“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 the sun
much anyway
holidays maybe
and sundays for church
if only the skies
up above weren’t gray
down into the old black hole
lamplight and torches,
like stars and 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
flattened infused, i am become coal
all is black, my soul, my skin
but i hear there a voice,
and a light there bursts in
sunshine sunday,
where the hell have you been
the voice it carries like a song
it dances round and back again
but the light it turns
and it waltzes by
all goes dim, all goes silent
all hope comes to an end
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 aloft, sent off to heaven
they built it with bricks
through the year of o’six
and 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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