the pub at the end of the road,
the last one before the hill
where the light from the one stride,
between bar and bog, shone over the
nothing fields of slag and ruin.
wintered tight
the warm hubbub of knocked dominos
chalked dart scores, both as pained
in battle as any army that lent their names
to the terraces that housed these night men
manacled to their lot, which was not a lot.
when the ice clanged and the snow blew
every one of them home to wife-beds turned
to a wall of reticence;
beer snored the deep lands of the day
and morning seemed so far away.
The Rising Sun, Pentrechwyth (circa 1966)
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