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, 21 April 2019

Posthumous Consciousness, Inspirational

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

Emails from several readers in the past have gently mocked what they see as my unhealthy preoccupation with ghosts. Fair enough, but we must agree to differ.

On the whole, my ghosts inspire me.  (Doesn't everyone have a few that would drag us down rather than lift us up?) There is my late mother, of course, as well as my old English teacher, ‘Jock’ Rankin from whom I learned considerably more than in the course of any curriculum-set lessons about clause analysis.  My old school captain, several former landlords and landladies as well as a work colleague, Val Berry, a wise old bird whom I visited until she died not so many years ago … all these people, to name but a few, have taught me a lot about life, death, and making as much as possible of each new day instead of whinging about (among other things) how time flies and leaves us trailing in its wake.

In the course of writing this poem, I found myself revisiting my favourite ghosts, and continuing to learn from them. I’d had several bad nights with the prostate cancer, was feeling pretty low, and not a little sorry for myself. Ah, but not anymore, though, which says a lot for creative therapy. For me, of course, it’s writing, especially poetry, but one person’s meat is someone else’s poison, and we have a veritable spectrum of options; the arts, walking, gardening, looking after animals and/or pot plants … anything that gives us food for thought and distracts us from the slings and arrows that daily life so loves to let fly in our direction from time to time.

Ah, but for a creative consciousness to inspire us and (hopefully) others along the way, it, too, needs to find inspiration; that's where our favourite ghosts come in, only ever a heartbeat away, as ready and willing to help us out in death as in life ... if only we will let them.

POSTHUMOUS CONSCIOUSNESS, INSPIRATIONAL 

Need to stay positive
when all positive thinkers
have gone to ground,
left me feeling desperate
for a lifeline

A positive outlook
too often seen as the stuff
of wishful thinking
in the face of any reality
under threat

Advised to get a grip
on what’s what, run a mile
from pretending
the worst not happening,
face it head-on

Now, looking the worst
in the eye, frantically trying
to make sense
of some dark, anonymous
senselessness

All but giving up on it all,
mind-body-spirit losing heart
given no one
offering a lifeline but Job’s
comforters

Suddenly, out of nowhere,
a posthumous consciousness
telling me off
for caving in far too easily
to circumstances

I can hear my late mother
demanding, am I man or mouse
to even consider
caving in to prostate cancer,
no fight left …?

Denial on my lips, diverted
by home truths having to admit
she had a point;
now sensing an upbeat heart
re-asserting itself


Copyright R. N. Taber 2019







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