In West Virginia they dig tunnels or a great big hole,
to extricate from Mother Earth the substance known as coal.
For centuries the coal was burned and smoke would fill the air,
but coal became outmoded and demand's no longer there.

So many miners were laid off as mines did stall or close,
and in Coal Country incomes dropped and unemployment rose.
But Donald Trump made promises to fix the miners' strife,
by saying he'd bring Old King Coal a-roaring back to life.

So Trump reduced the regulations that bring jail or fines
for harm to the environment from power plants or mines.
But all this is irrelevant - Trump has no magic spell
to make the world want coal again. To whom will these mines sell?

Trump may as well have promised to bring back the horse and cart;
for tinkers, whalers, schooner sailors, a rich and brand new start.
For Trump will promise anything and sell his very soul.
Next Christmas his reward should be... a big old lump of coal.

Beat-Up Old Car
Vastly under-appreciated possession
In dull blue, a MK1, no less, with original rust
Inside lingering scents of Exchange and Mart
top-notes of WD-40 and miscellaneous mix tapes

A car like this gets into your life
in lumpy knuckle-barking unsubtle ways,
stays there in subtle ones

That long drive back to Yorkshire
in the quintessential exemplar
Clutch cable snaps.
****** and Crap.

Hardly helpful but can be accommodated
with enough thought
rough though it is
on starter motor
and nerves whenever
anticipatory powers inadequate
and we are forced
to a complete red-light stop

Brakes dodgier, exhaust noisier
than ideal or legal
Gender-ambiguous
elderly tyres flirt outrageously with slick tarmac
Showing their canvas underwear
and male-pattern baldness

Keeping this unstable, unsafe, unreliable
ultimately essential lump of metal
moving and on the road
is a fine art

Engaging, fluid and intense art;
The Clash and The Specials
Costello and The Cure in support

A distraction then
getting hauled over by plod
somewhere near Bury St. Edmunds
Thatcher's boys.

Tax? MoT? Insurance? ID?
No real interest shown

Any passengers in the back?
Clearly no.  Pickets?  
Pickets? What?
Please open the boot sir... Oh.
On your way lad. Drive carefully

I was, officer, I was
More than you will ever know