Early Morning, West Hartlepool, 1963 - by
(from the photo with the same title by Don McCullin)
/
/ A pipe fitter’s mate at the gates of dawn
/ Is wrenched from…
industry
The Afternoon Shift Are Leaving the Port Talbot Steelworks - by
The machines don’t / stop, night or day, although, one by one, / the anonymous men are slipping away.
‘The Black Belt’ - by
Gruff trams and trains criss-cross and intersect
/ With glittering steel this leprous countryside;
/ Pyramid slagheaps threaten, seamed and specked
/ With smouldering pink: a…
Gasometer - by
You are an iron guard or talisman,
and I hear that those who talk of eyesores
you have consigned, bless you, to the bad place.
A Quiet Life - by
in memory of my grandfather
/ (after Schubert’s piano sonata in C minor D958)
/
/
/ Hammer-blows ring on a hull in dry-dock
/ then dazzling sparks…
James Macfarlan - by
“A man’s a man for a’ that” – how does he know?
/ Traipsing with his plough, the rural hero,
/ Swaggering down the…
Oor Location - by
A hunner funnels bleezin’, reekin’,
/ Coal an’ ironstane, charrin’, smeekin’;
/ Navvies, miners, keepers, fillers,
/ Puddlers, rollers, iron millers;
/ Reestit, reekit,…