Poetry

The Black Box.

 

It’s been the first night

I’ve slept right through

In a month or more

I woke thinking

Of you and that black box

You used to keep

under your bed

and those messages

from the past it contained.

A few words written

On brown parcel paper

With the correct postage

Sent from Germany

In nineteen forty five

You wrote to your love

Breaking out tonight

Heading for American lines

But you ended up

With the Russians instead

And we laughed at that

So typical of our dad.

But there was that faded

Old telegram too

So fragile now

From where you’d

Handled it so often

Telling you your brother

Had died that morning.

He’d fought in the war

Just like you

And came home

To the  austerity

Of a land on its knees

Not free from desease

And the virulency of TB

That defied the hope

Of that miracle

Drug penicillin.

People have forgotten

The fear contagion

Of disease could bring

My poor uncle

Visited his old home

And his family

In Ireland for that last time

Not knowing

That he carried

A death sentence

And passed the disease

to his younger brother

And to his own daughter

Then when it came

To having tests in school

Before inoculation

It was found that

I was immune

And I must have been

exposed to it too.

But luck showed its hand

And stood on my

Right shoulder.

As children we’d run

around the street

singing that old jingle

Who won the war

in nineteen forty four.

And my father

Would say quietly

You shouldn’t believe

In such lies

And that constant

Bragging of the greatness

Of the British Empire.

We fought in a war

But paid for it dearly

War is never something

To be bragged over.

 

Rob Cullen 18/05 2016.

On lies and lies.

A lie

Told

Never

To be withheld

A lie

So devastating

Lives changed

In ways

No person

Could anticipate

Expect

Or rationalise.

 

He prayed

To god

That one

His one

But over

Many years

Never

Receiving

An answer

He presumed

He was Jesus.

On the cross

Jesus

Cried aloud

“My God – Father

 My God – Father

Why hast you

Forsaken me?”

And so war

Is waged

In the name

Of a father

Who remains

Silent

Impassive even

And the people ask

Father

Why allow

Such cruelty

If we are

True believers?

And the reply?

Silence.

Listen

To the “wise” men

Insist

God

Is on our side

Ordering

Young men

To destroy

In the name

Of the righteous.

Pitifully

It’s the same

On the other sides

“Wise” men

Order the young

To kill

In the name

Of a silent

God

The same god

Our father.

The old

Talk

To the young

Father

Son

Holy ghost

Silence

A Buddhist

Priest spoke to me

About standing

In Auschwitz

Overcome

By the reality

Of Man’s ability

To justify.

It’s juxtaposition

A belief

In irrationality

To justify

Inhumanity

Or is this

The fantasy

That we are somehow

Rationale beings?

 

As a species

Our father

Our God

Remains

Silent

Forever

We look

We search

For signs.

Silence

We look

We search

For signs

Silence

And still

You ask

Why does

Our Father

Ein Tad

Yahweh

God

Let such

Bad things

Happen?

Silence.

We look

For signs

We are rationale

There must be

Signs.

 

So now

The wise men

Do not mention

Our father

Our God

They speak

Of the rightness

Of the need

To assist

To help

To prevent

But not God.

War is

A necessity

To protect us

From the threat

God

Silence

Priests

The “wise”

Silent.

They walk

In their processions

To celebrate

The lives taken

The lives lost

And the slaughter

But the devastation

Of lives

Silence.

The loss

Of Love

The grieving

Of a life

Through

A life

Silence.

And so

The prayers

Are mouthed

The words

Of the hymnal

Sung aloud

And

Father

Our father

Is silent

Its rationale

To believe

In the irrational

The Emperor

Has no clothes.

Irrational

It does not

Apply.

You must believe

In the silence

of the invisible

Of the Father

Who cares

But

Doesn’t care

It’s irrational

To be rationale

Pray

Silence

Are we all

Gods?

Is God dead?

Silence.

 

Rob Cullen

 

This land that surrounds

This land that has nurtured us

For so long

This land on which we stand

This land has no voice

This land is silent

This land is silent

This land has stood

Witness for so long, so long.

But if we took time

To listen to this land

We would hear its voice

We would hear it in the wind

And the lowing of the trees

We would hear its voice

In the grasses sigh

We would hear the land

In the rush of the rivers

And trickling of streams

This land in its silence sighs

Let me rest

Let me breathe

Open your eyes and see

Let me rest

Let me breathe

Let me renew

Let me rest

Leave me to green

Leave me to grow

This land cannot hide

This land cannot run

This land cannot pretend

To be somewhere else

It cannot disguise its pain

And what of the guardians

What of the people of this land

Are their eyes blind-folded

So tight that they cannot see

Or perhaps they face the other way

Distracted and deafened

So that they no longer

Hear the cry of the land

Let me breathe

Let me rest

Let me renew.

 

Rob Cullen

Taking time

It’s the hardest

Thing to do

Just sitting

Listening

In that way

We used to

As the candles

Licked and flicked

And I’d watch

Your eyes

And the gleam

Of your smile

And that feeling

When I made you

Forget and laugh

And we’d watch

The waves.

 

Rob Cullen

Untitled.

It was painful that experience

Of first love and the abruptness

Of that unexpected separation

Rejection how else was I supposed

To understand your disappearance.

You believed in direct action.

And I had walked away from Christ

But not the teaching of love

Supporting violence was not my cause.

It was the first and last time we argued

And then you were gone

And love. My love was left

Fluttering in the darkness.

I’d thought it was better to work

From within. A compromise

You’d said. I wanted no labels

Attached to me. But no matter

What I said or did to avoid this

Providing the machine with an excuse

To dismiss. Devoid of reason

They went ahead in any case.

For forty years I’d worked

To help and speak  for those

Appointed and anointed as the cause

Of societies shame and failings.

And at a time when I was brought

to my knees and my belief

and hope suddenly made to falter

I sought you out –  that place

that time when it felt like

there was a degree of certainty

to see what you had done

with your life and whether you’d found

an answer or even happiness

The first search brought up

Your face from a photograph

In your obituary I recognised

had been taken at that time.

In that place that house

Where we had lived together

And you were gone again.