This is a response to ‘Last Punch of the Clock’ the installation artwork by David Garner in the Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales collection. This piece is described on the site as a lament, a love letter, to the lost industry of Wales. I felt that this was actually a lament for his father, and bearing witness to fact that:
"Everyday for 8 hours he (the miner) dies, gives up a slice of his life and buries himself." - Aneurin 'Nye' Bevan
Amser yw arian (Time is money)
Hael yw Hywel gyda phwrs y wlad
Mae'n haws bod yn rhydd gydag amser pobl eraill.
It's easy to be free with other people’s money,
Even easier with other people’s time.
We forged your armour for you; all this is yours.
We are agreed, sir, thank you for your time.
We look
to the clock,
Punched and signed and punched and signed
we sweat,
to the clock.
An acceptable exchange, benign and benevolent
We are
Chattels and Goods
We are
Items and cattle
blood and spit,
we know
time is money pressed to the hand,
to the sweat to the face
flat to the loosening earth.
It’s black down here.
And wet.
Pinned in this place,
Penned in paper and ink
Folded and Contracted
from the round of each heel
to the ground above our head.
We know; we are agreed
on the price of coal.
The heft and swing of a jarring pick
rocks nails in their beds,
moulds shoulders to the shape
of your comfort,
backbones wound
by the key of your need
run diurnal or nocturnal
it makes no odds.
We chime in the key of your say-so.
And so,
Your beck
wears bone
against bone
diligent and proficient in its attrition.
Your call
sits in the lungs.
Insistent as snow, a drift
of airborne imperative,
your greed,
In the mouth, on the tongue,
In the teeth rattling klaxon.
Impels
feet forward
and over and back again
to the clock
until
The slow hand holds
the hand,
that once held fast,
held back
held hard, together.
The slow hand holds
the hand,
that once held fast,
held back
held hard, together.
Runs down,
and stops.
Thank you, so much, for your time.
Born and grown up in Liverpool, Anne Brierley now lives in north Wales. She is a visual artist and teaches and writes.
"When I was a young teacher, I worked at Cyfarthfa in Merthyr Tydfil; I was fascinated by how the landscape, people, and language had all been shaped by the demands of the Industrial Revolution and were still in evidence.
"David’s piece really resonated with me; It had so much to say on so many levels. On a personal level, my Dad at the age of 13, when his father died had to leave school and become the provider. He worked in a hard, dirty physical job all of his life which has now impacted severely on his heath.
"David’s piece spoke to me of the cost of providing for a family, a celebration of the achievement of a man’s life without romanticising the reality of the exchange of labour for money and the exploitation of workers for profit."
This work was commissioned as a collaboration between CELF and Disability Arts Cymru.
