The War Widow

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

Tody's post is from the archives of my gay-interest blog for November 2010 after ‘Edith’ (a lady in her 90s) kindly contacted me to say that she and another war widow friend were moved by it. It appears that the friend's great-grandson has taught them to use a computer and access the Internet. I have to say it is wonderful to be contacted by someone from an age group that often has reservations about using the Internet if only because they feel intimidated by new technology. I will be a mere 65 next month but it just goes to show that we are never too old to learn new tricks.

To my surprise, Edith also told me that she enjoys dipping into my gay-interest blog as well my general blog. It appears she has always felt and thought of herself as a war widow since the death of a female partner who joined the Wrens (WRNS) during World War 2. No one knew of their relationship at the time of course. As far as anyone else was concerned they were simply two friends sharing a home. Apparently, they met at school and were secret lovers for some years. She never married or found anyone else to share her life that way but says she feels blessed for having loved and been loved.

Edith, it seems, has led an active life and continues to ‘feel blessed by wonderful friends and neighbours.'

A sad story, yet, beautiful too. Many thanks for sharing it with us Edith. A lesson there, too, perhaps for those only too ready to rush to judgement on LGBT folks worldwide...?

THE WAR WIDOW

A soldier’s widow knelt at his grave,
their children by her side;
comrades-in-arms gathered nearby
wondering (never aloud)
whose turn next to shed tears
at whose grave

A soldier’s widow swore on his grave
to love him till the end of time,
raise their children to take great pride
in a father whose presence
felt with lasting passion nor less
for his absence

The soldier’s widow took the left hand
of a thirty something veteran
who had lost his right hand in Iraq
the first time around
before the Mandarins of Power
had second thoughts

The soldier’s widow rose, took comfort
from the young man’s smile
that shone like a beacon of hope
from his wheelchair
among the wreckage of a life
once thought inviolate

A war widow wipes her children’s tears,
the Last Post ringing hollow in the ears


Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

Buddy Joe

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

I posted this poem on my gay-interest blog some eight years ago; you can find it in that blog's archives for January 2011. (Archives are listed on the right hand side of any blog page.)

As is the case here in the UK, it has been 'acceptable' and legal for LGBT people to serve in armed forces around the world for some years, but many still choose to remain closet for fear of losing the  respect of their colleagues as much as various reprisals and bullying that invariably go unreported.

The poem was inspired by a conversation with a veteran of World War 2 whose partner has been killed in action. In those days, of course, same-sex relationships were illegal. During the since I wrote it,  I have had similar conversations with young (and older) men (usually in gay bars) who have lost partners on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan. [No, I wasn't necessarily cruising. I guess I have the sort of face people feel they can open up to.] Two of these guys were serving soldiers.  Same-sex relationships may be legal now, even in the armed services, but as one guy put it, 'Let on you're gay in the army and you're fu**ked up good and proper.'

I was only glad to be in the right place at the right time so they could pour their hearts out as only one can to a complete stranger.

I am posting it here today because I had a similar conversation not so long ago with serving army officer. He made the point - and rightly so - that it gay people are good enough to fight and die so the rest of us can carry on with our lives in pace, how come they are not considered (by many) good enough to command our respect simply on the grounds of their sexuality?

Same sex relationships have been practised for aeons, so isn't it high time the rest of the world got real and ceased attacking the likes of your truly, often on the grounds of unfounded stereotypes and fake news by way of innuendo and gossip, not to mention the occasional exposure in the press, most of which are blown up out of all proportion? Yes, there are gay people who set a bad example to the rest of us, but can any die-hard heterosexual claim, hand on heart, that the same is not true of certain heterosexuals the world over? As my closet officer friend commented, "...we come in for more abuse than so-called Islamic State, for chrissake, I ask you!"

A person may not agree with or even approve of another's sexuality, but what business if it of theirs anyway, and whatever happened to agreeing to differ?

BUDDY. JOE

The day buddy Joe left town,
my heart missed a beat, I nearly died;
I prayed for his safe return
at our secret place - and cried

No one knew how buddy Joe
and I shared a love the law forbade;
my grief I dared not show
for the dreams that once we made

Buddy Joe went to fight a war
in a land of which he’d scarcely heard;
of many others gone before,
the powers-that-be gave little word

The day of buddy Joe’s return
my heart missed a beat, I surely died;
as they lowered his coffin down,
for once my tears no cause to hide

No one knows how buddy Joe
and I indulged a passion the law forbade;
the world has another hero…
I can but grieve the dreams we made

To life restored, piece by piece,
and if sometimes taking a wrong turn,
I'm the richer for love and peace
that to Joe I’ll always look and learn

Copyright R. N. Taber 2006

Giving the Lie to Glory

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

[Update, June 17th 2019]: Some readers have said they would like to read some of my poems again but either can’t find them on the blogs or haven’t time to look. Until recently, I was able to link posts/poems past and present to Google + but Google recently deleted its personal G+ sites, retaining only business sites.  A reader, Max, has kindly emailed me to say he misses my Google + site, but “Whenever I find a poem I really like, I make a note of any search words or phrases in the labels column and use them to find more poems …” Well, thank you Max, and I'm sure some readers will find the tip useful and time-saving. For the record, search words and phrases include  climate change, communication, creative therapy, culture, death, depressions, friendship, ghosts, guilt, history, human nature, human spirit, imagination, innocence, inspiration, love, mind-body-spirit, memory, peace, mortality, nature, past-present-future, personal space, posthumous consciousness, peer pressure, prostate cancer, religion, relationships, sexuality, society, time, war and young people, zen... among others. [Another reader has asked why I often hyphenate several nouns to imply they are one; it's because I see them as inseparable one from the other, a continuum in which we human beings are pivotal, for better or worse...

Meanwhile…

I was in a bar once where an injured soldier was being asked about his experiences in Afghanistan. Someone mentioned the word, glory, which met with excited murmurs of approval and expressions of admiration. ‘Glory?’ the young soldier exclaimed in disbelief, ‘You must be kidding! Haven’t you people learned anything?’

Good question...

November 11^th is Armistice Day closely followed by Remembrance Sunday. Since we are only just into October, some people have suggested I should wait until then before posting any poem in remembrance of those who have given their lives in two world wars and subsequent conflicts worldwide as well as those bereaved families left to get on with their lives as best they can; remembering, too, those who have suffered physical and psychological injury and their loved ones who are helping them to live as full as life as possible.

Ah, but every day is an anniversary for those who bear the emotional and/or physical scars of love and loss, in times of war and peace alike.  

Armistice Day or Veterans Day or Remembrance Day, whatever  we call it is an important anniversary; an opportunity for people to come together as a nation to commemorate those who have fought to try and make the world a kinder, safer place in which to live. Nor do I exclude our enemies, most of whom were (and are) ordinary men and women fed the propaganda of unenlightened politics by those they are persuaded to look upon as their 'betters'.

'What passing bells for those who die like cattle?' - Wilfred Owen (Anthem for a Doomed Youth)

This poem is a villanelle

GIVING THE LIE TO GLORY

Sure to give the lie to glory

(for all its medals won)

who live war’s horror story

No contemplating bravery

(the job has to be done)

sure to give the lie to glory

Struggling with the futility

of a friend’s mind blown,

who live war’s horror story

Flagging up a bull for history,

red rag to a politician

sure to give the lie to glory

Proud aloud, scared privately,

in for the duration

who live war’s horror story

Blind eye, tight lip, testimony

to the injured and fallen;

sure to give the lie to glory

who live war’s horror story

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Poppies, for Remembrance

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

Today’s poem was written in 2004 and appeared in my 4th collection the following year; it has also appeared in an anthology, The Colour of War, Forward Press, 2011.

I have written almost as many poems about the tragedy of war as I have about the inspiring quality of love, much influenced by the powerful poems of World War I poets like Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Brittain, to name but a few.

The irony cannot be lost on anyone. Given that the horrors of war have been passed on so graphically from generation to generation since, it neither prevented World War II nor this sorry world of ours remaining a battleground for various socio-cultural-religious-political forces worldwide.

Here in the UK, as Armistice Day approaches, many of us buy a poppy as a symbol of remembrance; the money raised goes to the British Legion, a charity that, for many years, has provided financial, social and emotional support to members of the British armed forces, veterans, and their dependants.

National anniversaries of remembrance rightly salute the dead, but the dead would not want those they leave behind or injured friends and colleagues who survive to be forgotten either. Charities like the British Legion  and Help for Heroes have stepped in where successive Governments much prefer not to tread.

Countless poppies, countless tears; hopes, shared by millions for a peaceful world while haunted by the growing sense of a twenty-first century no less inclined than any other to the rhetoric of peace.

  

Photo: Cenotaph war memorial, London (UK)

Created by ceramic artist Paul Cummins with setting by stage designer Tom Piper; ceramic poppies commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of World War scheduled to progressively fill the dry moat around the Tower of London until Armistice Day, November 11th, 2013.

Photo: In the war memorial Neue Wache (Berlin) the moving sculpture, 'Mother and her dead son' by the Berlin artist Kathe Kollwitz says it all...

POPPIES, FOR REMEMBRANCE 

In two world wars, and conflicts since, they died

for love of country, freedom and their own;

shells, mortars, bullets and bombs they defied

so we may reap the rewards they have sown

Let’s remember those who never came back,

(sitting comfortably, watching TV);

Somme, Dunkirk, Korea, Falklands, Iraq...

(So much for the lessons of history!)

The wounded, too, deserve our thanks and pride,

some forgotten, left but to fade away

in pain, loneliness, no one at their side

as fought with them so bravely, won the day

World in remembrance of hope, prayers and tears

for peace in its time to yet end its worst fears

[From: A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Between Wars

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

Since 2001 I have introduced all my books with, ‘Colour, creed, sex, sexuality…these are but part of a whole; it is the whole that counts.’

Now, I was recently informed by someone ‘in the know’ that it is politically incorrect to say ‘colour’ and I should say ‘ethnicity’ instead.

Having asked various people from various ethnic backgrounds how they feel about it, none said they were offended and most agreed it was yet another example of political correctness gone mad. One woman told me, “You’re white and I’m black. What’s offensive about that?  As for ethnicity, as far as I’m concerned, my ethnicity is the same as yours. I was born in London into a family of third generation immigrants. Yes, I’m proud of my great grandparents’ roots. But my roots are right here in London. Besides, I’ve got better things to do than take offence where none is meant. In any case, it’s not what you say that matters but how you say it, right?’

She is so right, as far as I’m concerned, but please feel free to email me [rogertab@aol.com] if you have any thoughts on this.

Meanwhile…

Today's poem has appeared on the blog before and is one of several that I am reinstating; it was inspired by a conversation with someone waiting for a loved one to return from a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Unable to live with the stress, my companion had sought comfort with someone else until realising that comfort is no substitute for love. It took a while, but she worked at getting her marriage back on track. She and her husband are expecting their first child in the summer.

The poem is dedicated to all those serving in armed forces abroad, regardless of ethnicity, creed, sex or sexuality, and to their loved ones waiting for them to return home, some, of whom, of course, may not...

BETWEEN WARS

In a fairy tale wood,

dwarfed by leafy towers,

we planted seeds,

watched for flowers;

none did we see

that childlike summer

you promised me a love

to last forever

You went to war

(Iraq then Afghanistan);

I found another,

my heart a safer haven;

broken promise,

a fairy tale shot dead

for a soldier, kill or else  

be killed...

One night I dreamed

I ran among ruined towers

where dragons roared,

giants trampling flowers…

What of our seeds?

I had to save them or try;

nature’s needs abandoned,

like love, will die?

Truth to learn,

nature leaving no choice

but to return,

listen out for its voice

where leafy towers

like rousing sermons rise,

clouds rehearsing love songs

in lonely skies

All was much the same

(restored, glittering towers)

as you called my name

through late summer tears…

Back to war you’ll go,

yet never leave me, watching

love bloom, grow, anticipating

every homecoming

[Note: First  published under the title 'Never Leave Me' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]

Nightmare on Civvy Street

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

I was against the war in Iraq and have never been any too happy with the presence of our troops in Afghanistan. However, both are down to our politicians. Our servicemen and women are doing a fantastic job and deserve nothing less than our 100% support. (M.O.D. please note).

While I fully support anti-war demonstrations, I have nothing but respect and admiration for those front-line men and women who risk their lives daily in the name of peace. Many pay the ultimate price. Others do not receive the 100% support to which they are (surely?) entitled. The dead invariably make headline news, but what about the injured?

There are, of course, two sides to every war. Both genuinely believe they are in the right. We should not be too quick to condemn an enemy comprising many ordinary men and women who, too, risk their lives in a common cause...however much other may deplore that cause.

Whatever, politics fights a dirty war with precious little thought (if any) for those in the front line other than its own [The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a prime example.]

There are various charities available to help serving and ex-serving armed services personnel. The w
former wife of one told me that her husband was ashamed to ask for help, but the stress on their marriage contributory factor in their divorce.

No one but no one should ever feel ashamed to ask for help as and when they need it; it takes courage, but that first step is, in fact, a giant leap for common sense, not to mention a slap in the face for local gossips who know f**k all.

NIGHTMARE ON CIVVY STREET

A soldier, an arm and leg in traction
(truck blown up by a mine)
reassuring us he feels fine, just fine…
while half-listening to pulp fiction;
no regrets, he says, well worth
any price he’d known he might pay
for the thrills and kills every soldier
sees but as Hobson’s choice

As the audio story starts to spread
dark mischief in his one good ear,
he leans forward as if trying to peer
into shadow lands of the dead;
war’s is mother’s milk, he explains,
to those with subtle convictions
like its paymasters and those politicians
floating victory on the wind

The audio voice ducking and diving
the whistle of a sniper’s bullet,
the blind young soldier ducks a hit;
beads of sweat, waking nightmare
without end, need help but ashamed
to ask, need to brave it out in case
anyone guesses there's a human being
behind the hero's smiley mask

Honourable discharge, fighting off tears
for all the world's nightmares

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: This poem first appeared under the title 'Sweating it Out' in On the Battlefields of Love by R N Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; rev. ed. in e-format in preparation.]]

Red

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

Some readers may be interested to know that I read today's poem among others on the 4th plinth in London's Trafalgar Square in July 2009 as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley's One and Other 'live sculpture' project. (That summer 2,400 people were randomly selected to do their 'own thing' for one hour, 24/7 over 100 days.):

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18

Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, wherever… war and various conflicts world-wide make most if not all of us see red…not only for the loss of life and those left psychologically scarred but also because the politics behind them is invariably suspect, to say the least.

On Home Fronts, too, find bigotry and prejudice creating various socio-cultural-religious divisions within world societies.

If politics can be a dirty business, there can be none so dirty at the Politics of Red.

RED

Shades of red, as colouring world religions,

writing political agendas

When I open my heart, I see red - the colour

of your courage

When I open my eyes, I see red - the colour

of my pain

Red, too, shades of our last sunset before you

left do your duty far away

Red also, on the flag that covered your coffin

as a band played you home

Red, these eyes, that have no tears left for us

but must see their way clear

Red, these lips that will never kiss yours again

but must reassure generations

When I open my heart, I see red - the colour

of your blood

When I open my eyes, I see red - the colour

of my rage

Shades of red, as colouring humankind’s boast

of a common humanity

[From: Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

File On a War Hero

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

Today's poem was inspired by a conversation with a homeless ex-serviceman begging on the streets of London.

We talk about victory and peace, but... peace of mind? Now, that's something else for many people, especially ex-service personnel. Although more is being done than ever before to help rehabilitate men and women in the armed forces returning from front line action, a significant minority continue to slip through the net.

Ironically, many people seem unable to tell the difference between the most graphic news items recorded by war correspondents and blockbuster war movies!

Meanwhile, family and friends of those who have mental illness issues as a result of witnessing the horrors of warfare have some insight and often, in their turn, suffer awful consequences.

Here in the UK, attitudes of the healthy majority towards mental illness still leave much to be desired.

Certainly, those who fight for us, are killed or injured and/or suffer post traumatic stress disorder in one form or another…deserve better.

FILE ON A WAR HERO

Mind closed down for spam,

like a dead computer;

any spare cash for a fall guy?

Heart, wounded and weeping

on loved-ones who left;

any spare cash for a fall guy?

Close my eyes and I can see

ghosts parading the street;

any spare cash for a fall guy?

Close my ears and I can hear

folks cheering us on;

any spare cash for a fall guy?

If God’s closed the file on me

He’s not the only one;

any spare cash for a fall guy?

Cops closing in to move me on

(no medals left to sell);

any spare cash for a fall guy?

Can’t open up for dying inside

among pals blown apart;

any spare cash for a fall guy?

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]

  

Last Post

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

[Update March 12 2018]:Today’s poems (on both blogs) a were written especially for Remembrance Sunday. I am repeating them here not only because 2018 marks 100 years since the end of World War 2 but also because we should always remember.

'They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.' -  a stanza from 'For the Fallen' by Robert Laurence Binyon 

(1869-1943) as published in The Times newspaper on 21^st September 1914.

Yes, let us remember always...not only our war dead and their families but also those wounded in wars past and present and their continuing battle with pain just for getting on with their everyday lives in ways so many of us take for granted. We owe them...and how!

Ah, but when will humankind ever learn? Oh, when will we ever learn...?

LAST POST

They shot me down on foreign soil
and the first sound I heard was a child’s cry
at the moment of birth
and I wished the child and parents well,
that they would see a kinder end
than me, wracked with pain, no less so
for knowing I would never see
either homeland or loved ones again
yet had done my best (can anyone
do more?) and had no regrets but one
about fighting a war like this

A continuing absence of peace

They lay a black cloth over my face
so I should not see comrades close to tears
for the worst of fears
we put behind us who fight such wars
as we don’t always understand
but do our duty though it be in a land
as far away from the pub
on the corner of our street as heaven
from hell where they all but meet
here in Afghanistan

A continuing absence of peace

They put me in a box and closed the lid
so I would not feel the tears of passing clouds
on the journey home
or hear the strains of the Last Post
acknowledge me gone
nor see the flags lowered as silent crowds
line the streets of a small town
taking me to their hearts as if I were one
of their own, as they have done
for others like me, making our journey
less lonely for this

A lasting empathy with peace

The first sound I heard as they lowered me
into the earth was a child’s cry at the moment
of birth and I wished the child
and parents well in a kinder world than this
that saw me fight to save it
from a hell of its own making, no less so
for centuries of tradition
and a culture of oppression seeking
to break free while keeping faith
with its finer principles and (far) kinder
ways than this

A continuing absence of peace

“A good person, worthy sacrifice, fine soldier...”
Too late, I cannot hear.

Copyright R. N. Taber 1999, 2010

This second poem is a villanelle, written July 2009 to mark the death of Harry Patch, the last British veteran of the First World War.

A FEELING FOR PEACE AND QUIET

On old Memory Lane, all is quiet
for those who fought a war to end war
so we may make our peace with it

Among cries of the fallen, a shout,
(At ’em lads, at ’em, that’s the score!);
on old Memory Lane all is quiet

They bore old age, faces firmly set
to do them proud who had gone before
so we may make our peace with it

We will always be in their debt,
dead and wounded on a foreign shore;
on old Memory Lane all is quiet

We must never even try to forget
those whose freedom’s colours wore
so we may make our peace with it

War, war and still more of it yet;
on the landscape of love, a weeping sore;
on old Memory Lane, all is quiet
so we may make our peace with it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: 'Last Post' first appeared on the Internet in Ygdrasil, an online poetry journal 1999; both poems are included in my collection On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]