The Pitmen Poets

We sing our bairns to sleep with songs that workers made,
And thrill them with black-dust bogie-men when days is done,
But these ghosts and mighty giants are no fairytales,
But men that walked amongst us once, but now they’re gone.
These things I know, ‘cos the Pitmen Poets told me so.
They jowled, jowled and listened as they hacked and picked,
A lifetime lit by lamplight, not by sky or sun,
And through this ground beneath our feet they chewed and licked,
Some were swallowed with a mighty swipe of the earth’s own tongue.
And the women watched and waited, ever strong and bold,
And laughed and loved, despite so many mouths to feed,
And damned the fatcat masters and the lies they told,
As they sacrificed good men to the gods of gain and greed.
Then the pulley wheels and white machines grew cold and still,
And unions lay broken by deceit and lies,
Sad eyes were left to stare down from a pit-boot hill,
But the glory of the lives they led will never die.