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Fields Of Carbon & Blood

from Here There Be Demons by The Crows Of Albion

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about

The first part of this poem was written in 1984, at the height of the miner’s strike – when I was a young fanzine editor living in Wakefield. We published an edition in support of the miners and this poem was in it. I wrote the second part in 2014 on the anniversary of the divisive ‘Battle Of Orgreve’ - it updates the story to present times in the mining communities.

lyrics

Fields Of Carbon And Blood

You praised as they died in their dugouts
for a cause proclaimed honest and true.
No mention of cowards or traitors -
a justified war to see through.
Now you mock the bravest of fighters
who live to bring coal from the earth.
Not bully-boyed in to your armies -
but pushed down the pits after birth.

CHORUS:
As the right wing tabloids spawn rumours
in an effort to turn husband from wife.
For the Tories all this is a policy,
for the miner the fight is for life.

They ask for no medals, or glory,
just an honest days pay for a job,
yet you spit on the faces of children
whose daddies are branded ‘the mob’.
When you sit warm and cosy in winter,
before fires of amber and red –
some starving infant, this Christmas,
will pray for the day it is fed.

After the bath
she used to drag
black worms
of coal dust
from the corner
of his eyes.

He has never cried,
though sometimes -
when he thinks back -
for no apparent reason
he finds charcoal
on his cheeks.

He is clean now,
though for many years
every crease and wrinkle
on his angry forehead
was gritted with
carbon hate.

Where once stood
a newsagents
on the corner -
there now stands
a Polish grocery store
selling Polish coke.

Where the pit head stood
nothing grows
except the straw coloured chaff
of broken promises
around the concrete bases
of solidarity.

The bitter resentment
still twists
like a ragged knife
to his heart.
He still picks
at the scabs.

Pledging,
once again,
to never forgive
the vindictive bitch
who broke the back
of Fryston.

credits

from Here There Be Demons, released September 30, 2015
WORDS: Ian Whiteley
MUSIC: Martin Heaton

license

all rights reserved

tags

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