A Predilection For Road Movies

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

Readers ‘Glen and Sara' have been in touch to say they love this poem because it reminds them of when they were students and ‘...we used to take off’ here, there and just about everywhere in an old banger we called Genevieve after the movie of the same name.’

Metaphorically speaking, life on the open road took on a whole new meaning when I finally came out years ago after far too long in a cold, dark closet that eventually resulted in my having a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago.

Openness is everything, and bottling things up is never a good idea. As far as gay men and women are concerned, some feel they have no choice but to keep their sexuality secret, but it is not only gay people, of course, who find themselves hugging years of frustration close to their chest. Many of us fall victim to at least one family member, friend or colleague who simply refuses to listen to any point of view that takes issue with their own. Since there is no talking to these people, we say nothing, sometimes for years. Suddenly, we can bear their selfishness, self-centredness and generally tunnel vision no longer, and we snap, often over something so trivial they probably have no idea where the flood of our hostility is coming from.  Oh, they are nice enough people, which is probably why we put up with them for so long. It is much easier to tell a nasty person to f**k off. 

I call it closed-mind syndrome; a sickness that is prevalent in many socio-cultural-religious areas of society. It runs in my family so it will come as no surprise to new readers that I am estranged from most of my relatives. Yet, I envy people who belong to a close-knit family, and always encourage others to try and work through any differences they may have with their own even if it means venturing where I promised myself years ago that I would never go again. [Maybe that makes me a hypocrite?]

As I have said many times, our differences do not make us different, only human. We are not a race of clones (yet) thank goodness.

Oh, but love the open road. [Did I say it was easy?]

A PREDILECTION FOR ROAD MOVIES

Now and then, the road ahead

seems to stretch forever

and a weary heart seeks in vain

for the strength to carry on;

lost sight of any meaningful goal,

loneliness invading the soul,

the poetry of life but dull prose,

beauty fading like memories

once held dear, now but straws

in the wind, falling, drifting…

like autumn leaves from a tree

that has the look of a body

resolved to die. Ah, but look again

and see that Earth Mother

is not done with us yet, for all we

fret and moan like winter,

unable to comprehend that spring

might come again and the tree

come into its own though it feed

on acid rain

Look again, where the road ahead

seems to stretch forever;

glimpse patches of blue where dark

clouds part to let light through,

as good a goal as any to keep in view,

give a weary heart the strength

to carry on, though why we bother

as unclear as why we feel

the soul respond to some heavenly

goal we cannot begin to express

except to permit a fragile happiness

find its way back into us

on the backs of dearest memories

we pushed away in pain,

now conspiring yet again to make us

whole and set us free - to enjoy

the journey, inspiring our senses

to indulge us life’s finer poetry,

discover in its beauty the meaning

of eternity

Meaning, purpose, prose and poetry,

all chief players in a road movie

[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]