A Welsh Coal Mines web page

A Village Lost 
 
As my sad gaze takes in the gutted community, 
the Coal Board had abandoned with such alacrity 
I remember the winding wheels of "Brown's" pit-head 
and the cage lowering colliers, now long dead 
to rip black nuggets from rich Welsh soil 
lungs and bodies, dusted 
 
with honest toil. 
 
Blue-scar-mapped bodies, still standing proud 
from coal face battles won underground. 
But although they fought with all their might 
they were quite helpless against the Tory blight. 
What chance had they 
 
to win the day? 
 
Since Thatcher rigged the law of the land 
so that she could steal the upper hand. 
As I cast my eyes forlornly 
on fields once grazed by the Welsh pit pony 
I see all that's left after Conservative's pillage 
is the hopeless plight  
 
of a work starved village.

E.K. Morrissey
 

 
Sleep Walking 
 
My father's walk was long and lingering, 
 
yet when young, I slept deep enough 
to touch infinity. 
 
Deep enough to reach pit-bottom. 
 
Now;  sleeping lightly, 
I dream of Maerdy mountain 
and wind ravaged ferns. 
 
I dream of children playing 
among pit-props piled high 
beside Cwmaman's overflowing coal trucks. 
 
Where gravel voiced grasshoppers rasped 
beneath scimitar winged swallows, 
cutting and thrusting at halcyon days. 
 
Drams laden with sunlit dreams. 
 
Yet my father's walk was cold and dark, 
down that long primeval road 
to the coal-face seams. 
 
My father walked in fossil forests. 
 
Crawled through leaves, 
picking at flowers. 
 
Hearing underground streams 
fill with silt, 
 
and his lungs with dust. 
 
E.K. Morrissey,  
originally from the valleys, travelled extensively now living in West Wales. 
Hobbies include, road running, falconry and hoping for a decent rugby team.