coal mining (Remove filter)
The price of coal
What is the price of coal?
The web has sites that quote
a market rate, but if you scroll
all through the list you won’t
see figures with the least, remote
affinity to price of coal.
What is the price of coal?
A mine roof caving in?
The dread Black Lung Disease that stole
the lives of countless men?
The destitution of their kin?
Is that the price of coal?
...
Monday 12th June 2023 10:16 am
Bevin Boy
Bevin Boy
Ernest Bevin got his pound of flesh
as I sucked on my Woodbine,
one of the ‘lucky’ ten percent
who were standing there in line
waiting to be conscripted -
but they decided to assign
me to a living hell
and send me down the mine.
So I toiled for years in darkness
and breathed in black diamond dust,
until my back was broken
along with all the t...
Sunday 16th September 2018 12:36 pm
Wake me up
Wake me up when the storm has passed
And the ravens have left the tower
Wake me up when the war machine
Has finally run out of power
Wake me up when the bigots
Have finally opened their eyes
And all of the presidents have given up telling lies
Wake me up when the tables have turned
And lessons have been learned
Wake me up when the big game hunters
Have finally paid for their crime
...
Thursday 24th May 2018 7:49 pm
TRUNCHEON FOR LUNCHEON
I heard 'King Arthur' on the 'mike'
In a place that they called Orgreave
Fronting Miners out on strike
Urging them all to 'Believe'
He told them it was "Coal not Dole"
Said Thatcher was a clown
And every Miner has a role
To take the Tories down
From Notts. and Derby and the Met
Cleveland, Avon and Somerset
After their luncheons
Drew their truncheons
On...
Friday 12th June 2015 1:38 pm
BERSHAM
BERSHAM
We wonder amongst the ruins
Rusting trucks and cutting gear
Severed cables protruding
From weathered walls
And the pit head wheel
Still proud above us
Preserved temporarily
By municipal crumbs
And volunteer labour
Only open occasionally
For public inspection
We whisper questions
Reverentially
Here the miners lamps
Here the cramped cage
...Sunday 20th April 2014 3:36 pm
Easington Colliery
They strain towards the light.
Blinded by a death
in black and white.
Stood in a puddle of water
its darkness climbing legs
like sweet peas.
Tickling those hardened
by the tenebrous earth. Photograph by Keith Pattison
Leaching tears since ’51.
...
Saturday 28th April 2012 10:49 am
the Dust, the Dust
the Dust, the Dust
I remember the men,
their faces blackened with filthy coal
layers of carbon dust on skin,
slowly lining their lungs thick.
I think of them in the twilight,
two miles underground
hewing with axe and pick,
shirtless bodies glistening with sweat like morning dew
I see them coming home,
tired of the black
eyes like pissholes in the snow
unaccustomed to the light
and then,
and then their golden...
Wednesday 18th November 2009 3:18 pm
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