Abandoned Village Poem by Tom Billsborough
Abandoned Village
Below me, grey waves break,
As brittle slates scooped up
From cavernous seas
And I the village doomed to wait
Alone for company.
My dream's low steeple stands
Empty as abandoned faith,
My bells forever silent.
My brickwork crumbling like a skin disease,
My roofs exposing battens, beams.
My gardens overgrown with brambles, weeds.
My school of learning now a tenement
For rats and spiders and invasive gulls,
Its playground void of laughter and wild games.
The old slate quarry, now a monument
To the onset of dementia,
Its flooded tunnels, its rusted cogs and rails
Its broken driving belts bear testament
To the exhaustion of ideas, ideals.
I am that skeleton stretched out,
Exposed to dry, being
Of nondescript antiquity.
Visitors may come but they are few
Who briefly glance at plaques of history
And shake their heads as if in sorrow,
Reminded of their own tomorrow,
Before they picnic by the slated walls.
I am that skeleton stretched out, Exposed to dry, being Of nondescript antiquity. Visitors may come but they are few Who briefly glance at plaques of history And shake their heads as if in sorrow, Reminded of their own tomorrow, Before they picnic by the slated walls. - - - - - - - - - - A poignant write- - -The picture of abandoned village and slate quarry so vivid.- - - The poem so nicely uses this metaphor to describe the old age '
Yes, I have my recent bereavement in mind and a memory of a Slate Quarry village. Both personal and general loss. Thanks for your comment, Bharati
Beautifully penned Tom. It is heartbreaking to see what once was injected with so much life for those that worked so hard to make things work, and all their dreams and ambitions only to be abandoned and reduced to ruins.10
Oddly enough some of the houses did not look too ravaged. But, in a way, that emphasised the waste and desolation. Quarrying and mining villages are particularly vulnerable but the one nearest to me (not the one I describe here) was abandoned in the 1930s due to the collapse of the Cotton Industry, due to cheap imports) . They made bobbins. Only the foundations of ten houses remain and the ruins of the Water Mill which provided my power. It is in a very picturesque valley of the River Brock and must have seemed like heaven at the time. My mother and uncles knew the people as it was on their father's estate.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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5/19/2024 8:50:02 PM # 1.0.0.1119
So sad to think trhat this is true Tom, I remember reading something of a loss town for the war, the people had to move out to allow the soliders to train and after the war the people were ment to return to their homes, but instead the MOD still use it to this day for trainning. Annette.
I think there was one in Dorset like that. Often new Reservoirs mean the loss of homes too. They are very sad occasions as the people have lost their roots forever. Less serious, but also sad, was the loss of the Cavern Club in Liverpool. It could have been a permanent museum and a fitting tribute to a great bunch of lads, the Beatles and Gerry etc and that gal Cilla too.