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Dave Bonta
when the new moon’s still a sliver
pale fingernail against
the blackboard
& you hear
the shriek of wheels gone
slightly off-true with the track
ninety-nine cars heaped high with coal
hurtling by in the darkness
don’t it make you shiver
that night train
we have been thin paper
in the rough
draft of our lives
our greatest word
is like a contract
for our share of coal
This mine I work
and break upon—
we pray for it.
The weather is
as warm as an ear
after a day of music.
a creek without
any living creature
I eat as a way of answering
the great quiet
Out of the old coal hole,
new and clean
at 3:00 o’clock
the colliers see in the dark,
garden some ill wood
and believe in little.
i am not ready for
a light-filled forest
still half aflame
i struggle to recognize it
with thinning hair
comes the chill of loss
i finger a nickel
that slaveowner’s face
riding in my pocket
like i’m lewis and clark
under red and scarlet oaks
the music of falling acorns
tick-tocking but only
at random moments
i clock in at several
caught breaths an hour
in one summer how many
generations of aphids
chicory blueing the roadside
where a drive-in used to be
and the spindly trees
that stand in for angels
their green blades
for carving up the sun
so much more than we know
grows in a summer
sporangia like eyestalks
seedpods like space ships
and the mountaintop bleeds orange
where coal was stripped out
but we climb with
our mouths open
Two monsters,
Iron and Coal,
Sleep in the darkness.
A poisonous scarlet breath blows over them,
And they awake hissing and writhing,
And spew forth blood-red vomit
In streams like fiery serpents.
Then from the reeking pools
A monstrous brood is born,
Black, strong, beautiful.
But we turn away our tired eyes,
And try to find the sky above the smoke-clouds.
I HAVE been in Pennsylvania,
In the Monongahela and the Hocking Valleys.
In the blue Susquehanna
On a Saturday morning
I saw the mounted constabulary go by,
I saw boys playing marbles.
Spring and the hills laughed.
And in places
Along the Appalachian chain,
I saw steel arms handling coal and iron,
And I saw the white-cauliflower faces
Of miners' wives waiting for the men to come home from the day's work.
I made color studies in crimson and violet
Over the dust and domes of culm at sunset.
Have I told any man to be a liar for my sake?
Have I sold ice to the poor in summer and coal to the
poor in winter for the sake of daughters who nursed
brindle bull terriers and led with a leash their dogs
clothed in plaid wool jackets?
Have I given any man an earful too much of my talk —
or asked any man to take a snootful of booze on
my account?
Have I put wool in my own ears when men tried to tell
me what was good for me? Have I been a bum
listener ?
Have I taken dollars from the living and the unborn
while I made speeches on the retributions that
shadow the heels of the dishonest?
Have I done any good under cover? Or have I always
put it in the show windows and the newspapers ?