Echoes of a Season Past

ROGER TABER - POETRY READING
21 March 2017 – Part 2

From Roger’s friend, Graham

Greetings from autumnal Essex, UK,

I’m sharing the second part of Roger’s poetry reading. Again, I’ve embellished the recording with imagery (including the occasional cheeky pun). I’m grateful to the photographers who’ve shared their work (public domain license) on the Pixabay, Pexels and Unsplash websites. Wikimedia has also proven really helpful.

Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/hs3aTILOdtU. Or find it by searching ‘roger taber poetry’ in YouTube if you prefer.

I was reflecting on my previous comments about performance poetry being more expressive than printed form. How it reveals the intensity, passion and human frailty of the poet. And yet, conversely, a soundtrack could be interpreted as the author’s impressing of a particular perspective on his work. I wonder if poetry, art or music is really more about multiple viewpoints…? And written verse, perhaps, remains more accessible to those differing interpretations. Either way, I still think the recording adds an interesting facet to Roger’s published work.

The selection contains some personal favourites – ‘Suggestions’ and ‘The Poet’s Song’ among them. I read the latter at Roger’s funeral as part of a eulogy. Although it’s not sombre - rather a celebration of the artform. After all, ‘look on the bright side’ was his mantra. Even on his poetic postcards from the abyss.

Inevitably, the project has left me with a sense of retrospection. Roger died back in March last year although, for me at least, his presence lingers. His connection to the world endures somehow in a continuum of past-present-future. Like a pebble cast into water, his life-force resonates through a sea of time…

Memory’s warming embers ever glimmer in the shadow of grief.

Thanks for reading/listening.

G x

 

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‘I am hopelessly in love with a memory. An echo from another time, another place.’
Michel Foucault

‘No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.’
Terry Pratchett

‘As long as there are memories, yesterday remains. As long as there is hope, tomorrow awaits. As long as there is friendship, today is beautiful.’
Billy Joel

 

*  *  *

 

ROGER TABER - POETRY READING
Tuesday, 21 March 2017

PART 2

The Master Baiter
W-A-R, Crucible Of Remembrance
Spring Magic
Logging On To Life
Imagination, Painter Of Dreams or Masochist
National Trust Outing
Suggestions
Shades Of Comic Genius
Engaging With Nature or Living With Prostate Cancer
Patchwork
Ode To Apollo or Profile Of A Life-force
Heartbeat or Waking Up To The Power of Positive Thinking
Poems By Passing Clouds
The Poet’s Song
In Good Company

(CC) R. N. Taber 2017

Sunlight, Harnessing Imagination

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2016 when I also uploaded the video/poem to my You Tube Channel;the video, as always, was shot by my best friend, Graham Collett. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcO8cKlA3o 

Like Graham’s video, the poem, too, invites the reader to focus the inner eye on whatever comes to mind and simply enjoy the experience of sheer imagination as inspired by sunlight among leaves. 

Imagination is a great gift, one that we all have if we only choose to use it, and better still, share it. 

As a means of sheer escapism, imagination can whisk us away from a world of terror and tragedy, and work the kind of magic on us that sees dark clouds make way for bright sunlight. Yes, there is an air of whimsy about the poem, but isn't that what imagination is all about?   

Never be deceived by whimsy; in a world of darkness and light, it has the power to bring light to even the darkest of darkness. Forget simile and metaphor. Whatever our reality, light will always be the greater life force even in death, whatever out colour, creed or sexuality, if only because the light of love is the greatest life force of all.

We take so much of nature for granted. Take sun nymphs among leaves on a tree tripping their very own light fantastic, for example, now there's a magic all its own...so we thought the video - leftover footage from material uploaded to You Tube on another occasion - deserved to be used in its own right. If you are interested in seeing what else we have uploaded, feel free to visit the channel any time: http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

This poem is a villanelle.

SUNLIGHT, HARNESSING IMAGINATION 

Where poetry chasing Time away

in leaves of red, green and gold,

the children of Apollo love to play

Let myth and legend have their say,

the very spirit of nature take hold,

where poetry is chasing Time away

Where tears for fears would stay,

passing years see us grow old,

the children of Apollo love to play

Upon tides of life turning us grey,

return us bedtime stories told

where poetry chasing Time away

For halcyon hours of making hay,

rebel hearts breaking the mould,

the children of Apollo love to play

Come velvet night, allow the day 

its dream-time out of the cold;

where poetry chasing Time away,

the children of Apollo love to play

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Tracking the Torchbearer

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

This is not a new poem but one that several readers have asked me to repeat on the blog.

In 2012, the year the Olympic Games came to London and Her Majesty The Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee,, I produced a new collection, Tracking the Torchbearer; overall, it tries to capture something of the spirit of The Games rather than focusing on sporting events. (I had not long been diagnosed with prostate cancer so it was a welcome distraction!)

The book comprises 100+ poems in seven themed sections - including a gay section - for easy reading. Among poems on love, nature and contemporary society I have included others on such themes as the so-called Arab Spring, a tribute to trapped miners in Chile and their dramatic rescue, earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand and the earthquake/Tsunami off the coast of Japan as well as a record of happier occasions like a royal wedding and Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Regular readers will know that I publish my poetry collections under my own imprint, not least because most if not all poetry publishers seem to disapprove of poems on a gay theme appearing alongside poems on other themes and/or believe it to be a non-commercial proposition. I am delighted to have proved them wrong. Not only do my books sell well (for poetry) but gay and straight readers alike frequently get in touch to say they enjoy them; new readers among the latter usually express surprise at  enjoying ‘even’ my gay-interest poems, and some even start dipping into both blogs.

Oh, yes, I get some complaints and hate mail for supposedly ‘promoting’ a gay lifestyle, but not a lot, and it doesn’t bother me in the least.

I have to confess I am not much of a sports person, but what I love about sport is that it is open to everyone to actively participate or simply watch and enjoy. Ethnicity, religion, sex and sexuality all but cease to be the kind of artificial dividing lines some bigoted people insist upon drawing; all that matters is the person and his or her personal achievement in taking part, just as it should be in all aspects of life. People matter, end of... (One reason I will never understand so-called 'good' people who are intolerant of anyone who does not subscribe to their way of thinking, especially with regard to religion and sexuality; take the humanity out of religion and what is left is nut an empty shell for appearances' sake.)

Visiting 135 cities in 20 countries, covering 137000 kms in 130 days, I like to imagine the Olympic torch as bringing people together in a world where are neither gay-friendly nor gay-unfriendly people, homosexuals or homophobes…just people; a Family of Man that, like all families, will have its ups and downs, its share of falling out and making up, but always there for each other when it really counts. (Oh, but I wish…!)

Here's a BIG HUG from your truly because, as I write the blogs, I have a wonderful sense of your being there; it's a wonderful feeling and helps me a LOT in dealing with my prostate cancer. (So far, so good with the hormone therapy!)

It was the founder of the Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who said "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part."

We should be proud to be part of a common humanity, not fighting over our differences. As I have said many times on the blogs, our differences do not make us different, only human. Indeed, we could - each and every one of us -  learn much from living by the basic principles of sportsmanship.

The poem is a villanelle.

TRACKING THE TORCHBEARER

Cheers, not just for those who win,
but everyone playing their part
in the race to show we’re human

Old gods who saw the Games begin
see new gods playing their part;
Cheers, not just for those who win,

Torch lit, world crowds making a din,
all set to make a start...
in the race to show we’re human

Politicians worldwide putting a spin
on an overloaded apple cart;
Cheers, not just for those who win

As old gods would get under the skin,
so new orders falling apart
in the race to show we’re human

Apollo, struggles even to raise a grin,
Earth Mother fast losing heart;
Cheers, not just for those who win
in the race to show we’re human

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011; 2018

[Note; An earlier version of this poem appears in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]

Ode to Apollo, Profile of a Life Force

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

I have just uploaded the second of three Stourhead videos/poems to You Tube, shot by my close friend Graham Collet and for which I wrote Ode To Apollo (see poem below). 

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

Regular readers of my poetry will know that I have a strong affinity with Apollo, the sun god of Greek mythology, not least because he was reputed to be bisexual. The old gods are the stuff of mythology and legend now, but have we not replaced them with little tin gods of our own which, incidentally, have far less gravitas?

The Temple of Apollo at Stourhead stands high on a hill overlooking the gardens; it was built in 1765 by Henry Hoare as his finishing touch to the famous landscape garden. Renovation work was begun by the National Trust in 2009 before which the Trust spent months gathering historic paintings, family records, accounts, letters and visitors' diaries to find out how the monument would have originally appeared. 

The temple at Stourhead was designed by Henry Flitcroft and influenced by an engraving of a circular temple at Baalbec, an ancient Syrian city now part of the Lebanon, and the Temple of the Sun at Kew Gardens, which was destroyed in a gale during 1916. A favourite spot for romance, it was used as the location for a rain-drenched dramatic exchange between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet in the 2005 remake of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. Timber from the Stourhead estate was used to form the structure of the new dome which has been covered in sheets of lead to keep it watertight. The walls inside the temple have been re-plastered and gilded plasterwork based on a description in a letter written in 1801 by Reverend Warner, the Rector of Stourton.

Rev Warner's letter states: "The roof of the Temple spreads into a dome and has a double ceiling; in the lower is the aperture, and in the coving of the other, a splendid gilt representation of the Solar Rays, which, receiving the real light of this orb by an artful construction, throws into the Temple below a most splendid reflection when the sun is in its strength."

Well worth a visit on a sunny day.

ODE TO APOLLO, PROFILE OF A LIFE FORCE

Hear old gods mocking us

behind passing clouds

as a defeated foe well might

for observing its enemies

counting the ever rising costs
of victory

Only Apollo (still) brokers

an enduring peace

without taking sides or even

an ulterior motive

besides a voyeur’s delight

in human behaviour

Where the world rides out

its storms over land,

sea and air, find fair Apollo

behind the scenes

busy negotiating its survival,

albeit conditional

Where time wings past us

at a tangent,

see Apollo rein in his chariot

just long enough

to shine hope in our faces,

the rest up to us

For every bitter-sweet smile,

a bitter-sweet tear

at Apollo’s call to nature

and human nature

for nurture, reconciliation,

and regeneration

Meanwhile, all life presses on

with the act of Being;

the Here-and-Now engaging

with us for better,

for worse, ugly or beautiful,

old gods or new

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

 

Frost On The Glass

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

I well remember how, as a child, I would wake some mornings, sun shining on my window where Jack Frost had painted all manner of shapes and scenario; these would fill me with such a sense of wonder and delight that I was sure to be thinking positively by the time I jumped out of bed, game to take on a new day, whatever...

Nothing has changed. but for the wintry realisation that I'm more years older than I either feel or care to count.

FROST ON THE GLASS

Snow leopard 
pacing its territory;
Eagle circling
its prey, wolf howling 
to its kin

Avalanches 
stirring, poised 
to destroy
even as we watch, 
listen, wait 

Abating now,
dark winter's cruelty;
humankind
left hugging pillows,
half an eye
on window panes
writing up the poetry 
of winter

Consciences
stirring, poised
to wake up
if much preferring
to sleep on

Yet, not too late 
for Apollo
to light up
our darkness, see us
through it


Copyright R, N. Taber 2009