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.

Friday, 31 July 2020

Ghosts, Touching Base

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2017.

Now, much if not most of what we do and say - for better or worse, good or ill - has consequences for ourselves and/or others, either directly or indirectly, now or later.

Whether we accept or deny our part in any such consequences - for whatever reasons - we have to live with both reasons and consequences. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on what we may have said or done or chosen not to say or do, as the case may be; since saying and/or doing nothing can have consequences of no less significance than being actively (or even passively) involved in a particular chain of events,.

Whatever, we are left with clear choices; accept responsibility, deny responsibility, lay it at someone else’s door altogether or delude ourselves that we are absolved of any blame (where any might be attached) if only because we could not possibly have foreseen how certain events, thus triggered, might unravel, especially  given the unpredictability of human nature.

Ah, yes, human nature a weak yet probably the more convincing of all excuses for our own shortcomings, especially with regard to certain perceptive qualities we like to think of as an acquired wisdom and are therefore reluctant to admit we may have been misguided, not to mention downright wrong.

A colleague once commented on there being no point in dwelling on the graver mistakes we make as we go through life, how ‘The only thing to do is kill them stone dead and move on...’ - which has to be one of the best descriptions I’ve yet to hear of a posthumous consciousness inhabited by ghosts likely to haunt its owner evermore. Yes, we can (hopefully) learn from our mistakes and try to make some redress for them. At the same time, they are kin to those proverbial sleeping dogs, likely to wake and disturb even the most carefully constructed comfort zone at any time … never more so than now, when everyone is not only stressed out by the Covid-19 pandemic, but degrees of self-isolation may well leave us with time on our hands, time to mull over a past  which for most of us includes regrets of one kind or another.

We can – even in these testing times - but do our best to stay positive, look forward, and keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. (Never easy, but worth every heartbeat.)

GHOSTS, TOUCHING BASE 

Now and then,
a ghost searches archives
of the human spirit
for mixed feelings to explore
and touch base
with a mind-body ethos
imaging a finger tip
pricked by thorns on a rose
drawing blood

Now and then
ghosts gather to consult
with each other
about the best ways to rectify
errors of judgement,
bring subsequent wrongs
to the attention  
of any directly (or indirectly)
feeding on them

Now and then,
a ghost will reason a need
to come clean
about such misdemeanours
as least intended
to result in hauntings
of the worst kind
for want of a broader (kinder)
take on life

Now and then,
a ghost will home in on us,
confront us
with such past-present-future
leftovers of time
as buried alive in the heart
by a seventh sense
naming names, hearing voices,
calling us out

As for what choices
we may or may well not act on
by way of an answer,
to each of us much the same 
finding a way to let ghosts
rest in peace no matter the cost
or disown Conscience,
block access to its archives 
once and for all ...?

Let the human ego
reinvent itself as and when it may,
it cannot unsay
what’s said or undo what’s done,
least of all rewrite
archives comprising life any choices
and consequences
pertaining to a least favourable
self-portraiture

Human nature
demands things left unsaid, undone,
than let the worst in us
its gamut run until the best in us
left as undervalued
as good intentions casting shadows,
spreading further,
and lasting longer for being left 
open to question

Ghosts, left to try and satisfy a human spirit
(still) assailed by self-doubt

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020


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