Hoist

The Hoist’s Quiet Dialogue

By the edge of the Thames, at dusk’s pale‑golden bend,
the iron belly of colligated steel rolls awake,
sling‑odd iron‑links humming a low‑key chord.
These quiet towers, in a half‑dark harbour,
have long been the beats of the city’s heart.

The rope drops—tight as a mother's oath—
and clangs in the slot of the sheave,
a measured rattling that takes the breath of the sea.
There, the hook turns, a slow, honest arc:
hoist, lift, bring the cargo up to the threshold.

Its hinges squeal with the weight of a freight‑load,
and a familiar chill presses through the cabin’s skin.
Metal sings its story, a stanza of iron,
a promise of forest of cargo, bound for the air‑less stacks.

Weathered hands trace little black‑speckled rings,
each a memory of a coil’s pull, a mint of courage.
The beat of the crew—whistles, gears, gull calls—
beautifully in tune and British, aloud, they say:
slowly, gently, hoist, hoist, hoist.

They find the hidden joy in a thing that lifts;
the saga of the rope binding a tower to the steel armament.
Here, in the height of the old road,
fingers call the “safety lanyard”, pray, no one goes wrong.

So in the quiet of dusk, the hoist keeps company,
its polished face glides beneath a ragged glass,
with a clench to catch life’s objects in relentless rhythm—
hoisting, persevering like a wartime soldier, always.

For purely out of the sound of the shift and the moan,
the hoist sings a verse in the living voice of a city.

Colourful flags, the floodlight warms the hulls,
and the woman wields her metal job: morale drives the crew.

Thus the tapestry of the town—i.e. port, timber, and rail—
lies pulsed in the almost ever‑careful sweep of the hoist,
tilt it into bright horizon, in that ballet aside:

— Hook, prisonel—woo, the heart.