Bleeding Swansea slag
The Tawe town, as it was then, when
it crawled across the river, along
with the smoke, rolling eastwards,
plundered by the prevailing
westerlies, and the money that bought
the defenestration of the damned
workers in their metal works, upon
their slag tips, leaded grey from
the Vale, or ochre cindered by the
copper works, speltered and raped,
upon fiscal’s alter ego,
ergo: split off
from the Atlantic air, and the graces
in their elegant places there; while
the workers slept two up two down,
in streets named after the owners
of the town, know for their grand works,
and their dirty works working
for the shirking of their sweat.
The slag river valley with its pubs,
and wood grained chapel pews,
spurned by the green spaces
loitering by the sea.
For them, always it was
the slow running into the sand of
any hope that dare walk westward.
Except for a few ‘brains’ of course,
who would stir the grammar school
gene pool for the market, banked
upon the sweated graft of men of ore;
hard men of yore, who, Lord help them,
never saw any good times. Never did.
But, hey!
That’s just the way it was then.
Or is it now, nicely perfumed,
and so much better hidden?
