MINE : Poem

Mine

No it’s not for me
They closed down the colliery village
I was raised in two or three elections ago
And I moved on, never looked back.
It’s not for my children
Their plans will always be
On bank.
It’s not even for my Dad
Who exchanged pits for ships
Who got out, never living to see
His friends redundant.
It’s not for my forebears of migrant miners
Following the coal dust trails
From Cymru to closure.
Most of us knew it was over
Long before 1984
And southern outrage
Was too little too late.
The rows of For Sale signs
Are rows of gravestones.

Happy hour in the Trust
On Black Tuesday
£1 a pint
Why thirty thousand pints
I’d be able to buy with my redundancy

Thirty thousand pints.
Not enough to flood a seam with.

Kevin Cadwallender