Being a child of raging fire
in the shadow of blackened towers
beneath the smoke-filled skies
beside the two mile deep pit
cut into the earth unearthing history
of fossil remains each day our neighbours
stuffed into a prison-like cage lowered
into the eternal night below
the grey Atlantic Ocean floor
digging closer to the seven rings of hell
sometimes the ocean comes rushing in
men drowned in the swirling torrents
in the all too cramped spaces
ready-made graves
shifting quaking ground
burying men alive
the whistle blows in the night
waking everyone from their slumber
all cry out who's father brother
who's husband lover or friend
has perished in the night
who lived surrounded by darkness
near at hand about to close in
with coal dust filled lungs
steps slowed as he fights to breathe
spitting out thick brown juicy
twists of chum or MacDonald's chewing tobacco
bought on his way to work
or after his shift at my grandfather's
& father's corner store
at first a penny or two to twenty cents each
in the safer healthier wealthier nineteen sixties
thousands disappear beneath the turning giant wrought-iron
wheels & foot-thick steel-wired cables pulling
raising & lowering the caged in men
in lamp accessoried hard hats
into the twilight world what is it that they do
a secret they all share their secret unspoken fears
hundreds of shiny new cars lined up in the parking-lot
a few hundred feet from our front door
watching them returning to work while others
return into the light shading their eyes
from the cruel sun their dreams crushed
by a million tonnes of black unforgiving coal
the bosses not nearly as cruel as their elders were
starving families of the striking workers
sending in the troops
charging on horseback wielding their swords
into peaceful crowds after Sunday services
on a warm summer evening
soldiers patrolling in armored trucks
machine-gun towers & spot-lights
keep an eye on these dangerous
traitorous towns
bringing in train loads of scabs & hired as bullies
laid off dock-workers from Halifax
where the government sat in bed with the owners
& the bankers taking their bribes with a smile
labeling the miners & steel workers commies
& Anarchists in the pay of the Soviets
silencing their opponents & critics & detractors
tarring them with the same brush
lording-it-over those ignorant low-life workers
reminding them the poor are with us always
& the meek shall inherit the earth
if they can wait another millennium or two
they have only the rights bestowed on them
at the whim of those rich & powerful who live
in the Glittering Towers Of Glass
in inner-cities round the world
the not so secret Cabal joined together
in the name of profit
let the redundant ones keep quiet
or die to reduce the surplus population
these economists & their soulless Brethren
praying & bowing to their Golden Idols
lusting after money & power
sycophants accountants bean counters
& lawyers who fill their role
as window-dressing of the unjust society
who keep the rest of us in our place
in the name of the Nazarene Or fate
of the Karmic balancing act
or other New Age quasi-half-baked
ass-backwards nonsense
there are more ways than one
to keep a man locked in a cage
never to realize his dreams
or worse unable to dream at all-

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