The Old Curiosity Shop (and Slumping)

From Roger’s friend, Graham

Browsing Roger’s blog postings offers interesting snapshots through time. A shop of curiosities decked with gems formed in deep poetic musings, tattered postcards of conflicts and whimsical ephemera. Playthings of the imagination, broken artifacts of childhood and sketches of zeitgeists vanished. Garlands of dried flowers from summers past and evocations of smiling snowmen long melted. His inner eye ever seeking out that glimmer of fascination in grey streets and overcast skies. His beautiful soul always aspiring for a kinder, gentler world united by love and not divided by oceans of tears.

I must admit that I’ve never met anyone like him before or since. Such friendship is a treasure beyond riches. With the pressures and distractions of life it’s easily to lose sight of that. Certainly it comes as an overwhelming realization with the wound of loss. Healed by time, true enough, but some injuries feel deep-rooted with a dull ache resonating through months and years. I’m sad that I’m not able to call Roger today to compare notes on life’s ups and downs, make each other laugh and take off into wild flights of fancy. Just here, earthbound; trying to motivate myself…

It’s raining lightly here in Essex on a Sunday morning. Quiet with just the patter of rain and faint drone of distant traffic. A gaussian grey veil masks the sun. Smudges of blue tease with notions of fairer weather. The wide bow of the Thames estuary that I overlook reflects the sky like a dusty mirror. Sluggish and lazy. Even the raucous black-headed gulls seem muted, pensive.

I’m fortunate that I don’t have to work on Sundays. I’ll feed the birds shortly. (You’re never truly alone among avian friends.) And then a riverside jog to restore flagging spirits and vitality. I’ll prepare a vegan roast dinner, laze for a bit, and dive into the raging torrent of work emails! (This mitigates the horror of my inbox at the start of a working week.) Finally, some indulgent escapism with a movie and some un-milked chocolate.

I’ll leave you with a poem which I hope captures Roger’s enduring rallying cry to ‘rise above!’. Thanks so much for reading. Please feel free to dip in to Roger’s blog and trust to serendipity whenever curiosity overtakes you…

 

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‘Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.’  Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

‘The most important thing in life is to stop saying, ‘I wish’ and start saying, ‘I will’. Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.’  Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

 

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SLUMP or (ALMOST) IN FREEFALL…

 

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and all the people I’ve known,
wondering where have they gone?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and all the things I have done,
wondering where I went wrong?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and choices made from the heart,
wondering where fear played a part?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and lovers who promised to stay
but left within hours of a night or day

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and all the years wasted on regret
where I should have stood up to fate

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and every epiphany I’ve known,
wondering where did I go so wrong?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life
and growing older, weaker,
for knowing I could have done better

Slump in a chair, thinking about death,
and all the people I’ve known,
wondering if there’s a hell or heaven?

Slump in a chair, watching television,
soaking up soap opera friends,
lost the plot, left wondering how it ends

Slump in a chair, fret about being alone?
Not this time (slam on the brakes);
will get my life back, whatever it takes

 

Copyright R N. Taber 2008

The Anniversary

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2015.

As the UK - along with the rest of the world - continues to cope with the Covid-19 coronavirus and the subsequent stresses and strains it imposes on our everyday lives (as if there aren't enough of those in modern times anyway) crime continues to flourish, not least on our streets where tensions boil over and express themselves in a terrible violence. 

There are no excuses; reasons, yes, but no excuses for allowing the kind of pressure most if not all of us are under to get the better of common sense, not to mention common decency and respect for human life. Killers ultimately destroy their own lives as well as their victim's. As for pleading 'justice'; it is not for any of us to play judge and jury to the extent of taking the law into our own hands, much as we may well be tempted.

[Update: January, 2020]: Official figures released in April 2019 reveal that knife crime has surged to the highest levels since records began in England and Wales; worse, it continues to rise.] RNT

Memories are precious and love never dies. But let’s face it; it can never compensate for not having our loved ones with us and watching them get on with their lives.

Today’s poem is for families and friends left behind when a loved one dies. It is especially for parents who have lost sons and daughter; no parent should have to bury their child. Whatever the circumstances, death is always a tragedy for those left behind, but what can be worse than to be left with the image of a loved one meeting a violent end or never even knowing what really happened or having no body to bury…?

All knife and gun crime, but especially hate crime, and particularly among young people must stop.

While many parents, teachers, social and youth workers take every opportunity to lead intelligent, sensitive, debate so these killers realise they are not just killing a person but amputating the limb of a vital, living network of family and friends that will never be quite the same again.

There is nothing ‘cool’ about street crime. Young people who think it takes carrying a weapon to achieve street cred or even as a means of self-defence should bear in mind that someone could get so easily killed or suffer serious injury…and it could well be them.

Nor is time spent in prison anything to boast about. I once spoke with a young man who had spent time in prison but chose to turn his life around. I asked how it was in prison. He said unhesitatingly, ‘There wasn’t a day I didn’t wish I was dead.’ Thankfully, he is alive and getting on with his life in a very positive way. 

Every killer has a choice. Tragically, victims killed in the course of violent crime on our streets have no choices left. (I read somewhere that most killers regret their actions, but as my mother used to say, regrets are cold comfort in any language...) Meanwhile. family and friends are left struggling with what-might-have-been...

THE ANNIVERSARY 

No grave to tend, but a street corner

to leave flowers, recall

how here it was where last we'd 

laugh off our being so much in love

as if it were child's play

Leaves, scattered over paving stones

where once we children

loved to play, I-n-n-o-c-e-n-c-e

like the tail of a kite in a feisty breeze

all but free to go its own way

Come twilight, more haunting shadows

marking time before darkness

effects its cover-up for humanity,

half the world sleeping, the other dying

for a chance to have its say

No grave to tend, but a street corner

where anniversary flowers

can but hope to message passers-by 

how sick minds think it could well be fun 

to stick a knife in someone...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2018     

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title, 'The Kite' in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2002]