MAYBE YOU CAN EXPLAIN THIS TO YOUR BOY OR GIRL

Just because you’re on benefits

it doesn’t mean it’s your fault

maybe you don’t even think of

that industrial blitz

when workers were treated as

dolts

remember when dad said:

my boy isn’t goin’ down the mine

to get silicosis

or be thought dead

when the sirens whine

giving me thrombosis

now they import coal

and it’s all concreted over

that hole

and now dad is saying:

my boy needed to go down there

for he’s falling apart up here

and no one cares

as he anaesthetises himself

and only answers with leers and jeers

and those with wealth

like William Morris

designed wallpaper and delph

and as if he had his wish

borrows

the green cloak

to throw over that quiet valley

where only thunder echoes

in this unemployed ghetto

one pithead winding gear

looms

a rusting wagon with the last dram

of coal

bears witness to she who would manage

with a new broom

the old miner with the blue-pitted skin

leads the industrial tourists

through a landscape

of rapine

cynical of another government tryst

the slagheaps

with trees flowers where graze

sheep

pristinely clean

this valley

where no smoke clouds

dallies

and no workmates

with their banter

the joy of Friday and leaving work

at a canter

you never knew this

discipline self-discipline

you missed

just because you’re on benefits

it doesn’t mean it’s your fault

being at the end of your wits

they lock up diamonds and gold

in those bank vaults

with murdered industry long gone

the unions were paralysed in this

new dawn

now Britain lives by the

roulette wheel

a complete steal

what’s left to

feel.

Wilson John Haire.

 

OWN GOAL

 

Mock attacks and litres of

artificial blood

stretchers by the score

mock cries, mock

tears flood

streets taped off

in malls mock shoppers

scream and mock-cough

to dry-ice vapour

amid the well-armed

copper capers

then ambition grows

Manchester United Old

Trafford football stadium

in a possible semtex glow

75,000 evacuated

fan the flames of ethnic hate

scare the Irish to expect

a campaign of bombing

with raiding parties

on their homes foresworn

to a maelstrom

tear the niqab off

that Muslim girl

somebody’s daughter

somebody’s pearl

but it was only a fake

left behind by mistake

(I solemnly swear I believe

in the Lough Ness Monster

says the news-huckster)

and in its wake

watch the khaki hit

the streets

enjoy the roaring armoured

fleet

as it rushes to trouble-spots

when you hit football

you hit all

an own goal shot

was it done to reassure

or our patriotism

to allure

do we watch our neighbour

now

and to police and military

kowtow.

Wilson John Haire

 

WARMING EARTH FREEZING HEARTS

There is a world out there

ill at ease

its colourful coat ripped

and with crunchy blackened

bees

half-standing are the trees

without leaves

the wheat fields scorched

birds hop without wings

in the landscape of the

torched

not a sound from the

wrecked houses

the sky is empty

even the stars have been

doused

as if from a cordite deity

the warming-earth warriors

give it a wide berth

while raving about the pollution

of the earth

no black diesel tank

fumes

do they sniff

nor acknowledge

that exploding bomb plume

the soil grows mines

rather than potatoes

yet they remain incognito

measuring the planet

in Imperial

while war becomes just

another

TV serial.

Wilson John Haire.