they lined up
in their smart suits and executive hair
outside the foundation stone
of a nations ruin ready to eulogise
to heap praise upon a legacy
of division
the traffic slowed
and the tempers frayed in a burg
where there is never enough
most had left by 8PM
save one expecting maybe
a ghost?
returning at the earliest light
most had moved into town
I popped my head inside a truck and said
"she's still dead you know"
one yet remains
awaiting the stone to roll back
my wife, the daughter of a miner,
council bread and margarine raised,
nods, obligingly, at the checkout
as she scans the customers cloying praise
"its nice about the flowers isn’t
it"
“yes” she replies “they
look great on my fireplace”
she reads people writing
the miners were greedy and she spits
"tell that to those with
emphysema,
white knuckle and crippled joints
go stand by the graves of the hundreds
that died
better still come here and say it to my
face"
No comments:
Post a Comment