The Scream OR Potential for Self-destruct

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

I was born on the winter solstice, 1945 so, yes, that means I will be 65 years young in December. I suspect most if not all of us have our share of disappointments and frustrations in life, sadness and tragedy too, upon which demons pounce and often never (quite) disappear. [Demons from long-ago closet years as a teenager and young man when gay relationships were illegal here in the UK haunt me still, but less so as time goes by.]

Looking back at my life and looking inwards at my inner self, I can track the scream just so far …then either it stops or I stop looking, I am never sure which. I know I will hear it again, but in the meantime, there is life to be lived and its pleasures to be enjoyed. As for the scream, it may well haunt me, but as I discovered long ago, it can’t hurt me … unless I let it.

Do you, too, hear a scream? It is silent, yet sometimes I think it is the loudest sound we will ever hear, shaking the whole body now and then as if it were no more than a leaf in a storm.  I guess the trick is to ride out the storm and find comfort in anticipation of its passing and the sun coming out again …as it will, and does … as inevitably as human nature calling upon its greater strengths and making the best rather than the worst of ... whatever. 

'The Scream' by Edvard Munch (1893); image from Wikipedia. One of several versions of the painting "The Scream" (title: Der Schrei der Natur, 'The Scream of Nature') at The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway.

THE SCREAM or POTENTIAL FOR SELF-DESTRUCT

Five years-old and waiting for a scream

that I knew had to be there, but never came

so I put it down to imagination,

too young to articulate on the surrealism

of self-destruction

Fifteen years of looking for the scream

(an awakening sexuality trying to find a voice)

but I put it down to imagination,

not quite ready to do battle with the prejudices

of convention

Twenty-one years of imagining a scream

much like a poorly read poem in a bad dream,

kept putting it down to imagination

fired by stresses of home-school-work situation

and birth sign

Thirty-five years of living with a scream,

mind in freefall, body soaked in its own sperm

for venturing beyond imagination,

homing in on an impotent rage to get even,
(self-destruct button)

Fifty-five years of looking for the scream,

first heard in the womb, always hurting my ears,

for being put down to imagination

by a socio-cultural, one-upmanship dogma

some like to call religion

Sixty-five years, of harbouring a scream

arguing for a sense of spirituality with sexuality

and nature second to none

in a configuration of common humanity

left to the imagination

In millions of screams across the world,
the same message to mind-body-spirit as in art
that we stop, look and listen
to this human forest of deciduous trees
pleading preservation

No killing it, but ever running the scream
to earth in life-love-death if only to find an ally
in the human condition, sword
of freedom in the grip of a human spirit
demanding regeneration

[London, June 2010]

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010 (Rev. 2018)