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].

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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, 26 February 2012

The Gatekeeper's Song

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

While we are all sitting on fences, tearing them down or maybe even trying to mend some, I wonder what The Gatekeeper thinks about it all...?

THE GATEKEEPER’S SONG

They turned their backs on me
or was it I who ran away…?

Memory, it so likes to play tricks
on us, rather than let us see
what really takes place in corners
of the heart we rarely seek out,
for fearing what we may find
in holiday snapshots and behind
words in letters read in anger,
birthday cards left unsent, never
recognising the danger of years
passing so quickly till we’ve only
such poor excuses and regret
as conscience cares to permit shine
in darkest corners of the mind
where, yes, we’d so return a while,
have love take us that last mile
where stubborn feet still refuse to go
though heart and soul never left,
and would set us free, let us see all
the heart deserves to know

No, not free from nature's finer ties
(never that) but, rather, set out
in tablets of stone, supposedly less
likely to break than any we shape
in a clay that may please human eyes
for moment in time, but hardens
(not as we imagined) to a perspective
on dark corners where sometimes
pain seeks solace, yet finding none
in unused icons of human hearts
left but to gather dust like old photos
Better, surely, to air home truths
(even after years of running away)
if only to deny the world its pleasure
in exposing us along tired lines
of letting live but to die another day,
no matter where any blame let lie
nor we (or they) be straight or gay?

Time to open the gate before it’s too late
to live to love another day…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010, 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; slightly but significantly revised, 2019.]




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