Stinking refuges of gas

blinding the sun with your metal sheets

round and round you go intact to

supply the tiny pipes and holes

where flames can perform their hot air act.

Men on bikes passed by your flanks

for their gasworks jobs they gave you thanks

and once with every rise and fall

you were the biggest of them all.

But now your lungs are solid seized

and the sun shines down as often it must

to see the threatening flakes of rust.

The bikes have gone, offices closed, and

you creak and groan with your padlocks on like

the ghost of Christmas past.

The roundness of your ample bosom

will no more succour the stinking gas,

when you hit the deck at last we say

"Farewell, lux et veritas."