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--chosen-work--
Furnaces
It must have been the crossing points that woke me
that dark night when steam still pulled Icelandic cod
out of Hull transpennine
I thought I was in hell
ablaze with row on row stupendous fires
stoked by furious imps and demons
We left the Leeds line arrowing and swayed
away towards the Don into sparkling banging
showers mountains high
reeling lurching past the piled shining
streets of Parkgate
Dead deserted dark a different face of hell
Coltsfoots in rough grass reluctant trees
damaged rabbits claim the sidings
Where molten iron ran
brackish pools of wintering fowl
branch lines falter heading nowhere
People here were iron-bred
dwellings lives more black than night
blacker than the deep-won coal yet
many hearts of furnace red
Their fire is out
Their iron rusted into earth
They hope for better days and
sell each other foreign cars