Diamonds
mining through the coal to find the gems
the miners’ spines have slipped their discs, made crooked by the sack
containing all those minerals and dignity in chunks,
in lightless labyrinth lunacy their fingernails turn black,
their faces smeared in shadow like the cassocks worn by monks,
canary tweets and cutthroat cheers in overtures of fear,
the blessing of Saint Barbara, the company of drunks,
the beaded sweat on beaten brows as recompense draws near
for all the years of toiling pain reluctantly embraced
as life succumbed to sufferance and drowned itself in beer-
the coal-man’s tongue, annulled of nerves has lost its sense of taste,
a chipped refrain of icy breath discloses diamond tracts-
the miners’ satisfaction of the betterment they chased
and from those adamantine faces lamplight glow refracts
but can these diamonds substitute for decades gone to waste?
