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.

Wednesday, 13 November 2019

Sex, Lies and Stereotype

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

This poem appears in my gay-interest blog archives for February 2012

Most if not all gay men and women remember the horror of that damn closet, whether we are there for a long or short while. It has to be one of the 21st century’s greater tragedies that many gay people stay there all their lives because certain judgemental societies and/or socio-cultural-religious factors in the home continue to work against our Human Rights worldwide.

This poem was retrospective when it was written in 1995 following an exchange of closet anecdotes among gay friends, and is as relevant today as it was then.  Only a few months ago, here in London, I saw two young men kissing in a crowded gay bar that, according to the person standing next to me who pointed them out, had been with a ‘butch’ crowd he’d known since schooldays that regularly yelled homophobic abuse at him in the street. Obviously, they hadn’t yet realised that it really isn’t ‘in’ to be with an in-crowd that’s very much the wrong crowd. 

Mind you, I’ve often wondered about openly homophobic types. As Shakespeare, might well have said, methinks they do protest too much...

SEX, LIES AND STEREOTYPE

Billy was a shy boy
who lived in my hometown,
did well at school,
never played the fool,
had a voice as thick as honey,
kept his head in a book;
that first time he smiled
and said ‘hello’ I didn’t quite
know where to look

Early one morning
I went fishing at my special place;
Billy was already there,
tongues of red hair licking
at my face as I told him
to go, the sacrilege all his,
but he stood his ground;
I flung him down, a heat in us
rising like the dawn

Our lips brushed
as if meant, his sweet body sighed;
mine paused, replied
until spent, spiritually content
for finding sanctuary
in the lap of a songbird,
no willows weeping
or fish biting nor any hint
of unease or dissent

Down at the pub
one evening, drinking with the lads,
poised to win at darts,
my girl cheering … Enter Billy
with a mate, and I score
a bull! Crowd’s roaring my victory,
my girl adoring me
as I'm drowning in a swell
and, oh, so hurting ...

like hell

Copyright R. N. Taber 1995; 2012

[Note: Thus poem has been revised from an earlier version that has already appeared on the blog and in  my first collection,  Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]

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