slag
write me a poem
from a slag pile tip
with high stones and keystones
that could let it all rip
for they weighed them in batches
as they dug out the tips
lorry-fulls and word-fulls
like clinker cankered and sulphurous lips
not from the treasure
that flowed under the slags
but the spat out blackness
like hot treacle drags
that tiered the words
by size in their seams
by blackness by shine
by clinks and by screams
as they sundered the grime
they give remembrance of us
as we were then at that time
long ago indeed that was us
running an afternoon’s sunning
slow turning weariness
down roads way back home
achievements mountainous
clatter them to the top of the moon
or to the bottom of canyons
dug by the cranes and the lorries
those foundlings anew
it’s all gone now of course of course
it’s all in the underworld
of post-moderns anew
that are built on the slag
of times that we knew
just that one tear it took
me back to the sun
running the gauntlet of us
one more time come on mun
or be gone
go home
come back
or be gone
for the keystone is dislodged
the slag’s black blood is a flow
that forever has congealed
in a memory of lads that we know
were themselves the keystones of self
although they themselves never knew
