Best Mining Poems
Twenty-two miles to the Roslyn mine.
Two blocks beyond, ten headstones you'll find.
All dated the same the registry claims,
though the wind, the ice and acidified rain
have disfigured and stolen the names of those souls.
My tears they might wash and reveal some of those
but are wasted. They run down my nose.
The #4 Mine blew out in ‘09.
Now ten graves lay neatly in line.
Each man skipped the Army to work underground,
found eternal peace and never were found.
Twenty got out, then the fan house she blew
from an explosion of black damp allowed to accrue.
Ten lives disappeared in the dust and the fumes
And in the dark they were buried like in Brigadoon
I left by the toll road, crested the pass,
crystal streams from Lakedale my compass.
To a sacred valley of aspen and ash.
Ten decades to heal now, tears looking back.
historylink.org/File/9182
and images.findagrave.com/photos/2020/49
/19026379_61b0f05c-4e3f-4938-82d3-5f06c999da64.jpeg
Dams, mining, extraction and fracking!
Logging, trawling, oops this urban expansion!
Plastic, toxic sludge and fertilisers,
Industrial revolution, Mass production!
Rising pollution and depleting fossil fuel.
Expanding population, you greedy humans!
Squeezing nature and melting glaciers
Chocking gases creating Climate conundrum.
Speeding extinction, your helpless restrictions.
Destructing ozone layers, eroding my very foundations!
The earth in pain whispers to me:
Why are you causing this depredation?
Look at my dereliction!
Please stop this destruction.
WHISPER TO ME Ii CONTEST
Sponsored by: Regina Riddle
Date: 14th June; 2020
Miles and miles above our heads,
millions of them, I believe it's said,
way up in the skies, past the moon and stars,
somewhere near Jupiter and nearby Mars,
space rocks, called asteroids,
are hot topics these days.
We'll be "mining the skies," for silver and gold,
and other precious metals, like titanium, I'm told.
During the gold rush days,
remember the stories of the old West?
"There's gold in them thar hills!"
Now the "Gold Rush" is out in space!
And the prize is worth the race.
Space stations are being planned,
the size of Texas, they say.
And machines, like snow blower's,
will suck up the space treasures
of near-earth asteroids,
if the aviator's have their way.
Heaven has gates of pearl and streets of gold
and other treasures we'll someday behold.
But exploring the heavens, we'll continue to do,
because God's riches of creation, are never ending to be found.
And God doesn't make junk. His treasures abound.
.
Black
Wasteland
Blitzkrieg hills
Broken promises
Death!
Rare earth materials in cars and phones
help us hear and travel and stay in touch.
Much of human capital is in loans,
funding needs like a societal crutch.
Every device turns over in a year
to support immediate stock deadlines.
Endless mining is what we have to fear.
Endless growth is feeding our fat felines.
Greenland is our next source of rare earth stock.
When Greenland is depleted, where to go?
Antarctic continent at six-o-clock
is next place to mine for capital flow.
Like retired folks, it will not be long
when new generations find it all gone.
KENTUCKY COAL MINING 1930
Behind me men deepening my gashes
And a danger as always from gas flashes
Ahead of me more seams wait for my cuts
More years spent sick to the guts
Rock rock everywhere and all is black
Roof above me scraping my back
A pile of work for which there is little thanks
A mile of earth above held up by God and two planks
And if it moves we become fossils like the coal
For the mine boss’ll bury us body and soul
The darkness is not just here in the coal seams
But in how the coal miner’s life seems
The endless darkness and heat is like hell
Hopeless prisoners walled up in jail
To digging a grave myself I resign
This job is a merciless killer -- it’s mine
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Written by Sydney Peck
Entered in Debbie Guzzi's Contest Down in the Dark Dungeon
The world moves on-
and so do you,
on gears we grind
like a mining crew.
On a squatter’s small selection
Not far east of Northam town
Waits a wife and her two children
For her husband to come down
For he’s gone off chasing nuggets
In a far off northern field
And he’s gone to seek his fortune
Gone to reap a golden yield
But the fare up cost a packet
And the mining gear cost more
And before he’d even got there
He was stiff and tired and sore
Now he’s gone and staked a claim out
And he’s worked it night and day
But it hasn’t shown much colour
And he cannot make it pay
Then he hears about a rush on
In a field near Marble Bar
So he sells his worthless claim up
And he tracks another star
Then he’s far away from thinking
Of his wife and kids and home
And he takes up heavy drinking
And he spends his days alone
And the heat and flies and rot gut
Slowly start to rot his brain
And the last bit of his money
Quickly trickles down the drain
Then they find him late one morning
Hanging bloated from a tree
And his ghost now haunts the goldfield
Where the wind blows wild and free
And his wife still waits and wonders
As she watches down the track
In a hopeless lonely vigil
For her loved one to come back
And each time a swaggy passes
She runs out to see his face
And though hope may spring eternal
Her man’s lost without a trace
And to top off all this sadness
His old claim was taken on
Just another five feet deeper
The next miner’s fortune shone
And so it was for many
Who were drawn in search of gold
Some got rich, some not a penny
Some got dead and some got old
For the gold it was a fever
That men caught like a disease
And today still has the power
To cajole and flirt and tease
Inspired by a true story in the book ‘Mates and Gold’ and dedicated to the prospector near Peak Hill who was unable to go on and to his wife and his kids who were left to fend for themselves.
From my PDF book "Bush Ballads and Bulldust"
Stairrafer)................ beyond the rules and regulations and restrictions, we have to recognize the mean spirited ways of men, those who wish to involve themselves in every aspect of human existence.
Deffrion).....turn your face to me when you speak, people often think this is an act of a fool, or of a coward, talk to me face to face.
Stairrafer)..... You wish me to curse you but I won't engage in verbal combatants: (pausing) follow my orders and everything will be alright.
Interrupting.......Sorburg).......Both of you are equally foolish! The Belgium Ship Pragnus has violated the realm of space by mining on the asteroid Magmus Seiver, here's the official statement, Resource appropriation, of wrongful Space activities The exploitation of natural resources, This goes beyond the realms of space, these are moral dilemmas!
Go through chores as, like a machine
the sunrise, sundown, the rains, and snow
the countryside pass by a train window
but can't drink the green valley to the lees
along the mountain slope the mist rises
swept clean by a light stream from among clouds
sea waves thrash the shore and back they go
the glacial river water flows down to the plains
poke the ecology to melt ice at the source
fertile lands begin to wear desert signages
channel energy to mine minerals and wring out oil
combust petroleum to run trucks and automobiles
disease and pandemic checkmate growth
damage life, in the gambit to make it hunky-dory.
as I see some children
forced to do hard works
in coltan and other illegal
mines in DRCongo.
terrorise by some group of rebels
daily.
some United nations officials
support those dark deals
mostly.
many people stay
quietly.
Painful to see polluted waters
Fish killed by different acids.
Fishers screamed
terrible.
Oh! DRCongo is attacked
in different angles.
This cruel world
Filling with some heartless
People
Who care for themselves.
Putting rules to destroy
others
To remain very
riches
on this planet earth
which is very
impossible.
Secret envy,
Hate
Jealous
exposed.
Oh! Yahweh God,
I know one thing ...
Their days are numbered
As no one will live
Forever.
The coal miner descends
into the mine much like
his father and his father’s father
it’s his way of life.
Into the mine much like
the others, he goes into darkness
it’s his way of life
as they carve into mountains.
With the others he goes into darkness
far below a world of light
and they carve into mountains
as he finds veins of coal.
Far below a world of light
the dust he breathes coats his lungs
as he finds veins of coal
to be taken away.
The dust he breathes coats his lungs
as he gives his life for bounties
to be taken away
like dreams that fade as a child.
As he gives his life for bounties
his wife’s heart yearns for a better life
like dreams that fade as a child
but her visions take wing
His wife’s heart yearns for a better life
far beyond mine shafts and scarred hills
but her visions take wing
as the coal miner descends.
Into the wilds
I trudge
In search of
Osmiridium
I keep an eye out
For
Thylacine
But know they
Got rid of them
I follow the tracks of
Finnegan
Who was on the run
For his life again
The 73rd of foot
Again
Some were thinking
Good riddance to him
Finnegan
Ran blindly
Through the bush
Right across the top
Osmiridium
Yet
He seen that treasure
Denied to me
Thylacine
I guess
We are square
In the circle of life
Finnegan
Osmiridium
And belatedly
Me
A consortium for interplanetary exploration has conducted
the first ever mining operation in Mars, using robotic
automation that unearthed many valuable minerals and
uncommon elements from beneath the red regolith.
Scientists are not yet sure if for future Martian
colonization and mining activities they have to breed
an AI race.
Shattered are the dreams of the wanting, as they live in their broken homes
Bodies wracked with pain, spirits crushed as they live out those wasted lives
Accumulations of sorrow, all these and more, in the tailing pond of society
as we mine the misery of our most vulnerable and sorely damaged brethren
Yet, how we can avert our cold and flinty eyes so easily from these souls
as we grub in their pockets for the meagre pennies they bring to spend in hopes for a quick flight to their personal, but inevitably unreachable, heavens
And as they fall back to earth from another failed attempt to reach the stars
that live only in their eyes, we coldly collect the toll and add it to the coffers
to be disbursed for the public good. Sleep well, fellow citizens, sleep well.