A Sense of duty (excerpt)
I listen to the voices of those
talking quietly of their day
of their worries,
and sharing the joy
of milestones missed
the sadness of memories
and the missing of you.
I watch men who stand
leaning, crying in a grief
that has no sense of ending
of the keening, of the longing
to hear your voice
before the sound
of it is forgotten
and that dread of forgetting.
There is a kind of peace here.
The cruelty of lies (excerpt)
The cruelty of lies.
Why do they say it?
I really wish they didn’t.
We must meet and do this again
is how the saying goes
and they say it.
And then I never see them again.
Rob Cullen
Crow Art (excerpt)
It is an un-contestable truth
that crows are the greatest artists
of this whole wide world
as they create art from nothing.
White Sheets
White sheets.
Hanging from the wash line.
Is this a wash day?
A wash day like it used to be in the village.
With every house on a Tuesday morning
hanging the washing on line after line
in the back gardens.
The wind catches the sheets.
And as they billow like sails
they make that cracking noise
as the cotton snaps to its full length.
White sheets blowing in the wind.
Rising and falling as they are caught and buffeted.
The wind drops and the white sheets
slowly drift back to hang limply.
The wind rises again and the sheets
begin to stretch out with the force of the breeze.
The clouds break.
And brilliant sunshine illuminates the sheets.
A stronger gust and the sheets stream out again.
Each sheet rises in sequence to reveal the pathway.
To reveal you standing there.
You. Watching me.
Silently.
And the sheets hide you again as they fall
to hang without movement.
But then begin to unfurl and rise
as yet another gust pushes the white cotton out
and you are once again exposed.
You stand 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.
And then you are revealed again.
But it is not you.
It’s the girl standing there in your place.
Your daughter.
Standing there expressionless.
Staring as the sheets rise and fall rhythmically.
And then you begin to move.
A long slow stride.
Towards me.
You move.
Almost as though you are in slow motion.
That slow time again.
There is no sound now.
Your eyes are focused on me.
You know me.
You look at me.
And now rain drops.
The sound of a steady pit-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 there listening.
To the rain.
Rain hitting against the window of the bedroom.
Words (Excerpt)
I love the revelry of words sound
words as they ride and are formed
languishing momentarily or longer
on the back of the tongue
brought forward on the breath
to roll and reverberate in the vault
of the mouths vast darkness
to briefly rest on the tongues tip
a momentary and glorious savouring
and then to flit from the bit of my teeth
and freed then thrown outward
on the stuttering blast of breath
the sound of words the dissonant clash
and the smooth assonance
that always manages to awaken me.
Uncertain Times (excerpt)
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?
Rob Cullen
Time
Its the time it takes
A time to heal the wound
This healing time
Fallen
Fallen
Standing in silence
On the stone littered ridge
Surrounded by days
Bare edged morning
As black crows dive
Clustered close to curve
And stoop straight through
The treeless rush
A headlong scream
Launched from the headless hill.
The Black Box
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.
