Poetry Forum

The Miner’s Lamp

After twenty-five years of living alone, the room had a certain look

Scattered books, old paintings, vinyl LPs and coffee mugs

Dust was everywhere

And, although not unexpected, the old smell was still there,

musty, like an antique shop

It permeated the rugs, curtains, his clothes and skin

An unwelcome reminder from my past


I noticed the miner’s lamp, above the empty fireplace

Brass tarnished long ago

I read the copper plate on the lid; 1985,

and remembered how it had once looked, magnificent and proud

Staring at the hearth for a moment, I caught my breath,

picked up the iron rod,

and scraped the crusty ashes away from the grate

This is a nice piece of prose. A haunting feel about it. They had hard lives but they kept me warm when I was younger, my mum and dad to.

The wonderful smell of train smoke here, reminds me when I travelled
to my aunts in Eastborne, how I always stuck my head out of the window the vivid odour realeasing me. Fish and chips I will eat soon

at my dear, aunt Mags.

Thanks for this.

L

Beautiful write, Mark. I enjoyed the descriptions. Any reason for the gaps in between the lines? However, I loved it, from start to finish.

To my mind, this is prose poetry - and it works beautifully. I like the double spacing. I'm not quite sure why; maybe it is because there is so much going on between those lines. An effortless, quiet, unpretentious and emotionally charged piece of writing. It took my breath away a little bit.

You could cut "away' from the final line.

Mic

Hello Mark, welcome to the forum. I think this is very good. It's very deft in what it leaves unsaid. I think the line-breaks are natural and although it would work as prose it does just as well like this. I do think you need a bit more punctuation, particularly at the end of lines (and there's no need to double-space).

Line 6 confused me a bit: "his skin" implies that "he" was physically present in the room at the time, but I don't get that impression from the rest of the poem.

An extremely affecting poem written with a lot of care. Cheers.

Hello! This was my first ever attempt at a poem, so thank you for all your comments. I used my father, a former 'Flying-Picket' as the insperation for this piece, plus an old Irish man I used to know, who had given up on himself, and his flat! The line spaces were left for effect, and I'm glad you like that. I will use you advice when composing my next poem, hopefully soon.

Best
Mark

Very nicely written, I actually felt as though I was in the room with you and I could smell the oily adour of the old miners lamp. I'm no expert on English grammar and modern poetry but I enjoyed your poem. 9/10

westonalan wrote:Very nicely written, I actually felt as though I was in the room with you and I could smell the oily adour of the old miners lamp. I'm no expert on English grammar and modern poetry but I enjoyed your poem. 9/10

Many thanks again! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Regards
Mark