This is a love poem for you

foto©cullenarchive24082021

….

this is a love poem for you

Love is a story told

in the tight fold of families

told in the cwtch

when you hold

a child through growing

love is a beacons

starlight shining through darkness

a closeness no oppressor

can out do or overcome

love is its own brightness

when you hold

when you cwtch* a child

this is a love poem for you

©robcullen24082021

Cwtch* is a Welsh word with no English language equivalent. It is the place in the crook of the arm where a child is held from infancy onward…young babies and infants are held by their mothers using a woolen shawl wrapped in the “Welsh way” which allows both arms to be free. The child is held next to the mothers heart and listens to the mothers voice and much else beside. The cwtch is a place of reassurance and comfort — and love.

©robcullen24082021

Love is at the heart of radicalism. Love is at the heart of Resistance.

©robcullen230921

Lockdown Fragments

fotocredit©fionacullen21042020

On 9th March 2020, I suffered heart failure. With a heart rate of 257, I was rushed by ambulance to the Accident and Emergency of the local hospital which luckily for me had not been closed by the machinations of the Health Board bureaucracy.

My life was saved. Within four days I had two heart operations and a pacemaker defibrillator installed in a kind of skin flap on my chest linked by wires to my heart. Following the operations on the fifth day following admission I was discharged to home and six months of shielding to look forward to. Followed by a lockdown, a short period of what people called “normality”, followed by another lockdown and before we knew it we were into 2021. The time we found ourselves in could definitely not be described as “normality”.

fotocredit©fionacullen21042020

In the isolation framed by shielding and lockdown I wrote.

I completed poetry which has been well received and prolifically published in the US. I re-edited my first novel and made good headway on my second.

I gardened as best I could…I cooked meals. And walked the hills around my home accompanied with my faithful sheepdog Meg. But most days I spent alone with my wife returning from her teaching in the evening.

I also wrote in Journals and notebooks. The following fragments are excerpts taken from my Journals. 

It also contains observations, thoughts and early workings and excerpts of poems. These are just a few beginnings.

We live on the steep side of a hill

when winds blow in from the North

the days and nights are always cold

this winter and spring

the winds have turned

a cold wind from the North East

not blowing from the Southwest

as they normally do

I saw one Swift caught

by a sudden winds gust

it was my first

of the year.

A gale still blows on a spring day

the crop covers bedraggled

blown over the kitchen garden

scattered wherever their taken

looking to the house

the smoke from the new lit fire

swirls in the fast wind of these days

white smoke from Ash kindle

new gathered not yet dry

still burns with a bright flame

as Ash will do

a spring day trees fully leaved

open to damage

and these silent “lock down” days continue

No jet trails cross skies

in this year of contagion

TV news cast politicians headshots

empty phrases assumed lies

like north westerly winds

there’s no let up or restraints.

One book

a replacement

for the lost original

I know not where

last seen it sorting through

shelves of books of lives

not seen in an age

another mystery unsolved..

©robcullen05102021

fotocredit©fionacullen21042020

A black and white foto nothing less nothing more

foto©robcullen23082021

Little Granny

Trying to find you hasn’t been easy at all

there are none of your words recorded

married at fourteen your journey from Milford

carrying your first child in the places

you lived where he dug the coal

There are none of your words recorded

telling your story of the journey you made

you were my mothers “little granny”

I have stories but now you’re gone

a black and white foto of you standing in the doorway

….

Census records paper milestones telling a story

his occupation your age the language spoken

both of you Welsh a marriage certificate

you signed with an x the service in English

the children you brought into this world

There’s no headstone to tell the barest detail

your absence your lack of even a trace of a burial

of your eventual green grass paupers resting place

just a silence as if you’d never existed, never been born

a cracked black and white foto nothing less nothing more

©robcullen23082021

Resistance Poetry

Verse as Commentary

WRITTEN BY

Rob Cullen

Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet living halfway up a mountain in Wales walks daily with a sheep dog at his side. http://www.celfypridd.co.uk

Trees Are Watching Us

foto©robcullen13052021

Learning perspective
can be a hard thing
it doesn’t exist in reality

just a formula taught to see
one of many ways of seeing
another dry construct
ironing out invalidating
other understandings

Dense woodland surrounding
young trees planted
on shale waste

some days walking through
it feels to me
as if I’m submerged
in a sea of constant green movement

foto©robcullen13052021

Trees resist being seen
with perspective
an endless formula

of straightened lines
I remember being taught
to see the world in that way
ironing out invalidating
so many other ways of seeing
others understandings

I like to stand and listen
eyes closed for long periods
the unending sounds
of woodland around me
a world of so many lines
the wind lifts heavy rainfalls
spindle thin ash tops clash
lean in on one another

Trees are watching us

Photo by Author Rob Cullen

©robcullen13052021

a million pieces of shattered glass

foto©robcullen01072020

Have you ever heard

a million pieces of shattered glass

a dull mass move through the air

and in front of you its all you can see

and that last sound you hear

When people talk about PTSD

when I get those flashbacks

that’s what I see — no sound

just everything moving very slow

and suddenly it stops still just still

A dull noise starts movement begins

people moving but like in a very fast way

sound rushes in and feels physical feels

it’s really frightening it feels like my brains

exploding that’s what happens to me now and then

Still…

©robcullen23082021

Dwr

At the old house at Netherfield

foto©robcullen23062021

Gulls passing with the clouds

the scimitar shape of crows diving

thunderheads are building

above the mountains highpoints

a storm perhaps again today

Looking out at the forest

the Oakwood’s leaves are still

the storm is not close

Welsh for Oak – Dwr

always reminds me of thunder

There are photographs of me reading

one at the old house at Netherfield

on a bench under the Maple tree

I’m facing sunset casting the last light

along the West coast of Scotland

©robcullen23082021

Written by

Rob Cullen

Rob Cullen artist, writer, poet living halfway up a mountain in Wales walks daily with a sheep dog at his side. http://www.celfypridd.co.uk

A black and white foto nothing less nothing more

foto©robcullen23082021

“Little Granny”

Trying to find you hasn’t been easy at all

there are none of your words recorded

married at fourteen your journey from Milford

carrying your first child to the places

you lived where he dug the coal

There are none of your words recorded

telling your story of the journey you made

you were my mothers “little granny”

I have stories but now you’re gone

a black and white foto of you standing in the doorway

….

Census records paper milestones telling a story

his occupation your age the language spoken

both of you Welsh a marriage certificate

you signed with an x the service in English

the children you brought into this world

There’s no headstone to tell the barest detail

your absence your lack of even a trace of a burial

of your eventual green grass paupers resting place

just a silence as if you’d never existed, never been born

a cracked black and white foto nothing less nothing more

©robcullen23082021

When a man walks out on a hill

foto©robcullen15012015

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

Harvest at Lughnasa

foto©robcullen22082021

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