the call of the factory hooter

 the call of the factory hooter 

morning creaks to the chicken’s beak

to the call of a sunny side up 

as early birds sing to the buttered ooze

of bread that was toasted by fork

and in the draught of a coal fire’s smoke

at the call of the factory’s hooter

steamed tea is finished to the last dreg’s drop

and the door closes with the gentlest bump

dad has gone again as he does each day

and the table cloth crumbs my mums away

for there is a stilled hiatus in the air 

of something never said there

in the clock’s nudge of a sunbeam dialled

across a curtained and laddered yard 

and then it is this and that leads to that and this

on a child’s day so warmly old

in the late beam of an old man’s way

the dust rises and settles and settles again

in the glazing of the icing at an eyelid’s corner

unmoving upon a gaze in the graze of a time

when i heard the call of the factory hooter 

the factory hooter 

in the call of the factory hooter 

hoo….    ter …

hoo….    

           ter …