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Crane
Posted: 23 July 2004
Word Count: 106
Summary: A musing really, on crane operators
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Like a monstrous diving platform
Or a reverse mine – of the sky
They go up there incrementally,
Pausing on each platform,
Leaning over, their yellow jackets billowing
Like failed parachutes
Are their ears permanently popped?
How many rungs up does the temperature drop?
And in their safe cabins, do they have a flask of whiskey
Which they sip, with their left hand controlling
Viewing their ant kingdom
From their beginners' space ship
And do their tough wives at home on earth
Despair over their husbands'un-intellectual work
And chose crossword puzzles to even out the gap
Between their kitchen bar stools
And their husbands' spacemen thrones?
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Comments by other Members
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 joanie at 20:55 on 23 July 2004
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delet, I am right there with you, musing too. I have often strained my neck to look up and wonder how it feels up there.
Brilliant musings. Just right! So many questions unanswered but you have made me feel confident that the answers are there.
Excellent topic, cleverly dealt with. I liked it.
joanie
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 deblet at 21:41 on 23 July 2004
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hi joanie
thanks very much! It's nice to know someone else has similar musings. Oh to be a fly on the wall (in the cabin)...maybe someone on ww is a crane operator and can take both of us up one day? I'm sure it would inspire more from both of us!
Thanks again
deblet
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 Nell at 07:42 on 24 July 2004
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Hi deblet. I hope they don't have a flask of whiskey - imagine controlling one of those things with less than full falculties - the thought is horrendous! Loved your questions, which took me to places new - especially 'a reverse mine of the sky', 'failed parachutes' and 'beginners space ship'. (BTW, 'beginners' and 'husbands' should both have apostrophies after the last letter.) When I read the title in the archive list I thought of the bird, and imagined you'd written a response to Mary Oliver's heron poem in the Poetry Seminar!
Nell.
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roovacrag at 15:04 on 24 July 2004
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Deblet...watched such cranes putting up luxury flats next to our park. Got neck ache watching them.
xx Alice
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deblet at 19:45 on 24 July 2004
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Thanks Nell
Glad I fooled you and Joanie re the bird/machine .... (can't think of the word --- means double meaning/is my brain atrophying?)And glad I took you to new places!
I suppose the thought behind the whiskey flask was that a crane operator - because they are on their own are a law unto themselves. They were the renegade ones in my imagination anyway! I'm sure most wouldn't dream of drinking on the job
:-)
Thanks for the BTW's too.
deblet
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Account Closed at 20:26 on 24 July 2004
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Hi Deblet,
A'hah, now this caught me off guard. This is a poem about cranes, yet it's really quite interesting!
I'm considerably impressed to tell you so. And it's about a crane, how impressive is that, when a poet can take a near-stationary object and turn it into a vivid, lively, powerful and evocative poem?
That takes a knack that few have, that's few and far between and I think that you should be pleased that you can write like this. It says a lot about you as a writer, your ability to write with 'something' from almost nothing. Impressed? Definitely.
This could be a short story, it has scope. The world of a single crane and it's users and purpose in being there.
Okay, so you've made it so I won't look at the next crane I see, the same way. I really liked this poem.
Excellent,
Ste
x
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TheGodfather at 08:16 on 25 July 2004
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Deblet,
I too thoroughly enjoy seeing a new side of the world. Personally never been in a crane. Critically here, I was riveted the whole way until the last line, which seemed out of place. "And their husbands spacemen thrones?" Maybe it was the word "spacemen." I understand what you're saying with it, but think maybe that one-word space at the end could say more. That's all.
TheGodfather
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deblet at 17:49 on 25 July 2004
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Dear Ste,
Thank you! Your comment is seredipitous as I've just been moaning about feeling I have to inject magical elements into my writing to make it sparkly and interesting. But I admire writers who can write about normal stuff and make it interesting. So, big thank you - I guess cranes aren't particularly weird or magical are they?
thanks again
deblet X
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deblet at 18:01 on 25 July 2004
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Hi jon/the godfather -
thanks very much - rivited - that's great. i'm glad I took you up there with me, and appreciate your thought re: thrones. i suppose i was thinking about her sitting in the kitchen with the crossword, and him sitting up there on a different seat - one nearer to the maker up above, god, king -throne. it's got me thinking though, arn't toilets sometimes called thrones?
thanks again for giving this your attention
deblet
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LONGJON at 03:11 on 26 July 2004
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Just discovered this - it's a wonderfully perceptive and coherent piece, because it so clearly shows the difference between those who look and those who see.
Well done,
John P.
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deblet at 20:53 on 26 July 2004
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hi John
Thanks very much - I'm glad you liked it. My actual eyesight is worsening - so thanks for noticing - without the other kind I could be stymied.
deblet
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deblet at 20:56 on 26 July 2004
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Alice hi
Sorry, forgot to say - hope the cranes have finished so your neck ache is better! Thanks for reading, hopefully it didn't make your neck ache more.
deblet x
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Plagious at 12:40 on 28 October 2005
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I was once warned visiting a huge industrial building project many years ago,
"If the day is sunny and you feel yellow rain
make sure you are not beneath a crane!"
(Saw this on random read, so apologies for the late posting!)
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