In West Virginia they dig tunnels or a great big hole,
to extricate from Mother Earth the substance known as coal.
For centuries the coal was burned and smoke would fill the air,
but coal became outmoded and demand's no longer there.

So many miners were laid off as mines did stall or close,
and in Coal Country incomes dropped and unemployment rose.
But Donald Trump made promises to fix the miners' strife,
by saying he'd bring Old King Coal a-roaring back to life.

So Trump reduced the regulations that bring jail or fines
for harm to the environment from power plants or mines.
But all this is irrelevant - Trump has no magic spell
to make the world want coal again. To whom will these mines sell?

Trump may as well have promised to bring back the horse and cart;
for tinkers, whalers, schooner sailors, a rich and brand new start.
For Trump will promise anything and sell his very soul.
Next Christmas his reward should be... a big old lump of coal.

England lies below the ground
Chiselled out of diamond,
Blackened halls where men would dance
On floors of obsidian, twice removed from the stars.
Parlours made of coal.
Where man and beast alike would toil
Birth would grant them pigment
But birth’s decision was in vain,
When the sun began to fall, they would arise, of colour all the same.
Nowadays the men walk free;
Above
Drink pints in the morning, offer empty yells,
To that guy who came here to escape the shells,
To the girl who arrived here with three degrees,
And now scrubs floors down on her knees,
To the guy who works for minimum wage,
He could be writing upon this very page.
Spirit crushed under coal when the mines closed down
Now England lies below the ground.

he leaves his
window open
so the rare
wind whistling by

through a dust-coloured
day; in a
dust-coloured cell
on a dust-coloured
treasure chest lie

his faded blue
attire, worn and
patched by gentler
days,

greyed gracefully
to dusty black;
new wrinkles
on his face

weigh him down;
a faded
treasure chest
stares at a cement
coloured wall

over his head,
and the lonely
voiceless mist,
blinding; hear it
call

to rusty,
dark and sunless
sky, reflected
in his eyes,

when a bright and
impish countenance
eclipses tired
sighs;

the tired rusty
treasure chest
five decades
hibernates,

to feel the stirring
light of grey,
to feel new
hope, awaits

the cold and
stinging storms
that pour, taste
salty youth again;

the dusty
yellow rain boots
melt, ecstatic
in the rain.

T. E. Pyrus
https://lampteacupoverthinking.wordpress.com/

In memoriam Asher and Franklin

Farmers flocked to Blossburg's mines
    willing their abandoned plows
    to perpetual dust and rain.

Burrowing into the Tioga hills
    with Keagle picks and sledges,
    they filled their trams with rough cut coal.

Black diamonds - carved for waiting boilers
    of New England mills and trains
    and Pennsylvania's winter stoves.

Brothers, Frank and Asher swung their picks
    in tunnels deep beneath the hills
    and brushed away the clouds of soot.

Their coughs at first seemed harmless
    enough as from nagging colds or flus -
    but deepened as their lungs turned black.

Pain and choking drove them to their beds
    where no medic's art could aid them.
    Then the coroner came to seal their eyes.

A stonecutter's chisel marks their brevity
    on an marble graveyard obelisk
    that pays no homage to their sacrifice.

September, 2007

Across the road
A J-K girl,
Skipped and laughed
On her way to school.
She was strapped
To a big back-pack,
Looking like
A pink pack mule.
Behind her strove
Her drover,
Directing her to quarry
All the stones of learning.

By three o'clock
My minature mule,
A little slower
Trudged from school.
The pack was filled
With rules and tools.
She had panned
The ores of knowledge;
She'll assay them
In days to follow.

Each day my mule
Will turn the grindstone,
Crunching numbers,
Sifting fine poems.
She's mining all the hidden gems
To fill her back-pack
Once again.

Still the women wait in trembling hope
Near the old pit head in the valley;
The earth's turbulence has long abated;
"Let him live, dear God", each prays silently.

Still they linger, knees bloodied from kneeling
Hopelessly on the old cobbled main street,
Eyes ugly red from constant weeping.
Not daring to acknowledge the worst.

Still lies the sad morning after the vigil,
And now there are no more survivors.
"**** this for a ******* waste of time,"
Yells Fat Irene as she waddles off to the pub.