Charlie Haden is the one for me.

 

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351. Copper tubes, brassy blokes.***

Castlereagh Rd, Crane Enfield – Copper Division

Tim Armstrong* & I

Hit bundy clock – 3pm daily.

Enter cavernous factory hall.

Miles & miles of copper tubes.

And brassy characters.

The silver-haired “dogman”**, pommy, union leader.

Struts along factory floor

Roll-your-own smoke stuck on his lip,

Barking orders & profanities.

Until 11pm, home whistle blows.

Notes:

* Tim Armstrong was a year below me. He was a teammate in the last football team I played with – the photo is here at Short Memory #323 – Tim is standing to my left.

** The dogman is the bloke who instructs the crane driver.

*** Bloody hell this is Short Memory  #351, as I write this it is December 19th … 12 days of 2012 to go, and 14 stories to get to #365!! Two behind … and I had a day in hand (there being 366 days this year). So, really 3 days have disappeared somewhere – don’t worry they regularly disappeared back then too. I’ll fixed it in the next 12 days.

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