“Anthracite” is a Ghost Elegy with a strong Working Class tone. Written in 2025, it was initially developed to be a narrative for the “A Shattered Cup of Doom” novella, but its strong sense of period and place at the surface level rendered the work seemingly incongruent with the other elements. Though the avid reader will recognize the “buried” romance sub-story and the linkage to the main story line of the novella, “Anthracite” serves more accessibly as a stand-alone Americana piece.
“ANTHRACITE”
i died in the mines
back in ninety-four
me and my dreams
no more sunshine no more
down before the roosters crow
never saw much of the sun anyway
holidays maybe
and sundays for church
provided the skies up above weren’t gray
down into the black of the hole
lamplight and torches, like stars and the moon
but the timbers cracked
like the thunder claps
and the mine it collapsed and it took me too soon
i died in the mines
back in ninety-four
me and my dreams
no more sunshine no more
so there i lay infused with coal
my soul is blackened like my skin
i hear there a voice,
a light there bursts in
sunshine sunday, where have you been
the voice it carries like a song
it dances round without an end
but the light it turns
and it waltzes by
and i doubt it ever pass this way again
they sealed up the mine
back in ninety-five
me and my dreams
and another twelve more
a somber trumpet on the wind
a prayer alifting into heaven
they built it with bricks
through the year of o’six
and they remembered us there in o’seven
i died in the mines
back in ninety-four
me and my dreams
no more sunshine
no more
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