Here’s a poem that I wrote between my BA and my MA, but with a new edit. I had taken the references to the miner’s strike out. I bought the print from an antiques shop on Derby Road, Heanor, when I was a teenager.

You Crazy Cats

For Louis Wain.

The cats, in uniform shades of black

march to work in single file

carrying ink black news for daily views

and a bowler hat.

Cast in similar size and shape

they zigzag their way through similar streets

that span the circumference of the earth.

It is a procession of sorts, they mourn

the passing of our lives. Some smile, some frown

look up, look down, but none will wear a crown.

No underground hells shelter them.

Each cat has lost its voice: their last fight

lost eight lives and all mines.

So the cats file past in sombre black

waiting to be turned back.