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