BEER; FOR THE BOYS!
Can the Welsh hold their beer, Boys?
No more, or no less, than other men!
What of the women? Paarl Barley or Babycham,
What is it to each of them?
Fresh air can be a tonic, or a cure, for almost anything;
But the beer is the best cure for its own end.
The Poet looks within always for the word!
Well Dylan, the life of the Poet, and of the Bard, is not easy;
Your sentence is words, your punishment is rhyme.
What value then those vaulted vales,
Shadowed by showers of shale.
It is for the love of the language, of Wales!
Prisoners are we, in pits of depth's depressing deep!
Bound are the boys to the black beauty shining sleek.
To which bar will we carry the tools for those who sleep?
From the coal face carried bruised, crushed, those the dark tries to keep.
They will not sup the bitter froth of Hereford's hops,
Or sing of Gwalia, Calon Lan or Sospan fach.
The seaside shore of slippery sand, or pebble, calls,
With salted air fresher than the steel stale sweat
Left beyond the grazed green grasses, where sheep
Wander at will, unrestricted by grid or gate;
Swansea, Barry, Porth Cawl or Aber Afon, all
Offer cockles, mussels, peas drowning faggoty meat.
Are the breweries busy boys, now the mines have died?
Those tunnels torn through terrace and beneath ocean tide.
Closed the pit head, silent the cage,
Empty the wagons, empty the trains.
Do the machine shops echo the blast of the firemen,
Or the clocks of the foremen who follow the lines?
We may drown, deep in dark ale, shed tears
For that oppression cursed, and daily fears
Faced by drinking mind numbing spirit;
Now lifted up, once held, our souls within it!
Waiting for the mornings' mists to rise,
To bring birth of life and laughter to tired eyes.
Can the Welsh drink their beer, Boys?
Swept along the centuries cursed by a master's lies.
Labours lost recompense soon swallowed to wash down
Silver slivers of breath sucking dust, winds not their own!
The names of 'Pits,' dank holes, dew drowned drifts,
A legacy of life lost, deaths caused by every shift.
Aber, Brittania, Dufferin, Deep Nav!
Every village plundered and raped of able bodied men;
Miners, Coal hewers, Drams men and Colliers;
And the Boys by their sides, struck and swallowed, submerged
Beneath water and slurry, the life blood sucked out,
And the death sucked in, amidst the damned dust!
Will the Comp. cover each missed breath?
Black lung caused by other than pain easing cigarette.
One poison kills another quicker, that you might forget,
The purity of Spring, the fragrance of flower you did not get.
You grasp at the air, you cling to your sides,
You suck and you wince every day of your lives!
Can the Welsh drown in beer, Boys?
Downed in one full gulp, a swallow of freedom;
Drunkenness, a release for anguish and misery;
And for the women, who commiserate, waiting for joy,
Not found in the Chapels, or congregation's kingdom;
Spirits now borne along, spent lives, lost in mystery!
Jan 8th. 1995 © Will George.