Empty heads
Empty heads
Is it right to call you thus
Are we all just one and the same
Who walks with me
Do we all follow
Shuffling along
Behind the colours
As once we did
At the Miners Gala
Marching together
Beneath the banner
Of the colliery
So many people happy
To be alive
Drunk with the illusion
Of freedom
As coal-fueled a belief
In empire
Brass bands were a thing to see
In those bygones
Militarised school children
On French horn
Wild teens
With dyed hair
And blistered from
Too much sun
Drunk with relief
At surviving
A day of innocent
Debauchery
On the racecourse by the Wear
Waving at the PM
Harold Wilson
Pipe in hand
Standing on a balcony
At the County Hotel
Snaking for miles
Through narrow streets
Closed to traffic
Cobbled still today
Pedestrianised Durham
In its post-industrialist
Splendour
Heritage sites are
All the rage
The only steady jobs
Are for the curators
Of open-air museums
The ghosts still wander
The dead still walk
The banners still billow
Unfurled
And the bands play on
Perhaps some people remember
Their forefathers
Shed a tear for the lost ones
Smash bottles against the wall
Call for an end
To elitist misdeeds
In flash mobs
Organised on social media
Owned by billionaires
Invested in mining
Rare earth elements
Without acknowledging the irony
Shake my head empty
Of this discontent
Unless it is a viral disease
In which case
We are all its carriers.