New Classic Poems – Contemporary Verse That Rhymes

New Classic Poems
Then and Now
The mines that gave us work when I was young
Played out and stood abandoned many years.
The riches that so dearly we had won
Had dwindled, and the jobs had disappeared.
Now dozens of our businesses have shut.
So many empty buildings can’t be sold,
When every second store front’s boarded up
Like broken teeth along the Mile of Gold.
A mining town can’t win, the big-shots say:
It’s boom and bust, not real prosperity.
Diversity will bring us better days –
A miracle I shall not live to see.
Cold water trickles off the granite knolls
Where ice is melting. Winter’s fading fast.
But cigarettes and rock dust took their toll:
The doctors fear this Spring may be my last.
I’ll die as I have lived in this small town.
I look ahead untroubled much by doubt.
A hard rock miner can’t be beaten down –
It’s Death alone who’ll finally knock me out.
And when he comes, I’ll shake the Reaper’s hand
With few regrets, now that I have grown old,
Content that as a youth I made my stand
In this tough town, when streets were paved with gold.
Warriors Dance
Chrissy K. McVay
Trails among the Navaho
riding sunset's dawn
Whisper tales of wounded souls
blessed by spirit songs
Bronzed by bitter winds of time
kneeling to dark guns
Is it beast or burden now,
fighting tortured sons
Empty dreams of buffalo
legends, lost by man
Holding fear through bloodied tears
strangers to wild lands.
77