(For Halloween)
Silent showers speak,
Disembodied voices
call…
Old soap! Ghostly
poo!
Autumn draft or cold
breath,
Door on history left
ajar.
Scent of carbolic,
Singing round the
bath house,
Rose just passing
through.
There’s dirty side
and clean side,
Old miner’s other
side now.
Tin bath of coal
dust,
Hot water and open
fires:
No money, no soap.
Words, like lives,
pass in spirit:
Scares! Blood!
Coughing! Screaming!
Zombie pit pony
Hurries a tub of
shadows,
Dark into darkness.
Souls left to wander
alone;
How lost when the
lamp goes out.
Look! Look! A huge
rat!
How scary then is the
thought,
What size is the cat?
What is there to be
scared of?
“The Deputy!” A
collier quips.
Scatter of ashes,
Last words, lost
mates, list of those
Beyond the echo.
Spirits abide in the
coal-black,
Voices creaking like
timbers.
(This poetry chain was composed by Dave Alton of Coalhouse
Poets using words and phrases contributed by visitors to the Bath House and the
underground tour at Caphouse Colliery, National Mining Museum of England.)
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