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].

Name:
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 10 January 2020

Behind Every Coffin, Another Question

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

Here's another poem from one of my collections as I begin to compile editions that will include revised poems (already on the blogs) for posting as e-books; revised versions of my poems are already on the blogs, but not all my poems so, as requested by some readers, I am adding them now.

The the courage of armed forces around the world cannot be disputed nor their loyalty to the country they serve, but what of those responsible for deploying them wherever its politics dictates or rather, the politics of whatever party dominates its corridors of power...? Do men and women in the world's armed forces die for their country or to satisfy some hidden, even personal agenda creating a nasty draught in those same corridors.?

Political leaders often have a hidden agenda, that much emerges from their choice of words when called upon to explain or justify their actions, although proving it is invariably another matter...

Oh,  and what of all the innocent men, women and children caught up in conflicts over which they have precious little (if any) say or control? The media may well speculate and those directly affected by the consequences of conflicts around the world will debate in huddles on street corners or - more likely - behind closed doors, and so it goes on,...behind every coffin and injury, questions rarely answered to anyone's complete satisfaction.


BEHIND EVERY COFFIN, ANOTHER QUESTION

We salute the fine men and women
redeployed to fight in the safer interests
of their country, those not returning 
kept safer still in the vaults of memory

We salute the fine men and women
redeployed to fight in the safer interests
of their country, acts of friendly fire
but tragic accidents waiting to happen

We salute the fine men and women
redeployed to fight in the safer interests
of their country, trust any returning
shall feel no insult added to injuries

Who leads in the corridors of power,
redeploying troops in the safer interests
of their country, and by what criteria
does its politics prefer to define ‘safer'?

Who leads in the corridors of power,
redeploying troops in the safer interests
of their country to fight shadows
not into killing by any natural rules?

Who leads in the corridors of power,
redeploying troops in the safer interests
of their country, pledging solidarity
in its newspapers, on radio, and TV? 

What say we to the men and women
redeployed to hell in the safer interests
of their country since no politician
can tell anyone what is really going on?

Behind every question, another coffin


Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

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

























[Note: Revised (2013) from the original as it appears in print  eds., 2012]

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Monday 17 December 2012

Winter On Civvy Street

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

Regular readers will know that I am a shameless Doris Day fan. The National Film Theatre on London’s South Bank is showing some of her movies throughout December and I have managed to catch a couple: Young Man with a Horn, based on the life of legendary Jazz trumpeter Bix Beiderbeck and my favourite Doris Day film, Love Me Or Leave Me. Oh, but it has been a real pre-Christmas treat!

Meanwhile…

Today’s poem is dedicated to less fortunate people everywhere, especially emotionally damaged ex-service personnel like the subject of the poem with whom I chatted one wintry night in London  several years ago. I bought him a hot meal and a few teas at a nearby café, as he relayed a stumbling, tumbling tale of family life blown apart all but as effectively as a roadside bomb had killed his best friend while serving in Afghanistan. I toyed with the idea of inviting him to share Christmas with me, but when I returned from the café’s toilet, he had gone. I looked, but there was no sign of him amongst a flurry of snow outside.

I tried several times to write a poem about that evening, but have only just completed one of which I like to think he would approve. He would not tell me his name, but I guess he could have been any one of many people returning from fighting this war or that anywhere in the world, unable to return to anything like the way things once were.

Was he gay, people ask? Oh, and what has sexuality to do with it?  True, gay men and women fight in wars, too. (Take the Great War poet, Wilfred Owen to name but one…) As it happens, though, I didn’t ask…and why should I?

One of life’s greater ironies is that peace can be just another war…something perhaps to bear in mind during Christmas or any religious festival calling for peace in our time?

WINTER ON CIVVY STREET

Icicles, dangling from a roof
like frozen tears in a homeless soldier’s beard
house cringing from all it has seen
and heard during years it has stood on the street,
watching war wives and widows struggling
to make frayed ends meet, keep up appearances 
for wishful thinking

Icicles, starting to melt, old house
unashamedly crying for the homeless soldier
walking its street in mid-winter, no place
to call home since returning from the Front Line,
haunted by dead friends, missing comrades,
walking wounded…all terrorising a mind’s eye
with wishful thinking

Icicles, smearing honest brickwork
with what has to be the saddest graffiti nature
ever left (if briefly) on the face of a house,
whose cosy curtains come alive with firelight
and companionable shadows, testament
to a kinder Spirit of Christmas and its poetry
of wishful thinking

Icicles, gone without leaving a trace
like the homeless soldier, long since moved on
to some other blurred, nameless place
that’s, oh, so scarily similar to that Front Line,
tossing images of love, hope, and peace
into the next coffin alongside a growing rage
with wishful thinking

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

[Note: First published in CC&D v 242, Scars Publications (U.S.) March 2013 and subsequently in The World at War, Forward Press, the same year.]




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Saturday 30 June 2012

War Talk

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

How often, I wonder do we really think about what we are saying or even mean what we say, bearing in mind that our choice of words may well leave us vulnerable to misinterpretation?

The world  owes much to the men and women in its armed forces wherever they may be. Nor should we ever forget that we owe as much if not more to their families and friends (along with everyone else) who, time and time again, are called upon to pick up the pieces of life, love and hope whenever and wherever lives fall apart; a time of peace, for some if not most of us can be another kind of war.

“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”  - Ernest Hemingway

Yet, justify it, we invariably do if only by that old stand-by, rhetoric.

WAR TALK

What do people mean when they talk about
the 'integrity' of war?

Is it a comment on the neatness of body bags
laid out in a line?

Or maybe they are referring to injured people
rising above despair?

Can it be they mean the finer principles of war
have been upheld?

(Doesn’t everyone do their best to keep friendly
fire incidents to a minimum?)

Maybe its generals court integrity for strategies
of ‘win some, lose some’?

Can it be politicians promote their own integrity
to win elections?

Maybe it’s all about being polite, discreet, about
to whom the spoils of war?

I asked a soldier who lost an arm and a leg in Iraq,
but he just shrugged

Maybe (the soldier said) I should ask the orphans
and widows…on both sides?

Lots of questions and not nearly enough answers
or (any?) right ones

Poor humanity, ever caught in a cross-fire of words,
come worst of all worlds

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012; 2018



[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Next of Kin have been Informed, but should Refrain from Asking Questions' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]



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