His face more head than face

as if straitlaced he's wearing

a permanent hard hat

except for men in blue suits

a hard hat is an item

of temporary headgear

and a bluesuited man with such

a bakelite hat he

looks always slightly daft

- anxious ill at ease

not much swearing

and somewhere deep down in a tremble

unlike a man in a donkey jacket

or vest - a man

who's not just visiting the site

but is part of the mess

the whole works all that shite

- he knows how to hack it

as here and now we wait

for more deadlines more dates

and that access of authority

which every site foreman

has got to possess

- I see mud pallets of breezeblocks

and bricks wrapped in stretched cellophane

stacks upon stacks upon stacks

above them a longlegged crane

(not a fly)

that might just stumble

© Tom Paulin 2000