Vintage Dancers

To dance is to reach for a word that doesn't exist, To sing the heartsong of a thousand generations, To feel the meaning of a moment in time. - Beth Jones

It was the darkest hour of the day,

People asleep,birds had nothing to say.

Eerie shadows on the streets are cast,

Pale light filters down fast.

Dark,isolated street,

Cogitating out loud,

One could hear a heart beat.

Admist the lonely,there was still a crowd.

Who were the gangs in the alley on Chestnut drive?

Shabbily dressed men,women dolled like brides.

A hole in the alley-where festivity lie,

It was a place for lower-class,only the deprived.

Bourbon,dancing and sweet smoke,

Exposed  bosoms through finely laced cloaks.

Women gracefully strutting a pose,

Wooing gentlemen,holding on to bunches of garden rose.

Pranced on the women,begged for a dance,

Drinking away coal-mine problems,seeking sweet romance.

Classic tunes roared the room,

For a few moments,rum and love ameliorated their doom.

The night faded,

Men and women all jaded.

Fun had come to an end,

Forced to reality,themselves to fend.

Back to the mines at mourn,

Dusty coal and mining from dawn.

The festivity would come again they anticipate,

Only form of happiness to cure their desolate and poor state.