Out
from the Darkness
A
voice deep within the Coalshed calls out,
“I
know there are people with words about,
People
who’ve something that they want to say;
That’s
you! So don’t let you thoughts slip away.
A
story, a poem, a humorous tale,
An
anecdote, a notion that can’t fail
To
enlighten, entertain or amuse,
With
rhymes, without rhymes, anyway you choose.
And
then, when your say has been said,
Wing
it through cyberspace to the Coalshed.
How
many words? One hundred more or less;
The
challenge? The theme?
Out from the Darkness.
(90 words)
Dave Alton
(Writer in
residence – National Coal Mining Museum)
Please send to: voicesinthecoalshed@gmail.com
Dog
Days Of COVID Summer
I radiate low esteem.
So much so that flies
sometimes can mistake me for
a piece of horseshit.
Dissolution
I feel marginal.
Buried in obscurity.
Alive but not quite.
On Another Hand
Thoroughly reliable
with a constant mood --
man of immense appetite,
energy for life.
Breakfast
In Bed
Though never feel, “Don’t
have enough,” always connive
to get more and more.
Gerard Sarnat
(gerardsarnat.com)
Shadows
Nick loves walking on summer
evenings when pale blue mingles with pink shrouds, especially when the moon
rises, a luminous disc, orange or a pale lady. Too many corpses, more
statistics, curves. He walks with methodical steps, absorbing shadows in
country roads, deep and pink, dancing, darting. He observes leaning pines, each
curved branch, lights from cabins snaking through pines, he is welcome. He
walks slower and slower. The night settles, pale blue turned black. The morning
knocks, a little too bright, country roads weary with dirt, the pines
precarious. The shadows dart and dance. They can’t block the sun.
Yash Seyedbagheri
THE SOLITARY HEART
Like that weary rose,
the heart is under threat,
could succumb to the current,
go with the most convenient flow,
open to the sky’s scattered cumulus,
but wanting so much to avoid
recriminations,
or to berate the weather for minor
lapses
in years gone by,
a reasoning that scolds his instincts
with disquieting joy.
Reason is a trusting light, in
its way,
placates the iris, wakens the sparrow’s
trill.
And Fall nurtures with fluent
predictability, by shifting
slightly, can be where
the stream’s downy current
engulfs
and then, with unabashed adoration,
once more prove dedication,
unsullied, unrestricted,
avenge the solitary heart
given the strength to confess its
trust,
all that a nurtured existence finds
exemplary.
John
Grey
From Coal to Dust
Streams of coal dust settle in wrinkles,
a trade ingrained forever in skin.
Egg white eyes with blue yolks
announce his Celtic origin.
Black seams of coal snake through
Welsh valley and Yorkshire dale.
Miners bent double hack away
with pick and shovel at the shale.
Coal dust turns lungs to black,
slithering unseen inside.
Shifting tons of dirty slack,
while black lung rots flesh to dust.
Now the pit heads turn no more,
their wheels confined to rust.
Sheila Kinsella
A miner and his daughter (Part 1)
He came down on his bike, she says. Bramley to Betteshanger
following the black seam.
Ants across June asphalt to drill their colonies.
Genteel Deal hung out her signs; no dogs or miners.
Shops flung cheap chops at wives
hands boiled raw, scrubbing since dawn
in the steaming shadow of the sheave wheels.
Shifts leave pitch-blind.
Face silhouettes with pinhole eyes.
Coughed his lungs up, she says. Pit dirt did him over.
Insides dark as the Kent shafts,
blood runs black.
Coal dust settles on clean sheets
seals the white seams of his skin.
Helen Price
Helenlouiseprice.wixsite.com/thisissediment
Out From the Darkness
Out from the darkness at the end of
the day
The miners emerge without much pay
A long hard shift so bleak and dreary
Swathed in blackness, tired and weary
Dismal faces daren’t look to the skies
They blink as the daylight hurts their eyes
Whilst surfacing from the murky depths
In sombre mood they catch their breaths
Filling their shadowy lungs with air
Sinister coughs are everywhere
Out from the darkness at the end of the day
The miners emerge without much pay
The miners emerge without much pay
A long hard shift so bleak and dreary
Swathed in blackness, tired and weary
Dismal faces daren’t look to the skies
They blink as the daylight hurts their eyes
Whilst surfacing from the murky depths
In sombre mood they catch their breaths
Filling their shadowy lungs with air
Sinister coughs are everywhere
Out from the darkness at the end of the day
The miners emerge without much pay
Marian BARKER
Dark Memory
I have
seen the lengths darkness will go to,
Its height,
too low for comfort, and its breadth
So narrow
it is closing in it seems.
There are
those who’ve measured it with their lives,
Precisely
calibrated increments
Of sweat.
Hope rises
in cages loaded
With
cutting jokes brighter than lamps,
Or
weighted with spent banter winding up
From where
once the darkness was hewn, kibbled
And
hurried towards the sun.
I have
stood
Between
trapdoors and listened to darkness
Flooding
the galleries, feeling that light
Has to be
taken with a pinch of snuff.
Dave Alton
