King of the Coalies Copyright © Rod OʼDonoghue 2011

Why
Do I
Fear Darkness,
When Iʼm a full grown man?

Why
Canʼt I
Just enter
A dark space anywhere,
Without some form of panic
And doomʼs impending stare?

Why
Will fear
So fill me,
Consume my future days?
Well hear, Iʼll tell! Just listen well.

Black! No! Blacker! No! Blacker than the Halls of Hades
Or Trunchbullʼs dismal chokey.
They stuck me in a blackened room
They called the Black Pit ‟Coalie”,
So I could see no more,
However I implored.
And all my screams and all my cries —
For nought I let them out....
Until at last
At end of day
I could no longer shout.

They called me King of the Coalies.
But where the King of the Coalies sat
Were puddles
Not just from tears.

And I was King of the Coalies
For years and years and years

The heat, the smell
And the itchy eyes
In a coal shed -
No surprise.
I sense them still
It makes me ill
To remember
My groans and sighs.

What child deserves
A fate like this -
Too scared to do a wrong?
Yet now after full fifty years
Iʼve written it down
In song.

Yet Darkness still transfixes me
And Darkened rooms inside.
When Darkness lurks behind a door

I freeze

But must decide
If Iʼll go in,
Or is the light switch close enough?

Oh where? Oh where can I now hide?
Donʼt leave me here alone
For Darkness WILL appear to me.
And I shall turn to stone!