Embedded Files
An Invisible Fury
The Action
Boom-boom go bridges at Matlock,
the Square & Compass, Grouse & Claret, a humpback
at Baslow, the one-way crossing with lights at Chatsworth.
Five stone bridges,
blown apart by a recipe from Asda,
Aldi, the agri-wholesaler at Darley Dale.
A blast every ten minutes from 3am,
no-one dies, but in supersizing terror, terror is
the imagining of terror, a fear of what’s to come.
In the National Park, no cool summers
since 1996. We don’t recall
or we cancel this.
The bombs tear Derbyshire along the Derwent River,
the gorge at High Tor, Matlock Bath, deeper the gash now
in the minds of locals.
Who does this to rain-streaked, millstone farms
squared-off like graph paper by dry-stone walls?
The media runs tales of barbarians at motorway slip-roads.
A brass band in Youlgreave by Lathkill Dale,
named ‘Pommies’ when all they could play
was Pom-Pom-Pom, draw fresh breath between their lips. [1]
Actor
Rachel rids herself of male Sieg Heils in New Balance trainers,
her new home, a cave and her mortgage, the climate. Chairman
Mao, killer of a billion sparrows in the Great Leap Forward is small fry now. [2]
Rachel knows her Mary Shelley, and that Frankenstein said
Peak caves were ‘cabinets of natural history’, [3]
where heat-seeking probes can’t see, and drones fall like Icarus.
We know our moon more intimately than these caves,
which relieve our heat under poisoned pastures.
MI5 briefs farmers to be ready for food insecurity by ‘29.
Food riots seem unlikely in ‘Little Switzerland’ [4]
and the entrance to Rachel’s den, concealed by hives,
is a placid front-of-house in limestone glades, once coral beds.
In her own changing, she/they sees oil barons grow
eight pairs of buttocks and shit black shit
from each orifice, upon our earth.
Of the Order of Druids as well as a man of the cloth,
our Thomas Eyre carved thrones and altars on Rowtor Rocks, [5]
drew serpent and chalice side by side on village outcrops.
A pluralism not shared by those who dragged a family comfort
from priest holes at Hathersage,
for hanging and drawing before a crowd, after Derby Assizes. [6]
Reaction
A quarry siren wails, more stone blasted for highways and homes.
She/they bomb the gash in the earth, though who in their proper mind,
destroys the already demolished. Which is their point, exactly.
She/ they’s voice, two octaves lower and hirsute chested,
and challenging their look with their five o’clock shadow,
holds to account the oil-cult brethren and a dying apocrypha.
The year we lose is 2030, when caves miss their pipistrelles,
whole species drop to burnt peat on Kinder Edge,
our time resembling the boiled Permian, a million years since.
Birds now cast to metaphor, but Youl-grave or -greave,
or Giolgrove in the Doomsday Book, remains a changeling place,
where Highways Agency and Ordnance Survey can’t agree a signpost spelling. [7]
For here it is, that cave-black bees shot through with hoops
of sunlight, guard a queen, and millstone and limestone meet,
as radon floats in the gap between the harder and softer terrain.
These caves, the shadow-face of our shining moon, and alter ego
of tundra and rainforest, spark new grief for territories
we never knew and surely now, never will.
There’s No Postscript to Apocalypse
In 2032, she/they earn the moniker,
‘An Invisible Fury’, as elusive as the swifts
no-one sees coming or going, or if they still exist.
The wallabies of Riber Zoo, escaping Matlock’s castle folly, [8]
the zebras and the black cats, all gain more sightings
than the ‘Fury’, in their mole-light burrow.
Testosterone patches like Nicorettes, enlarge their sex,
a wind-turbine engorges on a hilly horizon,
white arms semaphoring, ‘Save Our Souls.’
Their chest widens and body fat put on around the hips.
Their menstruating a lost history like Dales’ miners
Selling lead for shot to Cromwell, to win a Civil War.
The young fight the old, winning lawsuits against
informed dinosaurs who knew the score and still
Robbed our children of their seasons.
Reparation swag though, won’t hold bloating rivers long,
there’s no recourse for Atlantic storms,
The Thames Barrier overwhelmed, Hull, Liverpool, underwater.
Acpanto cow at Youlgrave Hall, a carbon face and methane arse
moos, ‘Show us the science!’ Now a full-on basso profundo, they yell,
‘Behind you, it’s behind you! Shut the spigot off, now!’
Notes to the poem:
1). In 1860, when the villagers of Youlgrave, Derbyshire, first got musical instruments, all they could play was ‘Pom-Pom-Pom.’ The villagers became known as ‘Pommies’
2). In China, in the 'Great Leap Forward (1958-62), Chairman Mao ordered the killing of house sparrows as 'vermin'.
3). Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein in 1818.
4). Romantic poet Lord Byron (1788-1824) dubbed Matlock Bath in the Derbyshire Peak District as ‘Little Switzerland’.
5). The Reverend Thomas Eyre, an 18th-century pastor in Birchover, also celebrated as a Druid, carved pagan symbols and thrones on Rowtor Rocks by the village. Some said to inspire local tourism, others claim it was for rituals held there.
6). In 1588, Padley Hall, the Eyre family home, was raided by Shrewsbury’s men and two Jesuit priests were found in hiding. Nicholas Garlick and Robert Ludlam, both local men, were taken to Derby where they were hung, drawn and quartered.
7). ‘Youlgreave’ is the most mis-spelt village in Derbyshire. The road sign on entering the village uses the spelling ‘Youlgreave’, although the Highways Agency use ‘Youlgrave’. Ordnance Survey maps use ‘Youlgreave’. Locals use ‘Youlgrave.’
8). The folly of Riber Castle, near Matlock, was used as a wildlife park from the 1960s until 2000. When it closed, exotic animals were rumoured to have escaped and their descendants are said to live out in secret on the moors.
Ken Evan's bio: A Full On Basso Profundo, Ken’s second collection with Salt, was published in February, 2025. He started writing about donating a kidney to his sister who has lupus. In 2024, Ken was a winner in ‘On the Move’, for poems on buses, and included in Broken Sleep’s Masculinity anthology. He was also a runner-up in the AUB competition. His most recent reading was at the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society, a competition he won in 2018.
Copyright © 2025 by Ken Evans, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of Copyright law. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the notification of the journal and consent of the author.
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