Monday, 15 August 2016

Mametz Wood - a poem

The Welsh at Mametz Wood by Christopher Williams 1918

A couple of weeks ago I watched a programme about  Welsh soldiers who fought at Mametz Wood in July 1916.  It was really engrossing and unbelievable to think that many of them had never fired a gun and had  been training with broomsticks before being thrown in to face professional German soldiers.  Anyway, I started researching more and wrote this.

Mametz

She greets me by a shell ridden tree
On a carpet of splinters where flowers should be
By a blood filled pond where the dead blindly stare
And the pain of my forefathers hangs in the air.

Queen of the woods she takes my hand
Walks me round this haunted land
Points at barbed wire where bodies are hung
And bullets are flying to slaughter the young.

A steel grey landscape cradles streams of blood
The hands of corpses reach out from the mud
"What is this?" I hear a voice say
I have no answer, I'm generations away.

Branches crash, a million splinters sting
the children forced to fight the lightening.
With faces grimaced they fall to their knees
While she crowns them with a wreath of weeds.

For here they lie, she tells me now
Til the ground is churned by the blade of a plough.
And guardians of history dig where they stood
To reveal the truth of Mametz Wood.

So take this vision to your waking world
Let them feel our pain in your every word
Our spirits may sleep but restless we lie
Til our questions answered.  Why? Why? Why?

copyright 2016 carol ann lewis




Tuesday, 9 August 2016

Poet of Pontypool entry 2016


My entry for the Poet of Pontypool 2016.  It was awarded a Highly Commended certificate :)


Streets of Pontypool

Tell me your stories, spirit of old
From your sepia photo that my hands hold.
Give me a glimpse of times that have been
A history I seek that your eyes have seen.

How I would love to wander where
Gas lights flicker in the dull evening air.
Every brick and stone with a tale to tell
Of triumph, achievement or personal hell.

What kind of people would I come to know?
If I walked along Pontypool's ancient roads.
Boys in flat caps lurking in doorways.
Ladies in bonnets riding in carriages.

Horses trotting on the dust filled streets
In the market the smells of hanging raw meat.
Traders bartering while wives buy supplies
For men returning from work in the mines.

Shops, pubs and houses, I'd visit them all
Then watch local singers at the Town Hall
Park House and gardens, I'd love to see
How it looked when inhabited by the Hanbury Leighs.

Busy salesmen who stop for a spell
Of hospitality at the Crown Hotel.
Then a few steps from there, just because I can
I'd visit the home of my great great gran.

Spirit of old, I stand in the spot
Where you were captured forever in this sepia shot.
Time divides us but I see all around

Through my eyes and yours our lovely old town.