JERSEY ROCKS
Jersey rocks
Blue blazes
Docker jocks
Tackle and blocks
Hooks grapple
Around the clock
Scoffing bodies ripple easy
Power
Hardhats safeguard
Secret hearts
Foreign toughs
Eye
Liberty's muscles
Broremann’s war
Spring, 1945, German troops in his town were walking about not
carrying arms, they spoke to the locals in a friendly manner.
Looking back it was peace before the peace. Near Broremann's home
there was a tall house occupied by old non- commissioned officers,
middle-aged men in their thirties with children, gave the kids
chocolate and sweets (after the war the building was taken over by
Mormons).
British troops arrived, put a canteen in a disused fish factory,
the German troops had surrendered. Broremann got white bread
with spam from the British. The Germans left by train; many
of the town´s people came to wave goodbye, there was no
dislike against the common soldiers, wrath was directed at the
local Gestapo who had betrayed their country by being crueler
than the enemy and by sporting rimless Himmler glasses.
Years later Broremann met a docker in Hamburg who had spent
five war years in his town. They drank together and declared
it had been a peaceful war.
If you get up early enough before the sun the stars disappear before the sky
clouds over
It’s that magic promise time of day when the bakers and milkmen are beginning
their routines
Soon the empty trams will fill with sleepy eyed dockers, factory workers, shop
workers.
Scarves wrapped over tightly combed hair with two ends pointing at well plucked
eyebrows.
Or the flat round docker caps folded to one side with the peak so carefully bent.
So far the cars are still empty coming out. That’ll change soon as the night
workers end their
shifts. But for now it’s twirly for all that. No queues anywhere. The sparrows are
working the
pavement and gutters scuttling feverishly for the slightest crumb. Here and there
a house cat
carefully ignores the occasional pedestrian and grooms sedately , dogs get out
later.
Lights come on in the flats over the shops as the warm beds empty and gas
stoves heat tea kettles
The sun slides up to hide in the now solid cloud cover and the sea salt tar
wetness of another
workday drifts across the cobbled street.
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