Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
Death comes easily. It is always there — always near, always close by waiting. In March 2020, I suffered heart failure and came close to death. I didn’t survive because of luck — although I was lucky. I lived because of the professionalism of medical staff in our local hospital’s Accident & Emergency Unit. I was discharged five days later after two operations and a defibrillator pacemaker. That wasn’t luck. I know that if I lived in another country without a National Health Service I would be dead — death would have had its way.
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I listen to the news casts each day, hear the latest covid stats — the number of new cases and the number of dead. Occasionally I see photos of crowds of people celebrating, ignoring the risks and the consequences, and the following week the spike in the stats that follows as sure as night follows day. I muse on whether people place so little value on their lives that they are willing to place themselves at such great risk. It suggests to me a mass Russian roulette.
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I avoid crowds or social events in which there will be a large gathering. I am an artist, writer, poet who enjoys my own company and isolation doesn’t weigh heavily on me. More importantly it gives me time. Time to write, time to read, time to play with pen and wash. And there is so much to see, feel, smell and breathe in. Every walk offers a richness of opportunity. I do not live in a town or a city but on the outskirts of a town in wooded countryside. On the last day of the year 2021 I think I am lucky.
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
Puca are important mythological figures in the Celtic world. The Puca is a shape shifter. Puca are capable of good; but also capable, in their sinister form, of terrible life changing harm. Jung took a great interest in Celtic Mythologies particularly with stories about figures like the Púca in Irish folk tales. Púca is the Archetypal “Trickster”.
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On rare occasions, the Púca was said to have the power of human speech. They used human words when they needed to lead a human away from harm. This is why humans were so afraid of Púcas: they could bring terrible misfortune, or they could save your life.When you met them, you weren’t ever sure which twist of fate to be ready for.
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Coyote, Loki and Puca are all Tricksters.
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And so the late President, Trickster in Chief — “All hail the Chief” — has attempted to emulate Coyote and reach the Sun and immortality and has failed. Trump has fallen as he must do! And like Coyote he must try again!
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
unable to credit foto of the open market Pontypridd.unable to credit foto of the open market Pontypridd.
Pontypridd Town is a meeting place — it is also the place which all the characters in the poem are elderly residents, the place they grew up in, had fun, worked raised families and lived long lives.
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The town is a meeting place, a meeting of three rivers and valleys where a large indoor market and open market have been established. The town is a bustling, busy, thriving, place of skullduggery and sharp deals; once a boom town, now a town that has seen hard times and looks a little down at heel. It could do with a little luck — my cheery elderly friends have seen it all — the ups and downs, a depression, a war — and came through it all with a cheerfulness that brings a smile when I think of them.
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with thanks to Rhondda Cynon Taf library archives.
Pontypridd is a place of Easter and Summer Fairs — Danter’s Fairs that plied all the valley towns. Fairs that are the remnants of the old festivals to mark the solstice and the Christian calendar — the older context lost in the newer religious puritan revival’s disdain for such activities and as a result we have lost so much. Loss again…
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My friends talked a lot about Danter’s fairs, a meeting place for the young. The Fair still comes to Pontypridd, rides that reflect the horror liked by this generation bread and buttered on online gothic terror. It’s a young persons pleasure. But it always was.
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Covid has heightened not just the deaths of the elderly, but the loss of knowledge and memories of their lives and experiences. Memories that are unrecorded. We are unable to hand them on.
I see only forgotten men Living in places With once famous names I hear only words, Of tales and deeds, Of days of women and men, Long since forgtten Long since dead.
And in these times of uncertainty, People live surrounded By purposeless decline. A landscape of waste, And those twisted lines, Of once white shone steel, Polished by the unce\asing grind Of the turning wheel, That now lie hidden by elder. And gathering the dirt brown stain Of rust and disuse, Map out the death struggle Of this dark place, And in this uncertainty people live. Writhing in its decay Its history ensnares The withering and hopeless present. But its people refuse to cry out. Anger has been replaced, By that silence of regret, That pitiless lament, Of resignation and acceptance. Some say it is our age, As if we were born in other times And others days, Or as if this turmoil, And unceasing uncertainty, Was of our own making.
It has taken one hundred years To silence and forget, To carve away with such precision. One hundred long hard years, To isolate those memories, To purge our dreams, And cut with all the accuracy Of liquid golden steel, The misery of generations, The torments of our people, Of the years of our childhood, And before. We can do nothing. We can say nothing. We are not listened to. This is the song of our people, We suffer, we suffer, We have cried too much, We have cried much too long And we have become lost. But do not stir us, For we are dark dogs,
We are shadow dogs, We sleep in motionless terror. Do not speak to our hearts Of indignities, of suffering. Do not kindle our hatred. Do not evoke words to spur, Our slumbering emotions. We sleep, we sleep.
2.
In Silence
That strange silence When did it first occur? Were there no witnesses? Did no one see its coming? Had it been something gradual? Something that had begun Without our knowing. Or with that abruptness, That quickness of the blade, That cuts and severs, And life without knowing, Without recognizing its own going, Seeps silently away.
That strange silence When did it first occur? Were our eyes turned away? Our intelligence caught By other curious happenings. Was it that? Simply A distraction of sorts. Or was it something That we secretly welcomed? And now if there are regrets It’s too late, much too late. All that has been is no longer, All that may have been, Is now silent and forgotten.
Who will remember? Or will it become, A few pages here and there, Of names and muttered words? Some faint remembrances? That strange vision Of people blackened, Standing in cobbled streets, Faces turned towards camera, Their eyes watching, Looking but seeing nothing. And we see nothing of them. Their world, our past, A fleeting glance caught On the papers gloss. And in this hour I ask – Is that all that remains? That strange silence.
3.
Of words and truth.
Like grasses bundled And withered in storm We are blown helplessly And not a word is spoken. Who sings the authentic song? Who speaks the words of truth? Who stands for me and mine? Who looks at what we see? Who hears what we hear? Who breathes the air we breathe? Who sees what is right and wrong? Who speaks for me and mine? Who sings the authentic song? Where are our heroes and poets now?
This poem was written during 1984 and was published in my first poetry collection “Uncertain Times” 2016. It is very much a poem of its time and represents the mix of defiance and despair.
In 1984 Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided to break the strength of the National Mine Workers after it took strike action to defend against mine closures. The government had foreseen in advance the possibility of a strike by the Miners and stockpiled vast quantities of coal reserves, it also mobilized the Police and Army who were involved in violent confrontations when miners tried to stop coal movements. In the end the government broke the strike, subsequently mines across Wales and the UK were closed down just as the Miners Union had predicted, and mining communities were devastated by largescale unemployment without any meaningful government support. The communities were overwhelmed by crime and drug misuse. There is little doubt that bringing coal mining to an end in the UK was done primarily to promote North Sea Gas and Oil.
The communities in the South Wales valleys survived, much changed, and after a long period of uncertainty, are thriving.
The photograph of the Naval Colliery, Penygraig, Rhondda was taken in 1970 while I was at Art School.Resistance Poetry
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
Out on the mountain wind lifted and the rain swept in from the Severn Channel — I feared I’d be caught walking peat boggy ground on the old Miskin Estate I stood watching the rain filled white grey shroud smear the dim domed lower hills and pass me by
I found myself listening out there to the wind blow soughing its sighs through the conifer woods remnants, blasted and flattened by the New Year gale that felled the woodlands on the hill tops, the frosted high slopes
and in the morning after it looked as if a war had been fought while we slept off the New Year party in the quiet of the hills lee. after walking through the forests desolation I was reminded of the bleakest Paul Nash painting, those shattered Ypres trees and now fifteen years later the trees lie still jumbled and broken the walls of the estate built to enclose common land have fallen too and are now used in places to make paths where the land is wet and poached by cattle hooves.
But although these long dry stone walls have tumbled we have different kinds of walls to enclose us today, the relentless addictive industrialised consumerism that inflicts its message from the first day of a child’s birth you need, you want and you will never get enough.
Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet. Rob runs “Voices on the Bridge” a poetry initiative in Wales. Walks hills and mountains daily with a sheep dog at his side.
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