Below are two poems written about the present medical crisis. So far there are 6 in the series, posted at www.sonnetwright.blogspot.com . I invite people to submit poems, or even ideas for poems, for the Coalshed Poets blog on this or a related, however distantly, theme. Please send to bellowingbob1@aol.com.
Important: Please put your poem in the main body of your email from where I can copy and paste it. No attachments please.

Dave Alton

(Coalshed Poet - National Mining Museum) 

Covid-19 (No.6)

Take a strand of RNA, tie a knot

And make a wish, count phases of the moon.

Pray nothing pernicious comes this way soon,

Or if it should then it doesn’t draw your lot.

One hundred years after the Somme ended,

Exercise Cygnus played H2N2

On the gaming table: Only, it’s not flu

But coronavirus that’s descended.

It seems predictions were catastrophic,

So, were noted and quietly filed away,

Until came the contagion, came the day

For the accounting of the mounting sick.

Austerity, efficiency, not fate

Has proved “just in time” is far, far too late.

                                                                                                   Dave Alton

Covid-19

This poem is posted to mark the first day of the public closure of the National Coal Mining Museum of England.

There are no rats streaming off from rigged ships,

No bell clanging crier calling out the dead,

No trundling overburdened tumbrils led

By masked spectres as the malady grips.

No crosses daubed over doors, though handles

And handshakes could prove fatal. Fast as fear

This plague flies, a traveller’s souvenir

Round the carousel of the world, dandles

Life and death without intent or purpose

Other than its own being. City shaken,

Markets deserted and futures tumbling.

The preachers of profit are at a loss,

While pubs are closing, last orders taken.

Lock all the doors…but the walls are crumbling.

                                                                           Dave Alton

Spectrum of Welfare

The following poems have been composed from phrases contributed by visitors to the National Coal Mining Museum of England. All were collected on one day, 19^th February 2020, and drawn from information boards displayed around “The Hub”. The contributors were invited to write their chosen lines by selecting a coloured pen. The subsequent poems have been made from words written in the same colour. All the words used are those supplied by the visitors. My role has been to form them into reflective verse. I have retained mis-spellings and non-sequiturs as they contribute to the sense of the poems.

(Dave Alton – Coalshed Poet)

Red

I can’t tell a lie,

We were working on a seam:

Canary – Gas – Cage.

We are awkward, hard to use,

Dust made people hard to breath.

To pass a message

On eye-catching equipment:

Banners at a cost.

Explosion of welfare schemes,

Family in rescue teams.

Orange

Kept two canaries,

Two steel doors. Amazing days

Working on a seam.

It’s time to celebrate-

Wrestling, boxing, colliery bands.

Banners promote pride

And children-s entertainment

For use underground.

Danger still in existence,

Fun activities also.

Pink

What does remind you?

A mine? The helmet? Banners?

Colours and mottoes,

Gala days, celebrating

Once the most dangerous job.

Time improved greatly,

Family and friends rescue pride:

If bird feints – gas leak!

Coal mining was explosive,

Smoke disaster over years.

Green

Encourage miners

Struggle for gala of change;

Everythink proto.

Equipment, holiday silent,

Built family, love and friendship.

Turquoise

Join colliery bands,

Once the most dangerous job

Still chirping away.

Games in London used to ruffle,

Creating cuts and bruises.

Purple

Friends, smoke and helmets,

Draped in black to mark a death

Behind pit banner.

A very dangerous job,

Disasters still in existence.

Deadly days happened,

A colliery incident,

Gala team performed.

Celebrating time rescue,

Trained bands in the museum.

Black

All of a sudden

Everything deadly silent,

Danger with the lads.

Colliery bands were waiting

With family and friends by hell.

A sudden something,

Working a seam a yard high:

One hour in you knew.

Men in black killed or injured,

Thousands, I’ve cried, carried out.

We would rush for help,

All named still in existence

Until formal death.

Coal mining is dangerous,

But safety rules made us think.

Unusual happened.

Volunteers seriously

Went about today

To really mark areas

That mine inspectors once saw.

Telling Stories

Telling Stories

(Poem composed from conversations with visitors to the National Coal Mining Museum on 5^th February, National Story Telling Day)

(1)

Granddad was from Fife,

Miner all his working days,

Mainly in Stoke, though.

Dad escaped in a spitfire

And I live now in Salisbury.

(2)

“Children, whose bag’s this,

And where is your group leader?

That’s it, two by two.”

Crocodile slouching its way

To the coach in neat order.

(3)

Thirteen’s old enough

For the joinery shop:

Time served and ready.

When the kids came, where’s the brass?

From rip saw then to ripper.

(4)

Saturday scrum-halves,

From pit props to prop forwards,

All in the same league.

Come Monday, under the sports’ field,

Players back at their tackle.

(5)

My brothers went down,

Dad, of course, and my uncles.

I went to college.

Gran gave me ten bob each week,

“Just ‘til you’re working.” she’d say.

Dave Alton

(Coalshed Poet)

Spirits of Caphouse

(For Halloween)

Silent showers speak,

Disembodied voices call…

Old soap! Ghostly poo!

Autumn draft or cold breath,

Door on history left ajar.

Scent of carbolic,

Singing round the bath house,

Rose just passing through.

There’s dirty side and clean side,

Old miner’s other side now.

Tin bath of coal dust,

Hot water and open fires:

No money, no soap.

Words, like lives, pass in spirit:

Scares! Blood! Coughing! Screaming!

Zombie pit pony

Hurries a tub of shadows,

Dark into darkness.

Souls left to wander alone;

How lost when the lamp goes out.

Look! Look! A huge rat!

How scary then is the thought,

What size is the cat?

What is there to be scared of?

“The Deputy!” A collier quips.

Scatter of ashes,

Last words, lost mates, list of those

Beyond the echo.

Spirits abide in the coal-black,

Voices creaking like timbers.

(This poetry chain was composed by Dave Alton of Coalhouse Poets using words and phrases contributed by visitors to the Bath House and the underground tour at Caphouse Colliery, National Mining Museum of England.)

Bluecap

Should you stray down a mine, deep underground,

Listen! Listen! What’s that noise? What’s that sound?

A distant knock, knock, knocking, tap! Tap! Tap!

That’s no miner mining, it’s Bluecap!

Bluecap is a goblin, size of a child,

With an old wrinkled face, white whiskers and wild,

Wild eyes burning with blue fire that can see

Into the future, what’s going to be.

A flood? A cave-in? Gas ready to blow?

Listen for the warning, Bluecap will know.

A rap, rap, rapping and he’s trying to say,

Danger! DANGER! Time to be away!

Back to the surface and best not be slow

For there’s trouble coming down, down below.

He might sound like someone most folk would thank,

Except for his mischief, he enjoys a prank.

Tools go missing, so does the miners’ snap

And colliers will say, “That’s Bluecap!”

If there’s a full coal tub that’s been left alone

A blue flame might appear, then all on its own

That tub moves and to the shaft finds its way,

And Bluecap will expect a putters pay

Left in some quiet spot to settle the debt;

No pitman would want Bluecap being upset.

So, if you happen to be underground

And see a few coins left lying around,

Let them be, even though no one’s about,

Or Bluecap may stop you finding your way out.

Has it become hotter, the air turned stale?

Your lamp begins to flicker and fail.

Listen! Listen! There’s a crack! There’s a groan!

And you’re in the dark, down there, on your own.

You could try shouting, but no one hears you,

There’s a shuffling sound as something nears you,

Then, in the dark, a feint blue light shines through;

That will be Bluecap, he’s coming…FOR YOU!

Dave Alton