6
Smoke and Steel
Fire and dust and air fight in the furnaces ; the pour is timed, the billets wriggle ; the clinkers are dumped:
Liners on the sea, skyscrapers on the land ; diving steel in the sea, climbing steel in the sky.
************
Finders in the dark, you Steve with a dinner bucket, you Steve clumping in the dusk on the sidewalks with an evening paper for the woman and kids, you Steve with your head wondering where we all end up—
Finders in the dark, Steve : I hook my arm in cinder sleeves; we go down the street together; it is all the same to us; you Steve and the rest of us end on the same stars; we all wear a hat in hell
together, in hell or heaven.
together, in hell or heaven.
Smoke nights now, Steve.
Smoke, smoke, lost in the sieves of yesterday;
Dumped again to the scoops and hooks today.
Smoke like the clocks and whistles, always.
Smoke nights now.
To-morrow something else.
************
Luck moons come and go:
Five men swim in a pot of red steel.
Their bones are kneaded into the bread of steel :
Their bones are knocked into coils and anvils
And the sucking plungers of sea-fighting turbines.
Look for them in the woven frame of a wireless station
