Without Arts – we live in darkness!
Passing clouds
Absence
Present absent lost.
…
He was here there
but parts were absent
lost on an Italian beach
amid 90 per cent casualties
…
Locked in a camp
with one water faucet
and 7000 thirsty starving men
waiting for red cross parcels.
…
He never wore
his campaign medals
or marched
up and down.
Saluting cenotaphs
as old soldiers do
at the parades
each year in town.
….
We lived
with photographs
sealed in a black box
locked under his bed
…
Photographs taken
of pre-war days
Serpentine deck chairs
of Regents park
Hyde Park
Speakers Corner
on Sundays
and those friends.
…
His memories
all gone
now then
and now he’s gone too.
…
Lost in translation
the silence
of survivors
shame and guilt.
…
And the inability
to talk
to describe
to anyone
Who’s never been
there, out there,
who can understand
without telling.
…
Without explaining
the emotion
the fear
and the elation.
…
Then the shame
and we his children
deal with
his silence.
sudden tempers
avoidance
of conflict and
alone in his garden.
…
Clinging
to silence
absence
disconnection.
…
Of being there
but not here
except to share a past
that came before.
…
He returned
but he was not
the same man
they said.
…
I knew only
this man
that man
not the one before.
…
Sometimes it was like
dancing with a ghost,
the unsaid words
the brief glimpses.
…
Remembering Anzio & the ones who went before.
Part of the long poem “Absence” previously published in Rob Cullen’s Poetry & Photography Collection – Uncertain Times. 2016 & republished 2023.
Love Daffodils
Steel works excerpt “Spitting Black”.
credit unidentified photographer
…
A week later I was stood on the Larry cart
of that massive steel hulk of coke oven A
waiting watching the deck as the smoke
gasses fumes rose from the rows of oven lids
men dim ghosts carrying lances wearing hoods
walked through the blue green tinged haze
walked the cobbled top in wooden clogs
but it was the running men drew my attention
not the screams, not the smell of his searing skin.
@Rob Cullen 1976.
credit unknown photographer.
….
In 1973 I left Cardiff Art School and worked across the road in British Steels East Moors Steelworks raising money to travel to the USA. I worked in Quality Control which meant I moved around the steel plant, engaged in sampling various products mostly on the coal and coking side. I witnessed at first hand the brutality of heavy industry as experienced by the workers & what I witnessed in 1973 and again in 1974 for a short period has informed my writing and politics ever since. This poem is about helping a sixteen year old illiterate boy, a school leaver to get a job, to help him fill in an application form. The poem is about witnessing, a week later this boys involvement in a seriousn industrial accident in which he was badly burnt. I still think of him.
@robcullen220324.
Lament for the Girl of the Morning Sea.
…
A premonition of merciful peace has emerged
In the morning of this day.
And as if in agreement
Your hand opens to the waves.
In a movement of gratitude,
A moment of quiet acceptance.
I have heard you sing
To the waves crests,
Rise, rise from your depths
Rid me of all pain
I am alone wash over me.
…
In this bright early hour
You are at once transformed.
Peace adorns you,
Rests on your face.
I have seen you whisper
To the open sky
Touch me, cleanse me
Rid me of all fear.
I am alone wash over me.
…
Your hair hangs tangled
Stiffly on your eyes,
Green-water droplets
Trickle to your lips.
Your fingers grasp
The water’s edge.
The shoreline pierces you,
Welcomes you, calls to you.
I am alone wash over me.
…
And you lying unseen
A curved silken spine
Broken by spite
The savagery of indifference
And the brutality
Of unmourned death
Move without moving.
Knowing nothing, knowing nothing
In your quiet sadness.
I am alone wash over me.
…
I have heard you sing
To the waves crests’
Rise from your depths
Rise from your submerged stillness.
I have heard you sing
To the open sky,
Touch me, cleanse me,
Rid me of all pain,
Rid me of all fear.
I am alone wash over me.
….
Your mother cries for you in her silence
And mourns for another in her isolation.
I am alone wash over me.
©robcullen2016
Fall into Grace.
“Uncertain Times” Poetry & Photography by Rob Cullen.
“Uncertain Times” was first published in 2016 with an unhappy beginning with the now defunct Octavio Press. In 2023 Rob Cullen decided to re-publish under his own title Celyn Books.
What people have said about “Uncertain Times”.
“Dark, insighful and well-crafted” – Carol White. Film Maker.
“This is an impressive first collection …. The poems have an easy strength and a directness that is strangely enchanting. Cullen most reminds me of Pablo Neruda not in style but sensibility. An apparent simplicity that is deceptively complex. There’s a lot going on here; love, loss, joy, work, family, trauma and the healing effects of nature. More like a selected poems than a debut, this is a rich, full and adroitly perceptive poetry that shows Cullen to be a quiet, strong and remarkable voice.” Topher Mills, Poet.
“Your new “Uncertain Times” book is one of the best poetry books I have read – and read again – in a long time.
“The range of poet Rob Cullen’s life’s experiences, including social worker anprobation officer, and his years spent in America contribute to a wide knowledge, real depth, and such open honesty to his poetry. His poems are ones without the safe bandages of literary refinements. He always speaks from the heart. It is a poetic voice offering, to take a phrase from a question he asks in his poem words and truth, ‘authentic songs’. He tackles many subjects in Uncertain Times/A Collection of Poetry and Photographs, each one powered by focus observation, aptly chosen words, and a voice that is often for those without a voice, the marginalised, the sufferers of a social and political system that is unfair, unequal and cruel. To quote from his poem An SOS from the Frontier, Cullen has ‘worked among the desolation, survivors of lives that might have flowered”. Uncertain Times so deserved a wide readership, for its originality, for its sheer bravery in exploring issues that a lot of poetry does not tackle, and for its healing moments in nature. This poet, though, also offers impressive poems about grief and deep love. The photographs are a wonderful bonus, each one encouraging the reader to stop and think about them, to see depths in them too.” Peter Thabit Jones Welsh poet, dramatist and publisher Author (with Aeronwy Thomas) of the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village, New York.
“Uncertain Times” is available at @StoryvilleBook & Amazon now.
More Bridges Less Walls.
“Uncertain Times” Poetry & Photography by Rob Cullen.
“Uncertain Times” was first published in 2016 with an unhappy beginning with the now defunct Octavio Press. In 2023 Rob Cullen decided to re-publish under his own title Celyn Books.
What people have said about “Uncertain Times”.
“Dark, insighful and well-crafted” – Carol White. Film Maker.
“This is an impressive first collection …. The poems have an easy strength and a directness that is strangely enchanting. Cullen most reminds me of Pablo Neruda not in style but sensibility. An apparent simplicity that is deceptively complex. There’s a lot going on here; love, loss, joy, work, family, trauma and the healing effects of nature. More like a selected poems than a debut, this is a rich, full and adroitly perceptive poetry that shows Cullen to be a quiet, strong and remarkable voice.” Topher Mills, Poet.
“Your new “Uncertain Times” book is one of the best poetry books I have read – and read again – in a long time.
“The range of poet Rob Cullen’s life’s experiences, including social worker, probation officer, and his years spent in America contribute to a wide knowledge, real depth, and such open honesty to his poetry. His poems are ones without the safe bandages of literary refinements. He always speaks from the heart. It is a poetic voice offering, to take a phrase from a question he asks in his poem words and truth, ‘authentic songs’. He tackles many subjects in Uncertain Times/A Collection of Poetry and Photographs, each one powered by focus observation, aptly chosen words, and a voice that is often for those without a voice, the marginalised, the sufferers of a social and political system that is unfair, unequal and cruel. To quote from his poem An SOS from the Frontier, Cullen has ‘worked among the desolation, survivors of lives that might have flowered”. Uncertain Times so deserved a wide readership, for its originality, for its sheer bravery in exploring issues that a lot of poetry does not tackle, and for its healing moments in nature. This poet, though, also offers impressive poems about grief and deep love. The photographs are a wonderful bonus, each one encouraging the reader to stop and think about them, to see depths in them too.”
Peter Thabit Jones Welsh poet, dramatist and publisher Author (with Aeronwy Thomas) of the Dylan Thomas Walking Tour of Greenwich Village, New York.
“Uncertain Times” is available at @StoryvilleBook & Amazon now.
More Bridges Less Walls.
Celfypridd 