There are many types of walking

people walk fast to where they want to go

others walk fast away from something

a past or someone only they know

…

I walk in my own time taking it all in

taking in what I can see, taking in

what I can hear, the soundscapes

surrounding me, submerging me

…

In my path I find objects thrown away

it’s only a small thing discarded

it’s journey is long and unseen

it’s journey is long the harm deep

…

©robcullen23082021Resistance Poetry

Verse as Commentary

…

I got caught by some briar

as I walked out through the thick brush

of a place I’d thought about

through the long hours of night

…

Maybe it was in my dreams

the thought was still there

in the morning when I woke

in the darkness just after three

…

I bleed easily brushing crimson

smears away I thought it might be

revenge in some small way

for the creatures and plants

…

I’ve killed over so many years

I like to imagine my growing

is doing some good nurturing the soil

plants and pollinators in the best way I can

…

But I understand there’s a loss involved

wherever I stand wherever I lay my hand

…

©robcullen22082021

Past has meaning

…

My great grandmother marked an X

on her marriage certificate

for her name

my grandfather left school

aged nine to work in the pit.

My father left school

twelve years old

my mother did the same.

Think about that

what it meant

what it means now.

…

She called herself

a local historian

described my family

as no better than terrorists

“After all it’s

what they were.”

…

Churchill called them

the two most dangerous men

in Great Britain

at a time of widespread poverty

fighting for a fair wage

when mothers starved

and infant mortality

an epidemic

…

She gave herself

a grand title

some might say

totally unearned

reducing the miners

fight for a living wage

to something dishonorable

from her understanding

limited as it must have been

to words on a page

…

A person responsible

for deaths

from starvation

of millions

is a terrorist

a mass murderer

ask the people of Bengal

I don’t need a book

to decide about that.

…

Our peoples history

isn’t taught to our children

history is past

they’re taught the history of class

a view from where the rulers stand

where our people are invisible

…

Past has meaning

the past hasn’t gone away.

…

©robcullen11082021

A big thank you to people who follow my posts and an update. Since a serious health problem caused me to be shielded and a prolonged lockdown in March 2020 I’ve been writing my second novel which is two thirds complete.

Over the past month I’ve been re-editing my first novel – a crime novel of the Noir type which I’ve finished this week and decided now to go all out for an agent. In the past two publishers have told me its a film and I need an agent – nice letters but ending with the line we won’t be publishing. Heart wrenching! So I may be a bit silent in terms of poetry and short story publications. But you only have one life as the saying goes so live it to the full…

So here we go good people and tally ho!

Rob Cullen 13/082021.

Light Blue

…

It’s the colour of forget me nots,

a beautiful long light blue shawl,

used now as a tablecloth,

a way of remembering

those days I suppose.

…

It hangs on the wash line,

stained by a spill of red wine,

remains of the house party,

celebrating your birth

and the four years since your return,

…

memories of Addis — more distant,

maybe not — somethings still vivid.

I regret the spill, despoiling the blue,

the stubbornness of the stain

lingering still, hanging on still.

…

An evocation of the way,

life turns unexpectedly.

The accident of your creation,

the battle of your birth,

the fight for your life

and the way you grew.

…

And now look at you,

there are no regrets of any kind.

…

©robcullen03082021

…

In tribute to my daughter Beth Cullen and her work with people over this Earth

.Resistance Poetry

…

Verse as Commentary

What does back to normal mean?
There’s been no change
it’s still the same
everything’s the same
nothings changed

Getting back to normal
is a denial
about what’s happened

What’s happened
didn’t happen
nothings happened.

There’s nothing to learn
nothings happened
it’s still the same
it’s the way it’s always been.

It’s always your choice what you believe
keep a hold of that
when you’re told to do
what others want you to do.

©robcullen100821

A dark grey blanket of course rough wool following you
It had followed you from the camps on your repatriation

You’d broken out somehow after you’d thirsted and starved enough
making your way to the American lines you laughed about that

Losing your way you said you ended up in the Russian lines instead
You were like skin and bone when you wound your way home at last

The grey blanket covered our beds in those winters of shivering cold
Maybe it’s a good luck charm so you kept something you’d never let go

The blanket’s still following, I can see it hanging on the wash line now
Draped over the bright green plastic wire drying on a hot summers day

Unfurling with each gasp of a warm light wind its heavy wool cloth
Lifting above the bright red Montbretia flowers another legacy of love

Taken with sadness from your mother’s garden at Netherfield Farm
A memento of another kind, another place, we hold such things dearly.

©robcullen06082021

Before the Moon Rises on Lughnasa

…

There is not enough time to say
What we have to say, need to say

There is not enough time to hold
A kiss, hands held firm, caressed

There’s not enough time to confirm
our love, to cherish our life together

To cherish one another
For Lughnasa is not far away.

…

©robcullen19072021

• Lughnasadh or Lughnasa is a Gaelic festival marking the beginning of the harvest season. Historically, it was widely observed throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. Traditionally it is held on 1 August, or about halfway between the summer solstice and autumn equinox.

Our shadows fall

…

In the coal fields of Pennsylvania

On the cold streets of Penrhiwceiber*

Our shadows fall in the same way.

…

In the hot winds of Matahara*

In the wild fire hell of California

Peoples eyes search endlessly for rain.

…

In the flooded rice fields of Dhaka

In the flood destroyed homes of Westphalia

People wonder is this the new future.

…

In the ice fields of Antarctica ice sheets break away

Seas are rising, the world’s weather is astray

But we choose our way, we choose our future.

…

Our shadows fall in the same way.

…

©robcullen19072021.

Footnote:

Penrhiwceiber* a small former mining village in the Rhondda, South Wales.

Matahara* a a small township on the road from Addis Ababa, Ethiopa to Djibouti