#somme poems on Hello Poetry

Steve Page Jul 2016

The years stung with field gun smoke,
as the stench of accusations hung
among the aging towers of power.
Stark whistles pierced the mourning air
bringing tears to eyes spared any true battle.
And after a respectful silence, sodden with sacrifice,
the drizzled grandchildren turned away
for a Starbucked start of a brand new day.

Standing in the rain, Parliament Square, 7.30 am, 1 July 2016.

#somme

Tryst Jul 2016

The Old Lie

They lied to us
    with preacher smiles
    at Sunday school

They told us
    our world was created
    in six days

We stood as one
    as our world was created
    in seven days

We stood as one
   as light sprang from darkness
   and earth fell from heaven

And after seven days
    we stood as one
    and marched into hell

Title borrowed from "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen.

#somme #bombardment

Parsavagely Kompenere Jul 2016

Pro Nihil Mori

Hell, or something close to it,
Or worse;
For they would have longed for the warmth of fire -
To feel more than the sodden stink of their boots
And the thunder of Howitzers in their bones.
But they knew the victory was coming.

Eight days, that would be enough.
Letting death fall
In the half-silence of creeping gas
And the unrelenting barrage of mortar fire
Raining like demonic hail upon the enemy.
They knew that victory was coming.

So they walked, that's all it would take -
A stroll to be heroes.
But all the waiting, enduring, lasting out
To climb up onto the crater-filled sludge,
Mown down in thousands,
And only then did they realise:
Victory was so much further away.

For the 100th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Somme

#war #death #somme

R Dickson Jul 2016

1st July 2016

Take a moment to stop and stare,
At memorials in your town,
The named names that never came home,
Some had died at The Somme,

No shouts no shots no whistles,
No guns no bangs no shells,
No barbed wire or trenches,
And no gun powder smells,

All is very quite now,
After one hundred years,
Unlike the time the dead were named,
When families shed their tears,

No khaki uniforms no tin hats,
No bayonets to stab a heart,
No body parts no blood no gore,
No grenades to blow you apart,

Silently remembering,
Their memory lingers on,
They fought for King and country,
And died there at The Somme.

Remembering The Somme

#1916 #somme #2016

Maggie Emmett Nov 2015

The Somme Sunset

Sun swollen
reddening as it sank
that brutal ****** disc
scored by church steeples
and chimney stacks
almost lost in the drifting haze
of sulphurous yellow
and char-black smoke.

Duck boards dip
into the sodden earth
as men ***** along in conga lines
holding tight the pack of the man
in front, lest they should slip
lose quick their footing
be ****** down and smothered
by mud.

The walls of the tunnels
are packed earth
rich with blood and bone
bits and pieces of human
anatomy dangle and hang
as if posed by an artist
with a strange and cruel eye
for detail.

The scrabble for fox holes
and rough scraped ditches,
anywhere, below the line of fire.
The ting and ****-bang
of a night of action
The whistle, the dash
and the forward push
counted more in men
than metres.

© M.L.Emmett

#war #world #i #the #somme

Thenotsosecretpoet Jan 2015

Battle of the Somme July 1916

(Inspired by my great grandfather)

Capt: Albert Victor Champion RHA

Children of the Somme, men of mud and water
killed by lead and steel, for them no last supper
no last meal. Children of the Somme, consumed
by mud and water, sent in there thousands
to their slaughter.
Nerves that were shattered,breath that was shallow
felled in fields that were lifeless and fallow.
Hearts that were pounding, bodies that trembled
as in the trenches men assembled.
like an order from god they awaited there place,
to go over the top and stare death in the face.
Men of all nations men of all ages; condemned
to there death and the history books pages.

Lest we forget..................... Remember them.

#albert #champion #victor #somme

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