Pithead Days

It is the solemn evening song that drifts, into the valley cup, from the saucer of the moon, and spreads in wings of darkness, nightshade breath; arising as molecules of black oil, up from the pithead mouth, following to the shower stalls, disrobing of the filth, to hunch below the steaming spray, absolved of dirt and death. On then, to the concrete block beside the rugby pitch, where yellow light bleeds damply from the condensation panes, and into atmosphere, plagued tobacco smoke and gusting beer; sorrows drowned in pints of ale, pulled foaming from the taps, the glasses raised and toasted to the ending of the day, in the fog and mist of hops and fumes the hurt will disappear. The old boys hold their tongues and smile their toothless smiles, the cancer in their lungs as grim and fibrous as malignant roots, unfolds a steady, lazy spread, the wings of metastasis; until the end of Pithead days, when slaughter of the proudest land, and plunder of the earth desists, slain by some politic, who and in what sanity pretext dreamed such a life as this?