Artist
This painting portrays the last remaining building of the Ivor Works in Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil. It was once the site of one of the largest iron works in Europe employing thousands of people in atrocious conditions. Amidst the fly-tipped rubbish piles, the broken wire and the crumbling concrete, nature is slowly reclaiming the space.
Where, the sonorous boom of the foundry’s roar?
Where, has the honourable industry gone?
Where, the descant harmony of working men,
that once was the beating drum - a nation’s song?
Still. A cavernous carcass of rust-some red,
built with pride and blood, now the last to remain;
a momento for might, forlorn, forgotten,
like the dying dregs of a dementia’d brain.
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Now, where once a world of exploitation lay,
which forged the warmth of civilisation’s sigh,
the breath has cooled, the apocalypse is done -
as nature’s benevolent embrace creeps nigh.