Hi Frank,
You wrote a dry dock road poem last March - already another year sojourned by us all
and now here you expand the perspective and the Universal then & now - lost/regain/lost
You use punctuation, and then you don't here. Here in this narrative, I recommend punctuation consistent throughout.
The dark and long Dry Dock Road
led from a warm bed past the mist shrouded weir
past the river bridge
into the Dry Dock yard.
btw, the mood/atmospheric reminds me a bit of Poe's "miasma" in Fall of the House of Usher
Hospital lights flickered in the dawn;
men dying as my journey began.
After clocking in and fending
off Cliff's charm,
I wheeled into the fitting shop.
Dirty and dank the fires roared
as Egbert piled them with coke.
He whinnied as he talked of his
beloved Jamaica. He was a prince there
or so it seemed.
Ships came in battered and worn;
and in three weeks sailed or steamed
with scraped bottoms, reseated valves,
and bolts smeared in copper-coat.
Evening were devoted to thermodynamics
and calculus; who cared?
In the end it was just a paper
inept in the bottom drawer -- or maybe even inert instead of "kept"
put on parade at interviews.
Five years riding the Dry Dock Road
around the world to outposts
and remnants of the British Empire.
A new form of Imperialism
on copper mines and oil rigs.
Old kafirs longingly spoke
of full bellies under the old regime. -- or system - b/c "administration" the multisyllables don't sound quite as right
We took our fill and returned,
bought our houses to settle down,
watching from afar the drifting
demise of a defeated continent.
Oh Africa, when will you awake
to a secured future.
When will your leaders
play fair, and teach your people
to ride the Dry Dock Road.
^^ Periods instead of question marks b/c the questions are rhetorical, although question marks could be applied instead.
Michael (MV)