the black blood of pentrechwyth

the black blood of pentrechwyth 

corroded valley, halted in slag,

clinking under the child’s fleetfoot,

braggart and venturing high

upon the blaggard tips.

child of the brick-ruin walls,

with their arched windows,

glassless, halted in agony;

dark and deep in the sunshine.

the railway-blue empty veins,

drained of yesterday’s blood;

where the footstep sleepers, take 

the boys on their every which of ways.

the dead body river knifes

the village through, drunk

on gutters of the village mores, 

white and more besides.

and yet; ponded and pooled,

frogged and newted,

and fished in evening’s attire;

the boys have caught their sleep.

the hills boil above with larks

and hares, and foxes fast asleep;

above the burring docks, the 

the fire boys run amok.

fag-smoke pubbed in respite from toil,

and chapels handed in organs stoned;

the boozy news or the pious pews,

echo down of their pray day dos.

summers brambled and heat oppressed,

autumn collected and bonfired high,

winter cobbled under lampposts blind,

until spring comes shot with green.

the quick and the dead, 
with the metal hosts,

screech their slag-glass nails, 
and hammer their rusty nails,

into every village girl and boy;
who are born and borne,

in this, my dead-alive, 
my very own,
industrial graveyard,

in wales.