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Forklift truck




I laughed at most’f my seizures

Well what else would I do?

Crying would solve nothing

And I had quite a few.


When I worked in a Builders firm

A private enclosed yard,

They knew my ‘disadvantage’

But found I did work hard.


My dad, had worked there previously

Knew well the old M.D.

So he was able to pull strings

And got the job for me.


Whenever it was needed

The forklift truck I’d drive

It could’ve been their detriment

But thankful, did survive.


Picture, please the scene here

A large inverted U

Three stores, ‘round sand and gravel 

Doors opposite on two


The other storemen busy,

At bottom end of yard

So I was asked to drive fork truck

I'd drove before, not hard.


Driving up between stores

T’ward sand and gravel piles

Turning left into the store

With boxed ceramic tiles.


Now Ernie, my old foreman

He was a ‘hands on’ guy,

Was keeping watchful eye on me

In case things went awry


I had placed many pallets 

Into the store by now,

When seizures, they did strike again,

Things turned out fine, somehow.


Instead of turning left to store,

Ernie, a-front sand pile,

I continued onwards

Against my usual style.


I would have loved to see this,

To witness it first hand,

Ernie scrambling backwards

Up mounds of grit and sand.


I recall not a moment

Of what was happening,

I didn’t hear him screaming,

I witnessed not,  the scene.


He’d screamed for some assistance

To get me off fork truck,

I still can recall NONE of it,

On his side, there was luck


I came back to reality

In office in the store,

My head on arms atop workspace,

Could be seen, - open door.


I raised my head ‘pon wakening,

A fellow store-man seen,

Asked me “How are you feeling?”

I asked how things had been.


He told me what had happened

The antics I’d applied

“You didn’t get it videoed?”

I laughed when he replied.


Was banned from driving fork-truck

’Til no one else to ask,

And Ernie NEEDED something

Brought down from stacking racks


He asked "how are you feeling?"

What he wanted, I knew,

“Where will YOU be standing?”

“WELL away from you”




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