Friendship and love

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You looked out toward the sea

A cool September evening

We had planned coming

We watched an empty sea

 

The news dulled our hopes

It was a cool darkening  evening

We sat outside silently watching

Waves riding the beaches slopes.

 

Hopes shattered lives challenged

And we hold each other silently

Standing close together quietly

Our love cannot be expunged.

That Generation of men

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That generation of men

 

How long did I work with abused people

Thirty nine years maybe forty

But always that resistance and absolute denial

By that generation of men

 

The so called decision makers

Thirty eight years trying

To get through a wall

Of concrete doors

Of silence, of ridicule,

It seems ridiculous to me now

The ends they’d go to

To avoid listening

I’d get phone calls

From experts in the States

My boss shut his door

Stopped answering his phone

The message on his door

I’m out in a meeting

Outside my window

I could see his car

That generation of men

 

Men who thought abused children

Asked for it in some way

Or that the abusers were right

It didn’t do the child serious harm

After all they’re still alive,

They’re still breathing

What’re they complaining about

Forty years of listening

Forty years of fighting

That generation of men

 

And now I worry

Nothings really changed

Another generation of men

Are not talking about what they really think

Two children are murdered each week

One woman murdered a fortnight

The majority by men’s doing

These are things men need to sort out

Meanwhile men are silent

Sitting on their hands

Talking about sport

As if it’s the be-all of this life

This generation of men.

 

RAC

“Uncertain Times” Book launch

 

My first collection of poetry “Uncertain Times”. A book launch at Octavo in West Bute Street, Cardiff on Friday 23rd September 2016 at 7pm. Mike Jenkins Red Poets, Suzanne Ioppa poet and Rhys Milsom poet will also be reading. Cara Cullen and Fiona Cullen will be singing and playing. Come along and enjoy! There’ll be an Open Mic.

White Sheets

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Each sheet rises in sequence to reveal the pathway.

To reveal you. Standing there.

You. Watching me.

In silence.

And the sheets hide you again as they fall

to hang without movement.

And then begin to unfurl and rise

as yet another gust pushes the white cotton out

and you are once again exposed.

You are standing watching me with that serious look.

Your eyes expressionless.

Studying me. And once more the whiteness

falls to cover where you are standing.

There is no movement now.

Just the brilliant whiteness falling on you like a curtain.

 

(Excerpt form the long poem “White Sheets”)

RAC.

White sheets

DSC_0989.JPGAnd now rain drops.

The sound of a steady pita-pat.

The sound increasing

Rain falling

Suddenly a crescendo

White sheets spattered

Grey spots

On white sheets

Nearly dry white sheets

Water spatters

Water stained

White sheets

Turning grey

Hanging limp now

Hanging to the ground

And you are gone

Awake now in the darkness

Uncertain of the time

Lying listening

To the rain

Rain hitting against

The bedroom window.

 

(Excerpt “White sheets”)

 

 

Below the bridge

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Steel sprung spans divide

Bridges where the homeless

And the addicts take refuge

When the weather is too hard

This place this wide span

Splinters of light divides

Day from wrapped silent people

And unheard wishes

Hope fears past lives

Rise in night time

While the river below roars

The passing of years

There is no knowing

No fortune telling

A soul is in pain

Howls

Motherless

Brotherless

Sisterless

Fatherless

Silent now

There is a time

For healing.