2

With their lungs full of coal dust colliers
cocked their toes like egg-timers
filled with slag not sand.

They and their women burned
with fevers keeled over with
the pip were stopped in their tracks

by colick went dotty lost sleep
through piles hunger pyorrhoea
bed-bugs canker broken bones

ringworm bunions chilblains
eczma carbuncles rickets
lice lock-jaw and sometimes

knocked sideways by the whole
sodding business
did away with themselves.