Ian Neville

The following poems, by Ian Neville, were first published in An Industrial Landscape (Penistone Poets 2014).

Footbridge across Warren Dike by Ian Neville.

 

Rockley Furnace, Birdwell, Barnsley,
by Ian Neville

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rockley Furnace (Solid Ghost)

By the arched footbridge
one late November
twilight poised delicately
as the keystone
above Warren Dike,

I saw a black pony
cropping sparking tussocks
from the annealing air
hot metal cooling
into cannon beneath
its flaming shoes.

A raw shout
raised the pony’s head
then a clanging of voices
dull vowels
beaten into bright words
sentences smoking
between the trees
a molten conversation
plugged by a blunt
charcoal rebuke.

The pony
startled itself
bolted for the motorway embankment
slipping into wet earth
quenching its memory
to an afterglow
tempering the blue dusk
to the white hot point
of a star.

Ian Neville

 

 

 

Centripetal

Through each stratum
a fissure
down every delta
a fault
across all horizons
weakness runs
a careless finger.

At the wheel’s periphery
where air curdles
gritstone dust
a dull
water whetted blade
finds a geologic chink.

The micrometre of probability
the spinning stone
like a newborn universe
will pepper the workshop
with shrapnel and consequence.

Ian Neville