Paul Brookes |
A Big Pit
A Good Hiding
Long curved drive from main gate like a rich house.
Six Security guards sit in an old
building, play cards, warm up, ogle Penthouse.
Its door reached as slurrytides mudslosh cold
into wellies. Coal packed trucks push their vast
tyres twice your size down roads. Don’t wade wasteland.
Slurrysea cambers causey edge as they pass.
These potholes must sink deeper than England.
Pick your way with care over gantries. One
guard lost his grip, caught hold, saw his bright blue
hard hat tumble thirty feet down and gone
into wet mud, slip under duvet smooth.
Lads say need two-by-four for coal nicking
locals who sell it need a good hiding.
II
I'm Making New Ghosts
Mrs O’Brien gives us dinner Christmas
Day. Tommys microwave warm's plates. Little
Billy’ll bring t.v. again fort laughs.
And after your snap when your stuffed full,
if you get bored you can always patrol
outside. Don’t forget your Walkie Talkie
for takes a good four hours to trog round all
perimeter. Watch for Mad Monk as he
walks int mud. Seems to float over it cos
you can't see his feet. That's Monastery
under't slag. Don't tell no one this. Tha loss.
Stop production. Jobs on line. Tha'll be sorry.
All pits have their ghosts. Now the pits are ghosts.
Industrial estates, call centres, future ghosts.
My Pit Ponies
Old George like others given half a chance
knew tha'd two o' thee snap. Bit for them, bit
for thisen. He'd nuzzle inside a man's
donkey jacket. Times on entry to pit
down drift leading others he'd stop swing head
to and fro, wait a moment or two, turn,
gallop up and out pit. Swings chuffing lead.
Take bloody shift to get bastard ont turn
back down. When tha were leading guarantee
some wily bugger'd stand on thee toes and
If got behind 'um, hit you so harshly
tha's winded three days. Got nowt out my hand.
Pullin' tubs were hard, no word of a lie,
week pullin' doubles one up and died.
Fitters Shop
I
Tang of steel shavings, watery oil, brick
Dust, smear of grease around heavy tungsten,
A dull lathe shutdown, slices motes in slick
Dream of employment, now redundant, then
Awaits auditors' decision, sweat stinks
Through polished wood clamped by rusty vices,
Light slants diamonded windows cracked glint
Made by lobbed desiccated plaster
Chucked by workless youths- graffiti remnants
Of breadwinner workers. Machines muted, still.
Await demolition, no longer meant
to maintain roofs over heads, cash in till.
Tang is a tale told, a smelt memory.
Shops closed, all now cashed, unhealed history.
II
In smashed glass I see a Ford parked outside
The Working Men’s Club with a painted sign
Over its broken windscreen inscribed
“POLICE DID THIS!”, and watch steady, sure climb
of a bloke with handlebars of his bike
heavy with a full sack of picked coal,
Haul it up the hill to home during Strike.
All kallin in pub on a night was all
Black Maria’s waiting down sidestreets
packed with police without numbers or names
while tv news reverses events and keeps
talking of enemy within to blame.
Now uniformed myself I police remains,
watch old miners walk their dogs through their pain.
Harsh Light
Gentle light should enter these open eyes,
slow. Sat on slagheap blue sky midday see
flit white clouds pass shadows over pit, ply
and flow girded redbrick coal washery
over bright puddles, empty slurry tanks
cross concrete bunkers of unused sand, lime,
gravel. Recall days ago nightshift rank
veins freeze blood heat, ice encrusted hands rimed,
ground concrete hurt all when I fell one snowed
winter day heavy weight hauls postal bag
down, I slip on an iced drift to unload
post bottom of door number eight. I rag,
open sprung letterbox, sharp fringed brush put
letter pull out quick metal lid slams shut.
I. A Watchclock
Once it took a regular twelve hour
shift
walk with a clock. Trained security
guard of N.U.M. ripped floor-tiles, boots lift
dust piled up like unused coal. Find key
to fit the clock to record time account
for your existence, evidence. Other
keys echo their jangle, their fine cut sound
in empty spaces, unlock, uncover
a wasteland of rooms without walls ceilings.
You can see cold October sky abuzz
with stars, coke plant behind its steel fencing
work up a head of grind, glitter and buzz
of lights. Had nowt to do but waste time, kick
up weather worn tiles old floors, slow time tick.
II. This Village Heart
Look forward to going in, lose fresh air
from coking plant, climb creaking stairs into
security guards' room where asks Mayfair
and unattainable ogled Bill. So
why you back so early? Don’t you get it?
Soon as you get back, sooner I'm out. Dumb
Shit! Takes clock leaves you to room. It's
three o'clock. His tales of old steelwork thrum
in your head. Industry let him go, too.
Remember this sat supping coffee in
village Activity Zone, wait on new
workless to attend your jobsearch session.
Hear how building you guarded will now be
called heart of village, in recovery.
The Cage Drop
Pit demolition crew joke all will not be there, a memory.
Pit security guard I laugh. Cage drop,
ears pop, stops flash by, reach deepest Barnsley
Bed. Never knew vast gusty dark. Hard top
lamp helps avoid stumble on railway tracks.
This cathedral high roof, crumbly soil, root
rot, pit support steel arches. Drift way back
dark I stared into now stares back, mute.
Where once much clank, heat, scrape and busy must
there is left the gust and heat slow dust. "Turn
light off." says Deputy. Eyes can't adjust
this absolute dark, cannot see this hand. "Turn
light back on." says Deputy, heaves a small,
latched white wooden door open to storeroom,
discarded tools in stone trough. Pony stall,
where they rested between shifts, feed and groom.
To fresh air, cage rises one last time and date,
to "Land to Let" and Industrial estate.
Echoing
I. Whorled
Winter night before stood sentry on ice
cracked edge of North Gawber pit above grown,
Willow Bank, Whorled Water Millfoil site.
I in the dark contemplate ice in bone.
How Millfoil survives harshest icy blast,
turions, shoots sink to stillness.
Pit on one side, on other Barugh Green's vast
trading estates. From pit site when lights less,
the other: tall concrete and steel units.
From this Victorian pit's living talk:
welding buzz, mine repair shop hammer hit
recall no such noise on the gravel walk
outside, another hour and a half freeze
before twenty minute break warm release.
II. Echoing
Inside pray not dodgy biro, note time,
quick slurp flask, before out again to bright
lights harsh flare as I cross over the line.
They switch off once I walk out of their sight.
Do as I'm told. Hear gust shake chains on steel
fuel tanks, whip up thin gravel round huts,
empty and temporary, echo peels
off discarded plastic wraps, a sound puts
me in mind of boat's rigging. Barugh means
hill. But I, down on flood plain look
over
River Dearne, up to Gawber whose name seems
in Old English, to mean gallows hill. Stir
echoes in its dark drifts, darkness stares back.
Pit closed, became trading estate like Barugh.
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