The Coober Pedy Miner

The diagnosis was that he wouldn’t live That the cancer would get him in the end He had been an opal miner for 20 years Living in Coober Pedy away from Europe And all it meant at the end of World War II When he fought on the Eastern Front Where he was involved in Nazi slaughter So he wanted to hide from in the Outback He didn’t have any family and few friends So he went to his dugout and lay down A stick of gelignite in his mouth And the fuse laid along his chest The fuse was lit and he watched it burn As the gelignite blew his head off That is the way the police found him In a show of manhood he wanted to make. © Paul Warren Poetry