Voices on the Bridge @ClwbyBont Pontypridd Thursday 19th October

Posted on by celfypridd

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Starts 7.45 pm (doors open 7.30pm)

A glorious night for a rich spread of Poetry, Spoken Word Song and Shadow Puppetry all the way from California!

Rachel Carney is a creative writing tutor and PhD student based in Cardiff. Her poems, reviews and articles have been published in numerous magazines including Poetry Wales, Anthropocene, and Acumen. She won the Pre-Raphaelite Society Poetry Competition and was voted runner up in the Bangor Poetry Competition in 2021. Two of her poems have been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. Her debut collection Octopus Mind is published by Seren Books.

Reading and performing with Rachel will be – Carol Burns, Sion Tomos Owen, TwistedHeart Puppetwork, Ben Wildsmith, Nick McGaughey, Pete Akinwunmi, Johnny Giles & Rob Cullen.

Voices on the Bridge is hosted by Clwb Y Bont and is a free event!

VoicesontheBridge is organised by Rob Cullen.

Voices on the Bridge@ClwbyBont Pontypridd

So come in from the gloom of Autumn nights for a real spread of Poetry, Spoken Word Song and Shadow Puppetry all the way from California!

Reading and performing will be Rachel Carney, Carol Burns, Sion Tomos Owen, TwistedHeart Puppetwork, Ben Wildsmith, Nick McGaughey, Pete Akinwunmi, Johnny Giles & Rob Cullen.

VoicesontheBridge is hosted by Clwb Y Bont and is a free event!

VoicesontheBridge is organised by Rob Cullen.

VoicesontheBridge – Wednesday, 30th November 2022 @Storyville Books, 8 Mill Street, Pontypridd @cafequarter

Posted on by celfypridd

Nicholas McGaughey will be reading his poetry….

Nicholas lives in Pontypridd. He has new work in Bad Lilies/Stand/Lucent Dreaming/The Friday Poem and Spelt Magazine.

Nicholas played Brandon Monk in Pobl y Cwm for 10 years and has had his poetry widely published including most recently in the hit anthology A470.

Writers also reading are Sophie Buchaillard, Abeer Ameer @abeer_ameer77, Susie Wild, Ben Wildsmith, Stephanie McNicholas, Sion Tomos Owen & Rob Cullen.

VoicesontheBridge is hosted by Jeff Baxter @StoryvilleBooks

VoicesontheBridge is organised by Rob Cullen.

All are welcome.

Bridges not walls.

BridgesofPonty

Strangers Light.

Posted on by celfypridd

In these times will we light the stranger’s candle?

It’s something that I’ve done

for as long as I’ve had a family.

Lighting a candle in a window

on Christmas Eve

for any stranger walking

home to their own family.

Or maybe a child of my own

making their own journey

in their own lives, in their own way.

–

©robcullen261225

Originally written in 2010.

Reflections on Pipestone Creek Dinosaur Bone bed.

Posted on by celfypridd

foto©robcullen2025

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I’ve wondered whether on some high mountain somewhere,

There lies millions of bones and the billions of remains

Of animals and beings not selected by Noah for his Ark.

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The endings of lives, of those who were not chosen, not selected.

Desperately climbing to the highest mountains and headlands,

In their hopeless attempt to avoid the following encroaching waters.

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How many bone graveyards must there be? Forgotten death yards.

When only so few were chosen two by two, one male, one female.

And so many who hadn’t heard the news of the great flooding.

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Imagine the scene at the ramp and Noah’s selection – that word again selection.

And of those being told that two of your kind have been chosen but not you.

Of being told there’s no more room; there’s no more space for you and yours.

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Imagine how difficult it was to tell a T-Rex and the dinosaurs they weren’t wanted.

Blue whales, Sperm whales, Dolphins and the Sharks in amusement watched on.

Fleas bit someone’s knees, ants bit into floating wood, Midges did what they do.

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But what was it like on that mountain height? – It wouldn’t have been silent for sure.

Standing there with so many others, left and discarded, angry and disconsolate,

Watching the inevitable rise of engulfing waters slowly seeping, waters creeping.

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Even the birds that could fly and were left behind would eventually fall,

Flying endlessly with nowhere to go in a world of salt water seas.

Thank God there were fish. Thank God for his wisdom that there were fish.

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Oh to be a fish! Oh to be a fish in times like these and to swim in the depths,

Far below the waves and not have to see these times and the murder of children,

Not have to see the genocide of a people, of the murder of so many Gaza children.

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Twenty-five thousand murdered children of Gaza where will their bones lie?

Eighty thousand men, women and children murdered before the eyes of the world.

What will be the name of the bone yard – the graveyard of the People of Gaza?

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©robcullen20525