Poetry Challenge Day 13: Dust! (Black Lung Disease)
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Dust! (Black Lung Disease)
Breath In, Breathe deep
Day turns into night
And night into day
Underground
Gandalf was lost
In the mines of Moria
He fought the Balrog
But we must fight
Just to taste clean air
In our personal Moria
Cough, cough
The air is like treacle
So thick with coal dust
Coal is related to diamonds
So they say
So they say
Perhaps we are filling
Our chests with treasure
Like Long John Silver
But Blind Pugh was not
The only man
With a black spot
Our lungs are silted up
Like a river on go-slow
Oxygen seeps in tiny increments
Through our air-ways
While we gasp and flounder
Like beached fish
Black lung disease they call it
We get a pension now
If you shone a torch
Into our lungs
Do you think they would glisten
Like black diamonds?
Coal Worker's Pneumoconiosis (Black Lung Disease)
Coal Worker's Pneumoconiosis (CWP) is also known as Anthracosis, or Black Lung Disease. It is an affliction generally caused by inhalation of small amounts of coal dust over many years working within the coal industry. The disease is much less prevelant these days due to improvements in working conditions.
The main symptoms are a shortness of breath caused by deposits of coal dust in the lungs. This in turn often leads to heart failure and emphysema.
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More of my poetry:
- Random Poetry Challenge Day 11: Colours in Joy, Racing Silks
This is my third poem inspired by the list that Lita Sorensen posted in her Random Poetry Challenge. I've chosen to write about horse-racing, partly because that was what popped into my head, and partly... - Poetry Challenge Day One The Love of Broken Things
In amongst the attic dust I found A broken frame That once displayed Five buttterflies Trapped on pins The glass, long gone, The joins, unglued Hanging askew And those flightless Fragile wings Torn...
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Comments
Hi G-Ma
Sorry if it's a bit too sombre. I know a few people with lung ailments caused through work (asbestosis and emphysema) and when I saw the suggested title 'Dust' it was the first thing that leapt to mind. I also have family up in the pit villages in the North of England, and I've seen some of the mines close at hand. I can't begin to imagine the conditions the early miners worked in.
Mines are dangerous places, my late father worked in a mine in the Forest of Dean many years ago and got seriously injured when a cable pulling a loaded coal truck snapped and the flying end caught him. Not a place for the feint hearted and the people who work or worked in that environment, especially when some of the risks were less well understood, deserve support.
Hello Amanda! I appreciate your work. You are, as always, very original and profound. Thanks.
Great work Amanda. If this is for a cause, you have my full support. I liked that coal and diamond thing. Thx
Hi Brian,
Coal mines are apparently a lot more pleasant to work in these days, but they used to be very scary places. I'm sorry to hear about your father's accident. The men that worked those coal-faces in years gone by, were indeed, unsung heroes.
Thank you for your kind comments Storytellersrus. As always, it's good to see you here.
Hi Anjali,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. No, it's not specifically for a cause, more something that I've often thought about, and was stirred to write by Lita Sorensen's suggestion of'Dust' as a title in her poetry challenge.
Having said that, there are many people struggling with breathing difficulties caused by coal-mining , quarrying, and working with asbestos, and many of them do not get the compensation and support that they deserve. It's always good to raise awareness about these people.
Poems can be used to record life, to maintain records of what it was like at any given time in history. This has an advantage over the clinical compilations of facts and statistics found in most history texts. Emotion can be expressed through poetry much more readily. You've done a very nice job with this.
Thanks CWB. I like the free form of poetry. Sentiments can be expressed randomly, without the necessity of wrapping them up in neat sentences and paragraphs. It's like a kind of shorthand.
Hi, Amanda--This is the strongest image in the poem, I feel: While we gasp and flounder /Like beached fish. And also, just the juxtaposition of coal dust and glistening diamonds.
This feels something like a song--another thing I was thinking is that it is reminiscent of the poetry when mines were going strong.
I'd like to hear more about the coal mining villages in Northern England. It would be interesting to me, since I am American and that isn't something you hear about much A hub with photos, etc., would be cool.
Thank you!!!!
Hi Lita,
A hub about the mines might be an interesting thing to do. I'd not thought about writing about the coal mines before, being a Southerner myself, but it's not a bad plan. Thanks for the suggestion!
Very nice. You English have a way with words.
Hi Writer Rider,
It's a strange thing, but the voices and accents somehow often come through in the writing, and even I've noticed that some of us English writers such as myself and Paraglider, CJ Stone, London Girl, Bard of Ely and Misty Horizon all have a different 'voice' than many of the other writers here on Hubpages. It would be interesting to make a study of it to find out what the differences are.
I must amend that last comment, as I should have said British writers, rather than English!
My grandfather was a miner and had this. It was such a hard life.
I'm sorry to hear that RGraf. I know that miners with this condition now get pensions, but it's little enough compensation for such a cruel disease.
Brilliant Amanda especially "If you shone a torch Into our lungs Do you think they would glisten Like black diamonds?"
great clarity and imagery - cheers
Hi Ajcor
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I've known a couple of elderly people who have had occupational lung disease. One had asbestosis which was really nasty,and eventually killed him. The other is still around, but has emphysema and some days it's hard to even watch him struggle with his breathing. Thank goodness working conditions are so much better these days.
Amanda- To be honest I thought first it was about those smoking then I realized that it was about Coal workers plight. Nice hub to bring awareness and good job on all these poems. Thumbs up.
Hi CW
I suspect that smokers have black, tarry lungs after years of exposure to nicotine, but that's a personal choice, so I guess I have a little less sympathy for them than I do for the miners!
The poetry challenge has been fun, but I think I'm running out of inspiration. Perhaps poetry is not my thing after all!
You do write great poems and inspire so many of us to write poems too. Pleeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssseeee don't give up and treat us to more of your poems :-)
Well never say never, but meantime, how about some more of yours?
I thought it was going to be about smoking at first too. I was like uh-oh, shes gunna point out my mud lungs... but alas.. it had nothing to do with it.... I never even knew about this... insightful; and what a heartfelt poem Amanda.
Hi Mellas
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Black Lung Disease is pretty nasty, and the coal deposits never clear. I don't think many people have heard of it, but at least now, these guys do get a pension.
Great poem but so sad the price these men pay for the comfort of so many.
Thanks Juliet. As you say, the few suffer for the benefit of the many. Fortunately working practices are much more health and safety concious these days, but we still have a legacy of older miners who have to live with this terrible condition.
G-Ma Johnson says:
11 months ago
Not such good news here...am glad for the improvements but alas still bad for one...I am so sorry about this...well done poem my dear...G-Ma :o) Hugs & Peace