The Decline Of Ballyvoole Forge Poem by Martin Moore

The decline of Ballyvoole forge

A misty grey, March morning light
Hangs above its breached and balding crown
Highlighting its hidden history buried beneath its fallen floors.
Abandoned, a casualty contrite
Its inner sanctum tumbles down
Beneath it's bombed out roof and battered wooden doors.

Its courtyard cobbles covered now
Its briar encrusted steps has nature claimed
The timeless footsteps muffled by the smothering soil.
Gone is the smithies sweating brow
The bellows and the molten flame
The walls remain as testament to a mason's toil.

A work of art within its walls
Its timber skeleton upright in the peat
I played no active part in its imminent decay.
The short lives spent beneath its stalls
Its lofty naked gables above the carnage at its feet
Its very function and intent now in dismay.

Two windowed eyes of shuttered red
Above its brick arch vaulted frown
Cry tears of quarried slate that still lie shattered on the verge.
It seems the very stones have bled
In unison the blood flows down
And strikes the mourning milk churns to perform a final dirge.