playing happily

 

muddy shoes

grubby fingers

dusty face

watching me gran

pegging clothes

grey wisps in the wind

brushed away with trembling fingers

 

coal piled high

on the street below

waiting for the men to come home

 

down near the river

rusty rails filled with rubbish

bare brown mountains

empty houses

 

the men swaying home

faces black

pockets full of lambs tails

knowing the shifts would end soon

 

and me, not knowing

playing happily

 





 

more poems


playing happily

and never will

you didn't deserve it

the card

little red magnets

cursing softly

that's not living

that's despair

barely touching

the faintest of whispers

so much

all my reasons

that's why she's here

who did that to you

already dead