Postcards

 

Voices from the Coal Shed

 

August! Holiday season! And so many of us going…nowhere! Why not send a postcard anyway? Instead of the usual “Wish you were here”, how about, “Wish I was there”?

“Wish I was there” this month’s theme for contributions to the Voices from the Coal Shed blog and the virtual museum at the National Coal Mining Museum of England. This is open to any age and from anywhere.

Send your postcard message to:    voicesinthecoalshed@gmail.com

Whether you can travel or not, everyone can wish.

 

Dave Alton

(Writer in Residence

National Coal Mining Museum of England)

 Jersey is a home from home. I wish I could walk along the St Aubin promenade as the sun sets after a busy day exploring. Or I’d visit the magnificent castles steeped in layers upon layers of history, where you can traverse five centuries in just five paces if you know where to go. I wish I could sit on the quiet and hidden golden beaches, the only sounds the waves against the rock pools. Bliss.

 

Brittany Holmes

 

 

 

 

I asked my 6 year old Grandson where he wished he was. This is his Postcard.

 

"I wish I was at Thomas Land but I really wish that I was at my friend's house playing with him, or at school in the playground playing Tig or Field of Lava with all my friends."

Isaac Reddington Aged R

 

My Postcard would be 

 

I wish I was on the beach in the sun in San Stephanos, Corfu. We would swim in the warm sea then relax on sunbeds listening to the familiar holiday beach 'soundtrack' of the sound of the waves, sun umbrellas flapping in the breeze, children playing and jet skis. We would discuss which wonderful local restaurant we might eat at tonight.

 

Pam Utley

 

 

Strolling on a beach

Feet wet and tingling

Cold waves catching.

 

Sand washes away

Reveals shells gleaming

Pebble gems glistening.

 

Footprints come and go

Life's pace pausing

Just breathing and being.

Julia C.

 

 

I wish I was…

 

…in Norfolk at my favourite camp site. I would be swimming in the swimming pool and running on the grass. It is a massive camp site with play areas which have lots of fun things to do. When I am there I feel as happy as a laughing hyena.

Caitlin Alton

 

I wish I was…

 

…in Toronto where I was due to be, before Covid. I was going to watch Leeds Rhinos v Toronto Wolf Pack and go in the nice pool on the top of the hotel. I was also looking forward to a theme park.

Rebecca Alton

 

I wish I was…

 

…sailing on Adriatic Sea surrounded by endless blue sky and sparkling sea. The wind whipping the sails as we skim along bouncing on the gentle waves. Anticipating clambering into the dinghy to be whisked ashore for a delicious meal in a restaurant.

Jacqueline Garrood

Voices From the Coalshed

 

 

August! Holiday season! And so many of us going…nowhere! Why not send a postcard anyway? Instead of the usual “Wish you were here”, how about, “Wish I was there”?

“Wish I was there” this month’s theme for contributions to the Voices from the Coal Shed blog and the virtual museum at the National Coal Mining Museum of England. This is open to any age and from anywhere.

Send your postcard message to:    voicesinthecoalshed@gmail.com

Whether you can travel or not, everyone can wish.

 

Dave Alton

(Writer in Residence

National Coal Mining Museum of England)

 

 

 

We went to a farm in the Peak District. We went for a walk and got drenched in the rain. We walked some alpacas and went in the hot tub. Portugal would have been hotter and less rainy. We wish we’d been there, swimming in the big swimming pool and eating ice cream.

 

                                                                                                                          James (8) & William (6) Fraser

 

 

 

Sun, sea and sangria

Wish I was there

Dining out, diving in ,acting on impulse

Wish I was there

Even traffic jams and airport chaos and that little voice from the back seat enquiring “are we there yet?”

Wish I was there….well almost

 

It’s not too far

You know we have to book!

Will the loos be open?

Which is the quietest day with the least people about?

That’s where we are

Wish I wasn’t there

 

                                                                                                      Anon.

 

 

Dear Joe …

Why not take an outing to the N.C.M. Museum?

 

Ingredients

        Parents (better still – grandparents!)

        A spare morning/afternoon

Method

        Follow the footsteps and your interests

        Note the free and challenging adventure playground

        Marvel at the machinery

        Discover the pit ponies

        Unlock the past and see how children worked

        Listen to your ancestors

        Explore what’s under your feet.

Result

Follow the big people and let them talk!

You will then be able to wander and wonder.

Have fun!

 

                                                                                                                                                Lesley Randal

Voices Abroad 2

 

 Introducing Michael Lee Johnson, a poet from Itasca, Illinois. USA, to Voices Abroad.

   Flower Girl

(Tears in Your Eyes)

 

Poems are hard to create

they live, then die, walk alone in tears,

resurrect in family mausoleums.

They walk with you alone in ghostly patterns,

memories they deliver feeling unexpectedly

through the open windows of strangers.

Silk roses lie in a potted bowl

memories seven days before Mother’s Day.

Soak those tears, patience is the poetry of love.

Plant your memories, your seeds, your passion,

once a year, maybe twice.

Jesus knows we all need more

then a vase filled with silk flowers,

poems on paper from a poet sacred,

the mystery, the love of a caretaker−

multicolored silk flowers in a basket

handed out by the flower girl.

 

   Silent Moonlight 

 

Record, she’s a creeping spider.

Hurt love dangles net

from a silent moonlight hanger,

tortures this damaged heart

daggers twist in hints of the rising sun.

Silence snores. Sometimes she’s a bitch.

Sunlight scatters these shadows

across my bare feet in

this spotty rain.

Sometimes we rewind,

sometimes no recourse,

numbness, no feeling at all.

 

   July 4th, 2020, Itasca, Illinois

                  (At Hamilton Lakes)

 

Stone carved dreams for men

past and gone, freedom fighters

blow past wind and storms.

Patriotism scared, etched in the face of cave walls.

There are no cemeteries here for the old, 

vacancies for the new.

Americans incubate chunks

of patriotism over the few centuries,

a calling into the wild, a yellow fork stabs me.

Today happiness is a holiday.

Rest in peace warriors, freedom fighters, 

those who simply made a mistake.

I gaze out my window to Hamilton Lakes

half-drunk with sparkling wine,

seeing lightning strikes ends,

sparklers, buckets full of fire.

Light up the dark sky, firecrackers.

Filmmakers, old rock players, fume-filled skies,

butts of dragonflies.

Patriotism shakes, rocks, jerks

across my eye’s freedom locked

in chains, stone-carved dreams.

 

*This year, 2020, due to COVID-19 I watch fireworks off my condo balcony alone,

share darkness alone, share bangers in the open sky.

 

   Fall Thunder

 

There is power in the thunder tonight, kettledrums.

There is thunder in this power,

the powder blends white lightening 

flour sifters in masks toss it around.

Rain plunges October night; dancers

crisscross night sky in white gowns.

Tumble, turning, swirl the night away, around,

leaves tape-record over, over, then, pound,

pound repeat falling to the ground.

Halloween falls to the children's

knees and imaginations.

Kettledrums.

 

Michael Lee Johnson

 

 

 

 

 

Postcard

 

Voices from the Coal Shed

 

August! Holiday season! And so many of us going…nowhere! Why not send a postcard anyway? Instead of the usual “Wish you were here”, how about, “Wish I was there”?

“Wish I was there” this month’s theme for contributions to the Voices from the Coal Shed blog and the virtual museum at the National Coal Mining Museum of England. This is open to any age and from anywhere.

Send your postcard message to:    voicesinthecoalshed@gmail.com

Whether you can travel or not, everyone can wish.

 

Dave Alton

(Writer in Residence

National Coal Mining Museum of England)

 

 

Dear Dave,

 

I wish I was in Madeira on my holidays.  I would be swimming in the pool, diving for my dive sticks and playing on a jet ski if I could!

I would be snoozing and reading, and having breakfast desserts.  I would be fishing from a jetty for mullets in the sea. 

I miss getting up in the middle of the night and going to the airport in my pyjamas!

 

Wish I was there,

Daniel

 

Voices Abroad 1

 

 

Voices in the Coalshed reaches out beyond mining and its history to include a variety of voices. They may not have anything to say directly about coal mining, but the industry is just one part of the wider world.  The present pandemic has demonstrated all too vividly how closely connected we all are.

Here are three poems in a voice from Alaska - Kersten Christianson, welcome to the Coalshed.

 

Alignment of the Chakras

 

It’s June and my Throat Chakra

opens to sing to fingers eager

to type love poems, their words

captured from the wind, the tips

of an errant raven feather flipping

abandonment in the yard, the rebirthed

petals of raging violet rhododendron. 

 

Words like heartfelt, connection,

and We need to figure this out flit,

cut wake through sleep, and even

the June moon, the Strawberry

Moon, is romantic in her roundness

and name.  Both Sacral and Third

Eye Chakras argue for levity; one

 

for potential and if, the other

a reminder of distance and time.

But it’s that tricky Heart – she’s

fickle, demanding, hopeful. She

is plain in her language and shies

of woo.  Never has the written

word been easier.

 

 

Courier

 

“How now, Balthasar? How fares my Juliet?” – Romeo

 

In waking, you roll into another rusty

pandemic morning. Like a minor

character in any inconvenient plague,

your iPhone, a modern Balthasar,  you

dredge social media outlets for some sweet

 

morsel of optimism, anything to hitch

your hopeful wagon to, even a star,

but without the stench of an idiot

president, fallout still lacking a vaccine,

unmasked masses by choice, a million

 

broken hearts in the wake.  Sometimes

the peel is more fortuitous than the fruit. 

Sometimes, all it takes is an otter

juggling stones.  A blanched moose

jawbone hosting wild geraniums

 

in their short, season of sweaty dance

under hyperborean sun.  This morning,

you peruse the airbrushed photos

of celebrity marriages boasting partner

age differences of 15 years or more. 

 

Sir Elton John sagely advises,

You take it one day at a time.  And this

is rope ladder enough to pad barefooted

downstairs, humming “Rocketman,”

to start the midmorning coffee.

 

 

 

Bawdy Muse

 

Cisneros

Might well be

Bukowski’s

 

Shiny star

Sister: Thigh,

wine, bed crumbs

 

Appetite

for stanzas

sloppy men

 

                                Kersten Christianson

                        (www.kerstenchristianson.com)