Jungle Book

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

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man known himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare

“The best way out is always through.” – Robert Frost

“Clouds come floating into my life no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky.” - Rabindranath Tagore

Now, reader J. H. has emailed to protest about yesterday’s poem being published on both poetry blogs in so far as “... not everyone is interested in LGBT matters.” He or she goes on to say that “... your poems are barely poetry at all, no imagination, merely a medium to put across your own arguments and points of view. Real poetry, like all art forms, is something beautiful...”

Well, show me an art form that does not express the artist’s point of view and I’ll eat my cloth cap; the thing about art, in any form, is that it attempts to offer points of view that some observers may not have the experience or imagination to consider whether or not they agree disagree with that particular standpoint, whether it be the artist’s or anyone else’s. 

Art forms that are simply admired for what the eye sees, regardless of what voices it whispers in the ear, is barely art at all. So yes, if my poetry fails to attract as many listeners as observers, J. H. is spot on in suggesting it is barely poetry at all...?  Even food for thought needs must be digested with care, or not only is taste is sacrificed, but also digestion...

JUNGLE BOOK

Sudden sky, a livid blue canvas
for live art, as creatures great and small
make their presence known
and felt to any mind-boy-spirit choosing
to host nature’s art work,
engage with a potential for imagination,
escape, if only briefly, the greater
threats to everyday life that it needs must face
in own time and personal space

Lions and elephants, free to roam
jungles where no hunters care to go, no sport
to be had here, only the art
of inner eyes, hosted by escapees from a world
for which there are no words,
only anxiety and pain, well-deserving respite,
heart-and-soul left free to journey
where it may, unshackled from any inhibitions
as would see it lose its way...

Here-and-Now on hold, if only briefly 
while we take cover from slings and arrows,
take pleasure in taking pleasure
for its own sake, letting moving fingers write
words we never learned to say,
paint similes and metaphors in the sky to which
art forms can only aspire, no comfy fire
but a sunburst of imagination out of nowhere,
resembling an elusive Somewhere

I see dragons rearing their scaly heads
alongside fearless sheep and even smiling faces
peering into the real me, reserves
I can draw on whenever I need to raise a grin,
even as I limp home on marathon days,
having to rely on kinder life forces than worldly
aids to see me through,
mind-body-spirit failing, close to dying as living,
yet closer still to an inspired loving

Throughout the day, various skyscapes
invade my thought processes, but never warlike,
even in stormy weather, any images
running for cover, eventually assuming hues
of splendid sunsets inclined,
to message through art forms of its own,
walking, talking shadows
engaging the nature of the art of communication,
in defining and redefining imagination

May any mind-body-spirit that finds itself
walled in by its own inhibitions and inability to see
beyond limited horizons, unite its whole,
let it see-hear-feel such meanings in art that pose
food for thought, make doors of walls,
entrances to such realms of interest and concern
hitherto left unexplored,
lessons yet to be learned, not least for wondering why
there should be jungle creatures in the sky... 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022