COAL NOT DOLE

Kay Sutcliffe

First released on: Trawler, 1994

it stands so proud, the wheel so still
a ghostlike figure on the hill
it seems so strange there is no sound
now there are no men underground
what will become of this pit-yard
where men once trampled, faces hard
tired and weary, their shift done
never having seen the sun

will it become a sacred ground
foreign tourists gazing round?
asking if there once worked here
way beneath the pit-head gear
empty trucks once filled with coal
lined up like men on the dole
will they ever he used again
or left for scrap just like the men?

there'll always be a happy hour
for those with money, jobs and power
they'll never realise the hurt
they cause to men they treat like dirt