Asbestos Rain

The streets became corridors of human flesh
As the clanking of steel-capped boots vibrated the Belfast sewers
On their way up Dee Street
Welders, riggers, gangers, boilermakers and plumbers
Steel workers, stokers, platers and helpers
Tradesmen armed with labour
That bought them Woodbines and Black Label
On Friday nights at the dock bars
And still thousands poured through the gates
Past the iron shadows of Harland and Wolff’s giant goal posts
Past the banging of metal and steel
Assembling to their workplaces
Before their lunch bread of sandwiches with bread and sugar
Corned beef, egg and onion, ham and cheddar cheese
And many exposed to asbestos rain
As they sat on gangways and boiler rooms
As the falling insulator rained down from ceilings and drilling machines
Creating a fog of contaminated white dust
That hung around like a death sentence
As men choked and spluttered out spit
For decades no religion mattered as many surrendered
Even housewives washing the deadly dust off dungarees
But the chiefs above covered the stories
Never relayed the warning for generation after generation...