A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Sunday 17 June 2012

Caliban's Song, 21st Century

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

The multiple stresses and strains of everyday life in the 20th century have carried over into the 21st and if anything are far greater. We all want to rise above them and enjoy who else life has to offer us, but for a growing number of people it is easier said than done.

Regular readers will know I suffered a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago. One of many causes lay in growing up in a gay-unfriendly society. Basically, my psyche was on a hair trigger and it didn’t take much to have it explode in my face. The consequences included years of struggling to escape from a very dark place indeed, from which I only managed to escape  in the end thanks to a few good friends and my eventually rediscovering a passion for creative writing, especially poetry; for me, at least, it has proven the best therapy. Meanwhile, the struggle continued long after I was well enough to get a job and start rebuilding my life. It was an ugly time and I felt very ugly.

Sadly, attitudes towards mental ill-health have not changed much. People suffering varying degrees of mental illness continue to be stigmatised by the less enlightened in society. Many people still think of depression as being little more than very fed-up; few appreciate the depths to which a depressed person sinks, unable to swim and badly needing someone to throw them a lifeline.

I met an old friend recently who told me he is beginning to feel he is over the worst of a nervous breakdown that struck him several years ago. ‘I can function again,’ he told me, but I still feel so ugly and that everyone is looking at me, judging me, despising me...’

Mental illness is an ugly condition, but uglier still is that common enough attitude towards mentally ill people that persists in putting them in stereotypical boxes and slamming down the lid.

The last person to realise that he or she is slipping into a depression of one form or another is the person themselves. So if someone you know seems to be acting out of character, please look out for and try to help them rather than shrug it off with good or less good intentions as a ‘C’est la vie.’ Situation

This poem appeared in a Poetry Now (Forward Press) anthology, /Poetry) anthology Words That Live On (2004) just prior to its inclusion in my collection. My email address is easy to find on the Internet and a number of people have been in touch since then to say how closely they can identify with the poem and my comments have encouraged them to take back control of their lives. If my poems and comments about depression can help just one person do just that, I feel privileged to have played a small part in their recovery.

There is no quick fix for depression, no Prospero to free us from its slavery. Yet, as Prospero finally demonstrated by freeing Caliban, we have but to be put back in touch with our kinder feelings and better selves to make a start at transcending wishful thinking into a positive, workable reality.

Did I say it was easy ...?

CALIBAN’S SONG, 21st CENTURY

A suspect integrity, deprived of dignity,
hung on a washing line to dry
until time to put us through the wringer
until (hopefully) made to or at least
appearing to conform to the expectations
of mandarins of power wherever ...

Mind, a mist, its damp heat soaks my sleep,
brings a welcome wetness though eyes
stay dry, no matter how I long to weep…
for that daytime nightmare, made to share
with a world inclined to turn and stare at me
as if I were a dog cocking a leg up a tree

No place to turn, words that can even begin
to explain the loneliness, desperation
of a horror situation, its awful, nagging pain
ever an object of gross misconception,
sentenced to life (far worse than any felon)
no answers to the same universal question

Lost in hell’s maze, no seeing ways forward
for back. Panic sets in, takes cover
in a corner of madness (mistaking insanity
for safety in the grip of a sick anxiety
to escape asylum’s cutting edge, complex
enough even for a poet’s tearful imagination

Years on, still counting the cost of dignity lost,
integrity stolen from me, trying (impotently?)
to hold my own. Battles lost, war - won?
A hollow victory when left but to get through 
another day till that sleep unbroken may yet
free us from a genetically modified inhumanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home