| june - july 2007 Issue 12 |
All work copyright the
respective owner.
Nothing may be
reproduced without
consent.
respective owner.
Nothing may be
reproduced without
consent.
POEMS
Miner's Quest (To Don Petersen)
And the miners came down from the hills
only once a month, to eat, drink and fight,
and if they were lucky,
to spend the night with a woman,
instead of in jail.
For sheriff Bennett met them at the edge of town
and gave them the same warning each time:
‘Have a good time, boys, but don’t wreck the town.’
And the miners nodded sincerely
and chorused, ‘Sure, sheriff. You bet. We promise.’
But the sheriff was used to their rough ways
and knew they were there to escape the pressures
that gripped them in the bowels of the earth.
And they weren’t bad men, just childlike,
toiling like slaves of eld, then seeking release.
And they meant their promises and meant no harm.
Nevertheless, the sheriff hired extra deputies
on the day the miners came to town
for their monthly binge.
Now the miners respected the sheriff,
who understood their need to blow off steam,
but the deputies were another kind of cop.
Mostly young, scared, acting tough to impress the hard men,
who only feared Mother Earth’s crushing embrace
waiting to hold them close, far beneath the surface.
And they mocked the posing deputies,
who wore one-way sun glasses to hide the uncertainty,
that made the miners mistrust them.
Now there was one deputy the miners really hated.
Reardon, a big-bellied bully, meaner than the rattlesnakes
that sometimes tumbled down the mineshaft
and couldn’t find their way to the surface again,
and shared the dark confines with their fellow prisoners
and sometimes got lucky and bit someone,
before the miners could stomp them to death.
The only thing the miners hated more than rattlers
were the bosses, whose venom flowed from far away.
Reardon always greeted them the same way,
slapping his club in his bulbous paw, scaring no one,
but alert for the chance to hurt the miners.
But they despised him, staring through him,
another dangerous clod of earth to be avoided ,
but never feared, because he only trapped the unwary ,
and if you labored deep below the ravaged earth
you learned to be wary, or you didn’t survive
the hungry pits that always beckoned you.
So the miners rushed to their favorite bars,
where bored trailer girls served the drinks
and didn’t really care that a lot of hands
did a lot of exploring of their veined bodies.
And they listened to the usual comments:
“That’s a number one shaft. Deep hole. Dig that strata.”
And the girls snapped their gum in boredom,
for they took worse abuse than words
from the harsh hands of their redneck boyfriends.
And the retired professor of something or other
met them at ‘Purple Nell’s’ and bought them drinks,
and preached to them that they should spare the earth.
But they laughed kindly at him and explained it was their job,
and if they didn’t do it, the company would hire others
eager to take their place in the mines, because
someone was always waiting to steal a man’s job.
But they never insulted the professor
while drinking his liquor.
The miners never went to ivy covered schools.
They had no book learning, just blue collar skill,
acquired the hard way, in the pits of shattered dreams,
where the mines sapped the souls of men,
who never got used to the pressing rock above
and the dank, devouring dark below,
always waiting, as implacable as time,
to catch a careless miner in a moment’s lapse,
the last summons to the final ascent.
Peasant's Complaint
Once again the summer has passed
and again the wheat did not grow.
Soon I must go into the town
and tell the local committee
that I have not produced my quota.
Once, some of the committee
were my neighbors, farmers like me.
Now they belong to the party,
and all of them have forgotten
what it's like to work the soil.
Accruals
Success is a twig
tempting in sunlight,
captured in glassine images
gnarled by implications
that assist pandemonium.
Human engines get exhausted
driving ambition forward
and the shift to cruise control
to maintain acquisitions,
leaves our senses blinded,
lost in Magellenic cloud.
Gary Beck’s poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. His recent fiction has been published in numerous
literary magazines. His plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced Off-
Broadway.
Miner's Quest (To Don Petersen)
And the miners came down from the hills
only once a month, to eat, drink and fight,
and if they were lucky,
to spend the night with a woman,
instead of in jail.
For sheriff Bennett met them at the edge of town
and gave them the same warning each time:
‘Have a good time, boys, but don’t wreck the town.’
And the miners nodded sincerely
and chorused, ‘Sure, sheriff. You bet. We promise.’
But the sheriff was used to their rough ways
and knew they were there to escape the pressures
that gripped them in the bowels of the earth.
And they weren’t bad men, just childlike,
toiling like slaves of eld, then seeking release.
And they meant their promises and meant no harm.
Nevertheless, the sheriff hired extra deputies
on the day the miners came to town
for their monthly binge.
Now the miners respected the sheriff,
who understood their need to blow off steam,
but the deputies were another kind of cop.
Mostly young, scared, acting tough to impress the hard men,
who only feared Mother Earth’s crushing embrace
waiting to hold them close, far beneath the surface.
And they mocked the posing deputies,
who wore one-way sun glasses to hide the uncertainty,
that made the miners mistrust them.
Now there was one deputy the miners really hated.
Reardon, a big-bellied bully, meaner than the rattlesnakes
that sometimes tumbled down the mineshaft
and couldn’t find their way to the surface again,
and shared the dark confines with their fellow prisoners
and sometimes got lucky and bit someone,
before the miners could stomp them to death.
The only thing the miners hated more than rattlers
were the bosses, whose venom flowed from far away.
Reardon always greeted them the same way,
slapping his club in his bulbous paw, scaring no one,
but alert for the chance to hurt the miners.
But they despised him, staring through him,
another dangerous clod of earth to be avoided ,
but never feared, because he only trapped the unwary ,
and if you labored deep below the ravaged earth
you learned to be wary, or you didn’t survive
the hungry pits that always beckoned you.
So the miners rushed to their favorite bars,
where bored trailer girls served the drinks
and didn’t really care that a lot of hands
did a lot of exploring of their veined bodies.
And they listened to the usual comments:
“That’s a number one shaft. Deep hole. Dig that strata.”
And the girls snapped their gum in boredom,
for they took worse abuse than words
from the harsh hands of their redneck boyfriends.
And the retired professor of something or other
met them at ‘Purple Nell’s’ and bought them drinks,
and preached to them that they should spare the earth.
But they laughed kindly at him and explained it was their job,
and if they didn’t do it, the company would hire others
eager to take their place in the mines, because
someone was always waiting to steal a man’s job.
But they never insulted the professor
while drinking his liquor.
The miners never went to ivy covered schools.
They had no book learning, just blue collar skill,
acquired the hard way, in the pits of shattered dreams,
where the mines sapped the souls of men,
who never got used to the pressing rock above
and the dank, devouring dark below,
always waiting, as implacable as time,
to catch a careless miner in a moment’s lapse,
the last summons to the final ascent.
Peasant's Complaint
Once again the summer has passed
and again the wheat did not grow.
Soon I must go into the town
and tell the local committee
that I have not produced my quota.
Once, some of the committee
were my neighbors, farmers like me.
Now they belong to the party,
and all of them have forgotten
what it's like to work the soil.
Accruals
Success is a twig
tempting in sunlight,
captured in glassine images
gnarled by implications
that assist pandemonium.
Human engines get exhausted
driving ambition forward
and the shift to cruise control
to maintain acquisitions,
leaves our senses blinded,
lost in Magellenic cloud.
Gary Beck’s poetry has appeared in dozens of literary magazines. His recent fiction has been published in numerous
literary magazines. His plays and translations of Moliere, Aristophanes, and Sophocles have been produced Off-
Broadway.