On The Slag Heap

 

Quenching the eternal flame,

the furnaces won’t burn again,

the northern dragons will lay still -

the Government has had its fill.

 

At its heart a molten core

that will implode and beat no more.

The mill will close, the light will die

and in the dark the ghosts will cry.

 

The workers will go home to bed

not knowing if their family’s fed

or if they will become a number

disappearing whilst they slumber.

 

Another industry breathes its last,

what once was present becomes past,

the mines, the docks and now the steel

like butterflies upon a wheel.

 

When the grass has covered all,

like graves with bodies in the soil,

some day we will look back and say

these tired beasts had had their day.

 

But that will be only half a tale -

economics made them fail,

priced them to a lingering death -

squeezed them of their failing breath

 

Yet in the end nobody cared

how these aging titans fared

they didn’t hear their sad swan song -

but they will miss them when they’re gone.

 

‘Another dog has had its day’,

the fawning politicians say -

and like a dog they put it down

destroying one more northern town.