BLACK DIAMONDS

Originally written and posted 21.12.2011 – Re-posted 09.12.2019

BLACK DIAMONDS

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He dressed in blackened soot whose eyes shone upon his bare and yellowed teeth

     He worn and torn, whose royal, calloused hand, held no change or caution in its flush

Battened, trained and tested, he doubtless and replete might live 10, the 20 less than many

     but still would carry brother ‘hame’ from dark the wilderness battle, the grim shadows dancing

I earned these scars for bearing down with gritted teeth and carving diamonds from my sorry flesh,

     Now is there any wonder the purple thunder in the dark night cavern is a woman’s hole?

          and a necessary mother to those who pay with perspiration, oiled hands

               and attend the birth of nations wealth, the rich man’s worn-silk purse, lovers mementoes

The day the siren blows like a death knell at this royal mile where only thoroughbred

   stallions enter and four maimed and broken ponies leave, drawn on a rickety cart to the bone-man

The glistening heat burns this sweat box over,  as men who are men, dream of women’s

     flesh or the soft sweet touch of a harbour friend with tattooed-bluebird and a faithful touch

In the centre of the earth only burnt goblins, wraith’s or branded saints can stand healthy

     So fathom the memory of those bruised gladiators carried from their duty unheralded

Born on the shoulders of the working classes, straight tall people who bowed their backs

     to grasp an egg omelette, a slice of dry soda bread and maybe a broiler in a pie on Sunday

These forgotten, muddied infantry of the foremost lines still treading and spreading

     Waiting on a word from God or a handout from the Pentecostal soup kitchen whose

          battered Yellow Coach-Bus they call ‘Emmy’ rolls into Market Square when all the good,

               fair people are rehearsing whispered promises and making plans for an evening with

                    solitaire, magazines and some oh so simple and po-lite conversation 

I wished I walked again in Steinbeck’s holy pages with faces wrinkled by a dagger-sun

     or scanned the white-fields where hands and figures boned,

          tend and care for ankles torn and bloodied by the day

A ‘mistral’ cat with a sharp eye is prowling hungry in the bare gorse bushes

     It’s fur is knotted brown, its clavicles and pelvis standing bare through thinnest skin

Its stalking game against a mandarin sky with its belly so full of kitten, so ripe to burst 

    A mothers face I see amid her salted torment, a face of recognition in a dry wind gusting

         this wind catching ever so lightly a chicken wing thrown from a tan-faced workman’s lunch-tin.

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writtenbyedenbray21.12.11

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Authors comment .. I think I discovered a rich vein of feeling for this piece – I think I wanted to capture the plight of the downtrodden – those who have worked so hard in tortuous circumstances for a mere pittance and little human reward so that others might benefit financially and enjoy a privileged lifestyle. I think all my work is about ‘feeling’. The saying goes ‘Manners maketh man’ and that does make for a fine saying and a catchy stanza of alliteration – but for me it is our feeling that makes us human. Compassion and kindness sets us apart from most animals. – edenbray today

My friend Jessica Phirri also commented – 04.01.2012 ~ Thank you for your rich painting of words and history and cultural distress. It really quite means something, EB. And how we take for granted the blood on our fingers! I love the pictures that you selected as well. It’s a humbling and faithful exercise to think of the downtrodden; the workers who push our world around its axis- the hands of God when we think we are our own. Your work is alive and speaking in tongues! ~ I loved these words she wrote for ‘Black Diamonds’ and I told her so. – edenbray today

#PROG-PROSE ~ Progressive Poetry – part of an #Edenbray retrospective – Re-posted today for a new generation

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A Photo Glossary :

… Black Diamonds …

scene from ‘DAYS OF HEAVEN’

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diamond worker with muddied face

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DeBeer Diamond Mine Workers

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‘ … where only thoroughbred stallions enter and four maimed and broken ponies leave … ‘