Harbour Height 1st edit

[billy]

hi carl. what changes you made work for me specially getting rid of 'except' the first couple makes me think dog and it carries with me through the poem. if it is about a pet then i'd like to see that thought continued throughout the poem if it isn't then this will always be a shaggy dog story for me. a suggestion would be to lose Moulting and out on the first line.

Hug   (version 2)

Moulting 300ft in the air, I sniff out
sea brine, mollusc dust, sprinkled into — are you a dog?

and crashing against— the whisky glass.
Lit by candles on the restaurant tables

and lights already reflecting
on the harbour water, I zone in on the marina

decked out in miniature, people
across the swing bridge before amber

warnings flash in the half-dark.
I can’t make out eye colour, hairstyles,

bone structure this high, just purpose
in their walk, passing blurred berths

of tugboats that look like interlocking
plastic building-blocks. Wind-whipped

walkways should entail railings.
One person pauses, sensing he is there's a thing about the way this line ends, it's very zen-like and it works.

being watched, or smelling the mollusc
dust in my drink. Joining my table. is [joining my table] needed? i think dust in my drink works well enough on its own.

---

This was the first version:

Harbour Height



Through another window, the maritime
marina is decked out in miniature

where people hurry across the swing
bridge in ones or twos before amber

warning-lights flash in the half-dark.
I can’t make out faces this high

just the purpose in their walk
passing blurred berths of tugboats

that look like interlocking plastic
building-blocks, as if wind-beaten

walkways hereabout don’t lack railings.
Except one guy, who has stopped

or merely paused, and shakes my hand
seeing me watching from the 27th floor.