No Storybook Hero + In Praise of Sea Thrift (2 Poems)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
[Update Dec 1, 2017]: A reader (from Cornwall) has emailed to ask what inspired my fantasy novels, Mamelon 1 and 2 . Well, the plain and simple answer is that there in me - as quite probably in most if not all of us? - a Peter Pan character likely to spend the best part of a lifetime trying to get out and hoping (usually in vain) that no one will notice. Anyone interested will find my Mamelon novels on my fiction blog where a brief synopsis precedes each:
[Update Dec 1, 2017]: A reader (from Cornwall) has emailed to ask what inspired my fantasy novels, Mamelon 1 and 2 . Well, the plain and simple answer is that there in me - as quite probably in most if not all of us? - a Peter Pan character likely to spend the best part of a lifetime trying to get out and hoping (usually in vain) that no one will notice. Anyone interested will find my Mamelon novels on my fiction blog where a brief synopsis precedes each:
Meanwhile...
As requested by ‘Jane’ (also in Cornwall) I am repeating a poem (the second below) and some comments I posted on my gay-interest blog back in June which prompted protests from several readers in Cornwall. No offence was intended. I simply wrote how it is, for me personally at any rate. Much as I love visiting what has to be one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, I have never found it very gay-friendly.
As I mentioned in a previous post, when Cornwall held its first ever Gay Pride march in Truro, August 2009, I emailed the organisers to wish them well, only to receive a nasty reply telling me to stay away as they wanted no truck with gay activists. I hadn’t intended to participate or so much as implied that I might…and replied that I am no activist, just a poet.
I had friends in Cornwall once but - surprise, surprise - they have moved away. I wouldn't mind betting that no one among the gay community there is anywhere near as as intolerant and insensitive as it would appear are the heterosexual majority. Fat chance of a gay poet making much of an impression there! Only recently, a reader emailed to say they had offered a Cornwall library one of my poetry titles after receiving one as a present but had already bought one. The library declined to accept and it appears that a member of staff made a point of referring to the fact that my collections include gay material. As a librarian working in public libraries for many years, I was quite upset. I guess this just goes to show how the UK has a long way to go before it is united against homophobia. While I won’t be put off visiting beautiful Cornwall, I won’t be popping into any of its libraries either…or engaging with the locals in any gay-interest debate.
No gay activist, me, honestly. I’m just an Ordinary Joe who also happens to be a poet who, in turn, also happens to be gay.
NO STORYBOOK HERO
When I listen to the waves,
they always tell the same stories
told by leafy choirs
long, long ago…how one day
I’d be riding a white horse
to fame and glory….
Only, life never took me that way,
but in other directions
despite objections from alter ego,
friends and family;
I wasn’t meant be a hero of the kind
that rides out storms, surfs
giant waves, climbs snowy peaks,
charges to the rescue,
bugles blaring, just in time to save
the goodies from the baddies
the way they manage it in movies
and all-time best-sellers
Life, it found another role for me,
an Ordinary Joe in the street,
trying to make the best of things,
struggling to make ends meet
nothing to lose, everything to prove
because I’m gay
I was never cut out for the kind
of grand heroics
found in lively tales of derring-do,
though knock me down
and l will bounce right back
like a smiley clown,
(better applause than tears)
get on with my life as best I can,
take it on the chin
like a ‘real’ man, play my part,
from the heart, for who I am,
no hero leapt out of fantasy fiction
but an Ordinary Joe fighting
old prejudices, siding with the trees
against a world feeding myths,
lies and stereotypes
to its children who, in turn, hopefully
know better than to listen
Copyright R. N. Taber 2007, 2010
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, 2007]
This poem is a villanelle:
As requested by ‘Jane’ (also in Cornwall) I am repeating a poem (the second below) and some comments I posted on my gay-interest blog back in June which prompted protests from several readers in Cornwall. No offence was intended. I simply wrote how it is, for me personally at any rate. Much as I love visiting what has to be one of the most beautiful parts of the UK, I have never found it very gay-friendly.
As I mentioned in a previous post, when Cornwall held its first ever Gay Pride march in Truro, August 2009, I emailed the organisers to wish them well, only to receive a nasty reply telling me to stay away as they wanted no truck with gay activists. I hadn’t intended to participate or so much as implied that I might…and replied that I am no activist, just a poet.
I had friends in Cornwall once but - surprise, surprise - they have moved away. I wouldn't mind betting that no one among the gay community there is anywhere near as as intolerant and insensitive as it would appear are the heterosexual majority. Fat chance of a gay poet making much of an impression there! Only recently, a reader emailed to say they had offered a Cornwall library one of my poetry titles after receiving one as a present but had already bought one. The library declined to accept and it appears that a member of staff made a point of referring to the fact that my collections include gay material. As a librarian working in public libraries for many years, I was quite upset. I guess this just goes to show how the UK has a long way to go before it is united against homophobia. While I won’t be put off visiting beautiful Cornwall, I won’t be popping into any of its libraries either…or engaging with the locals in any gay-interest debate.
No gay activist, me, honestly. I’m just an Ordinary Joe who also happens to be a poet who, in turn, also happens to be gay.
NO STORYBOOK HERO
When I listen to the waves,
they always tell the same stories
told by leafy choirs
long, long ago…how one day
I’d be riding a white horse
to fame and glory….
Only, life never took me that way,
but in other directions
despite objections from alter ego,
friends and family;
I wasn’t meant be a hero of the kind
that rides out storms, surfs
giant waves, climbs snowy peaks,
charges to the rescue,
bugles blaring, just in time to save
the goodies from the baddies
the way they manage it in movies
and all-time best-sellers
Life, it found another role for me,
an Ordinary Joe in the street,
trying to make the best of things,
struggling to make ends meet
nothing to lose, everything to prove
because I’m gay
I was never cut out for the kind
of grand heroics
found in lively tales of derring-do,
though knock me down
and l will bounce right back
like a smiley clown,
(better applause than tears)
get on with my life as best I can,
take it on the chin
like a ‘real’ man, play my part,
from the heart, for who I am,
no hero leapt out of fantasy fiction
but an Ordinary Joe fighting
old prejudices, siding with the trees
against a world feeding myths,
lies and stereotypes
to its children who, in turn, hopefully
know better than to listen
Copyright R. N. Taber 2007, 2010
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, 2007]
Sea Thrift
IN
PRAISE OF SEA THRIFT
Guardians
of our history,
looking
out for us
among
rocks by the sea
Shadows
once the enemy,
now
protectors,
guardians
of our history
As
natural as we to nudity,
rising,
falling waves…
among
rocks by the sea
Lovers,
like fishes set free
from
glass cages,
guardians
of our history
Witness
Apollo frantically
planting
kisses …
among
rocks by the sea
Careworn,
fickle humanity
tearing
out its pages,
guardians
of our history
among
rocks by the sea
[Cornwall, June 2009]
Copyright R. N.
Taber 2009
[Note: This poem appears in my collection Tracking the Torchbearer, Assembly Books, 2012]]
Labels: history, human nature, human spirit, life forces, love, mind-body-spirit, natural world, nature, personal space, poetry, positive thinking, posthumous consciousness
posted by R. N. Taber | 07:17
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