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.

Saturday, 9 May 2015

Notes on the Dark Side of Imagination

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

Regular readers will know that I suffer from regular bouts of depression although I usually manage to avoid plunging into The Abyss if only just...

When depression strikes, I am inclined to wallow in misery and self-pity until a natural optimism and love for life (in spite of its erratic ups and downs) brings me to my senses, and once again I feel free to embrace the world as I invariably see it from the shimmering summit of Mount Parnassus.

Inspiration comes from all aspects of nature, including human nature, fickle though these can be until (eventually) I start to make sense of  who I am; my social, sexual, cultural and spiritual identity...all the parts that comprise a person's whole. It is, after all, the whole that counts, with which all of us need to come to terms, each in our own way, and take pride.

Oh, and, yes, I find the task of hitting on an appropriate title to a poem as challenging an art form as the poem itself; yet another positive step in the survival business.

NOTES ON THE DARK SIDE OF IMAGINATION

Now among friends, now left alone,
wandering a gloomy, scary by-way,
thorns like vampires in fields of stone
under a jaundiced sky turning grey

No one in sight, man, woman or child;
gargoyles on Heaven’s outer walls
perpetuating horror, while as beguiled
by such arts for leaving me appalled

Tearing at cloth ears, misery and pain
for the end of a world still enduring
Man’s rape for the sake of Power’s gain,
now at Earth Mother’s final reckoning

How many poets, I dare wonder aloud,
have permitted demons to spawn here,
this fine company of gargoyles, allowed
but a grimace, neither a voice nor tear?

Oh for just one kiss of sun on the face,
or garden smells after downpours,
to empathize with a lark’s winged grace,
speak out against the world’s eyesores

Suddenly, the ghastly mirage is gone,
I am back on track, among friends
whose loyalty and love I shall lean upon
where it’s said the track (finally?) ends


Copyright R. N. Taber 2007


[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from an earlier version that appears in first editions of Accomplice to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]


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