coal slumber

My dreams of getting paid enough

to sleep, they keep me up at night

sedated, still, I close my eyes

and wish it all away, for now

A nightmare haunts my future plans

a housing crash they can’t foresee

the horsemen of the market force

I kill them in my mind, at work

I paint utopian fantasies

of paradise, in afterlife

the vigor from the sights I see

shall feed me through the years of drought

I rue the day that woke me up

from slumbers, rich, an infant past

these dreams of coal ain’t made to last

and yet I write them down, in vain