Two (poems) for the Price of One

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

After two years of learning to live with the Covid-19 pandemic, tempers are beginning to fray for whom some, who were living on The Edge even before the pandemic, pent-up feelings of frustration have sought release in a variety of ways, some violent. While there can be no excuse for violence against another, mental health issues should never be underestimated, especially in such times as we are living in now.

A healthy diet and regular exercise can help to alleviate stress,, of course, but self-help isn't always enough. There is help available for anyone less able to cope with stress, especially when it seems to be coming at them from all sides; we have to recognise the signs, though, and actively seek help; There is no shame whatever in feeling less and less able to cope with stress, whatever its source, but we need to recognise the signs and get help before it manifests itself in such a way or ways that we are likely to live to regret.

My failing to recognise the extent of the stress that living in a closet was making itself felt over a period of some 20 years, resulted in a nervous breakdown in my 30's. I had been too scared to ask for help,  had convinced myself I could cope... and could not have been more wrong. The help and support I received on a road to recovery that took me 4 to years of hard, mental slog to cover and start applying for jobs again... was a lifesaver.

Whether heterosexual or of an LGBT persuasion, we are, each and every one of us, only human and human nature, being as complex a life force as it is, needs a helping hand from time to time and mind-body-spirit needs must reach out and take it. Never easy... but what in life comes easy to any of us? We may think some people have an easy life,  but few of us are ever privy to what goes on behind closed doors...

THE ENEMY WITHIN

Love turned its back on me,
yet would not run away,
but left me nailed to a tree,
(couldn't even pray.)

Pain alone left me free
to fight another day;
Love, my sworn enemy,
nails in a god of clay

Better stay angry than grieve,
avid ties sure to rot,
scars worm on a sleeve,
to prove - what...?

Love, like war and peace,
down to each of us

Copyright R. N. Taber. 2005, 2021

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM

Love hadn't touched me
for many years;
I'd let myself drift freely
on a Sea of Tears

Chanced to find peace
(or did it find me?)
and sought to anchor us
in that same blue sea

Sea of Sadness, no more;
blue, only the sky;
soul once bruised and sore,
bright as a swallow's eye

Ashore at last, for homing in
on your heart's outline

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2021

[Note: Both poems were written in 2004 and first appeared in my collection, A Feeling for the Quickness of Time, Assembly Books, 2005.]

Enemy at the Door

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

[Update: 19th July 2020]: The Covid-19 coronavirus is putting people under various degrees of  stress affecting their mental health - among all ages - around the world. We all need to be mindful of this and support each other long after the pandemic has run its course which is unlikely to be any time soon. Mental illness, to whatever degree, can wreck lives if left unchecked and untreated. Sadly, there remains a stigma attached to mental health and many people are reluctant to come forward and seek help; if you sense a loved one, friend or workmate is suffering, don't wait to be asked, but find a tactful way to offer help  and don't take 'no thanks, I'm fine' for an answer. It's never easy, especially as people with mental health problems invariably suffer mood swings and can be rude, even aggressive sometimes. I've been there, still got the tee shirt, and only survived with the support of some wonderful people who believed in me when I had all but stopped believing in myself.] RNT

Mental health is something that is finally coming out of the closet here in the UK, but here and the world over, still has a long way to go before everyone feels at ease with the subject. From time to time, I get emails from men, women and young people struggling to recover from what is referred to as a nervous breakdown, but doesn’t even come close to describing the sheer intensity of a roller coaster of emotions as likely as not ending in a nasty crash.

Sadly, more often than not when we try to explain bad, even criminal behaviour, it is seen as making excuses rather than a genuine attempt to understand; not only for the benefit of others but also, possibly primarily, ourselves.

I will be 75 later this year. Regular readers will know that I had a bad nervous breakdown some 40 years ago; although it continues to haunt me, I feel I’ve come to terms with its multiple causes which, in turn, has helped me achieve (in part, at least) a sense of atonement for its effects on others.

‘Work out your own Salvation. Do not depend on others’. – Buddha

While I agree with the Buddha that we need to work out our own salvation, accepting help should not be seen as a form of dependency, rather as a learning tool necessary to see us back on terra firma after going into free fall. It was nearly 4 years before I was able to start looking for and eventually got a job in which I would stay for the next 25 years. I could not have achieved this without the help and support of certain people to whom I am more grateful than words can begin to express.

My Good Samaritans did not include any family members, I suspect because they saw my need to discuss my behaviour at the time as an attempt to excuse it, and had neither the patience, empathy nor inclination to listen. Fair enough, but fortunately, not everyone turned a deaf ear, and in trying to explain, I, too, began, slowly but surely, to understand. Once there, I had foundations upon which to rebuild my life, and proceeded to work through what I saw as a form of salvation; in my case, through writing, for others as much as for myself, trying to share something of the lessons I had learned. (Coming to terms with being gay was a part of a learning curve I still see myself on some 40 years later.)

A thousand rights cannot compensate for a single wrong, but a sense of atonement, even if no one else sees it as such, does wonders in restoring a shattered self-confidence and faith in oneself. How far I have been successful has to be for others to assess, but I am more at ease with myself now than I ever thought to be again, hopefully deservedly so.

I once commented to an actor friend at the end of a play's successful run how well he and his fellow actors had performed, and how wonderful it must feel to be part of a close-knit team. He laughed. "You wouldn't say that if you had the faintest idea what goes on backstage!" he said with such feeling that I found myself reflecting how true of life in so far as it is too often the case that what we see is but part of a whole; the more important latter lies in what we don't see. I found that out the hard way while recovering from a mental breakdown some 40 years ago. Most friends and colleagues assumed I was perfectly well again years before that was true.

‘Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest fight ever.’ - Frank Bruno [Former British professional boxer.]

Few if any of us have the moral courage to freely acknowledge our worst fears, but until we do, we risk their getting the better of us; we need to share them with someone, give it a voice (even a poem) and the chances are it it will be our turn to have the last laugh. Mental illness is made all the worse for the stigma (still) attached to it, but all enemies have their own worst fears, of which by far the greatest is the power of the human spirit to overcome...whatever.

'Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.' - Socrates

This poem is a kenning.

ENEMY AT THE DOOR

I crawl passages
of mind-body-spirit,
less frightened
of the dark than daylight
where pain
lies in wait, ready to strip
and humiliate me
in its contempt for the vagaries
of human nature

I pause now and then
to read writing on walls
over centuries
sure to keep the likes of me
well out of sight
of any too close for comfort
to such cause-effect
likely to point fingers of blame
at human nature

They beckon me on.
the disembodied victims
of a vulnerability
considered (even by those
in the know)
best left to their own devices
as if life were a game
of Consequences, and the Devil
take the hindmost

I am Fear, common enemy
of the human spirit


Copyright R. N. Taber 2018

A Positive Take on Adversity or L-I-F-E. No Waiting Game

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

I have read poems at voluntary self-help groups from time to time. Many of the people who attend are on welfare and/or have mental health problems and/ or alcohol or drug related problems. These are fine people, trying to help themselves and each other with precious little help or encouragement from outside the group. It is inspiring to see them pulling together in adversity and learning to take responsibility for themselves and each other; a lesson the less enlightened among us would do well to learn instead of preferring to pass judgement on others.

Help, encouragement, reassurance...these ARE all out there, but rarely will they simply knock on our door; we need to knock on theirs and find the words to ASK. I well recall how my mother once told me that life is no waiting game, how we have to get out there and live it, and that means meeting each other at least halfway.

 A POSITIVE TAKE ON ADVERSITY or L-I-F-E, NO WAITING GAME

Coming together, supporting each other,

toes in the Sea of Life, getting a feel for the swim

rather than drown

Making an effort to come down to a shore

where seaweed and shells on shifting sands spread

rather than stay in bed

A part of a life tide’s natural ebb and flow

yet frightened of its fickle nature, all highs and lows

but a Hall of Mirrors

Alone, it is hard to bear the happy sounds

of children laughing, applause for ice cream chimes,

hints at kinder times

In good company, easier by far to break free

of shadows stalking us, driving us to seek sanctuary

in cages of our history

Together, let’s imagine wings, flex and fly,

take heart from songbirds rejoicing seashore and sky,

no matter where or why

As rough or fair as any sea passage may be,

let us look to fellow voyagers, let a creative empathy

reconstruct our history

Coming together, supporting each other,

getting a feel for wings rising above, learning how

to trust in Nature’s love

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared  under the title 'A Feeling for Seagulls' in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2007; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]