http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
An
earlier version of today’s poem first appeared in an anthology, Echoes of War, Poetry Now (Forward
Press) 2003 and subsequently in my collection the following year.
Now, regular
readers will be aware that have revised some poems since they first appeared in
my collections and on my blogs. Some readers say they prefer the original
version, but most prefer the revised version. All ask why I posted/published
the original version if it was likely to be revised later. Well, at the time I
wrote it, I saw it as a complete poem not the genesis for another. Years on, I
read some of my earlier poems and can see where they fail, to one degree or
another, either because they don’t say quite sat what I meant to say or don’t
say it at all.
Once I
get back inside a poem, I can see where the cracks need filling, not merely
papered over. Writing a poem from the outside working inwards is very different
to writing from the inside and working outwards. Yes, the original is written from within the
poet, but he or she only created the poem head and heart have shaped; the poem
itself, as a developing organism, needs
to have say in that development.
Creating
a poem is one thing and, yes, sometimes it is enough, but not always; any
further development will comes late so long as the writer leaves room in the poem
for that, and I always do. Moreover, I have always had a sense of this with my
poems so always kept in mind that I would need to publish new editions of my
collections at some point to allow for and include revisions/developments in
some poems. [Revisions that appear on my
blogs will appear in new editions after 2015.]
From time
to time, someone gets in touch to say he or she enjoyed both an original and
revised revision of a poem, but especially enjoyed comparing the two. One reader wrote to say they found it ‘intriguing’
to look inside my head and see how an original version of a poem led into the
later version.
While I
dare say critics will see some of my poems as failures (they may well be right)
I see them as relating to the person/poet I was at the time I wrote them. Hopefully,
I have changed with passing time (hopefully for the better); similarly, my
poetry. Readers are welcome to form their own opinion. Whatever, having written
something, it make sense to share it, surely? So I have published my
collections since 2001 and feedback, plus the changing nature of my own personal
space. will result in new editions after the publication of a final collection -
Diary of a Time Traveller in 2015 - when
I hit 70.
Now, there
is more than one take on aspiration, and somewhere along the line we have to
make choices; sometimes it may seem as if the choice is whether or not we are
prepared to let someone else make that choice for us. But isn’t that just
passing the buck?
Whatever,
few things on this earth are anywhere near as simple as we try to make them
appear, certainly not that complex network of communications, missed
communications, mixed messages and calls
for commitment that comprise the human mind.
BEYOND BELIEF
Some say he sought freedom,
preferring martyrdom to repression;
others point to sentiments
expressed pertaining to the zeal
of a
fundamentalist
waging war against the world
armed with Holy Word
Some say he followed a star,
near blinded by its glorious light;
others call
him a Messiah
come in peace with a fire in his
belly
no one could
extinguish,
a measure
of anguish fuelling
growing desperation
Some say, he was brainwashed
as a
child, taught how the finest ends
justify
appalling means,
suicide as
a political statement
absolving conscience
from the
agony heaped on body bags
at a roadside
Some call him a Dark Angel
that did not know him as well as
she
who knew his fears,
saw tears fall, final choices made,
sent alone, small and scared
to brave The Word, bomb the world,
no one
spared
Ashes, poor
apology for a sorry world
and its every word
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2003; 2012
[Note: An
earlier version of this poem appears in The
Third Eye by R. N.
Taber, Assembly Books 2004.]
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