The Line-up
(one of my father's stories)
I’d hurry there first thing in the morning
and stand in line with the rest,
and the foreman would come along
with a pile of metal discs in his hand,
and walk down the line and look at us,
and he’d hand out a disc here and there
to a few familiar faces, or maybe on a whim,
and to anyone he knew would buy him drinks,
so that left thirty or forty of us
waiting to know if we would work that day,
and the foreman would pause and frown
and pretend he’d enough men for the job,
then throw the discs on the floor
and walk away smiling as men scrambled
and pushed and shoved for a chance
to take a little money home that night.
and stand in line with the rest,
and the foreman would come along
with a pile of metal discs in his hand,
and walk down the line and look at us,
and he’d hand out a disc here and there
to a few familiar faces, or maybe on a whim,
and to anyone he knew would buy him drinks,
so that left thirty or forty of us
waiting to know if we would work that day,
and the foreman would pause and frown
and pretend he’d enough men for the job,
then throw the discs on the floor
and walk away smiling as men scrambled
and pushed and shoved for a chance
to take a little money home that night.
Page(s) 9
magazine list
- Features
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- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The