The Zen Guide to Eating Out

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

I have eaten out several times with friends lately, and it was a real tonic, especially as I have not been feeling too well. It doesn’t have to cost a lot either.

Whether the meal is excellent, average or could be better…there’s nothing quite like eating out (or in) with old friends. We chat a lot (with or amongst each other, not on our phones!) which is all part of the fun. Mobile phones are great in SO many ways, BUT you can't beat face-to-face conversation. Some people, especially among the young, should try it more often while we older ones need to lead more by example lest it become an all but forgotten art.

This poem is a villanelle. [OK, I take a few liberties with 'hidden' rhyme - as regular readers will know I am inclined from time to time - but isn't that a poet's prerogative...?]

THE ZEN GUIDE TO EATING OUT

Welcoming and airy,
ever a good place to eat,
cue for good company

Bubbles of memory,
seducing us on the street,
welcoming and airy

A hint of strawberry
worthy of a summer meet,
cue for good company

Shades of a history,
regular Sandman’s beat,
welcoming and airy

Heavens, an eternity
to argue, ponder and wait,
cue for good company

A scrumptious reality
for mind, body, and spirit,
welcoming and airy,
cue for good company

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005. I posted a revised version on the blog in 2014 and have recently revised again in the light of critical feedback from readers, which I always take seriously.]

Overheard in a Cafe (A Sign of the Times?)

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

This poem reflects just what its title suggests, a conversation overheard in a café. I have included it in my new collection. I came away from that cafe feeling more than a little relieved that I am not alone in finding the various world religions divisive.

Societies force-feed us religion from childhood. It is reassuring to know that some people manage to take the better (kinder, more compassionate?) elements of religion while sidelining the rest, breaking away from the dogma while retaining its spirituality in the way they take other people as they find them...without rushing to judgment as so many religious-minded folks are inclined. It is not religion that is at fault, but many of those who preach it, selecting to home in on whatever suits their own agenda; an agenda that may well have far less to do with religion than its founders intended.

Let's be clear here. I am not knocking religion, only those who use it to their own advantage, frequently feeding a desire for influence and power that is contrary to all the principles upon which faith and religion are meant to turn.

It is to their credit that a good many followers of this or that religion are by no means as gullible as their self-styled leaders appear to believe, proving that religion does not have to be as divisive as their so-called 'betters' paradoxically insist.

As for me, regular readers will know only too well that I take my spirituality from nature.

(Image taken from the Internet)

  

OVERHEARD IN A CAFÉ (A SIGN OF THE TIMES?)

What would we do without religion,

where would we be?

For a start, we’d have a kinder world,

less bigotry

What would we do without religion

telling us what to say?

For a start, commonsense might just

win the day

What would we do without religion

putting us in our place?

For a start, love and peace, not about

saving face

What would we do without religion,

no God to blame?

For a start, a common humanity living

up to its name

Where would we be without religion

separating us out,

Holy Books vying with each other to

put us right?

Where would we be without religion

promising salvation

for all the guilt, despair and grief

it feeds upon?

Where would we be without religion,

what would we have done?

For a start, arguing over some other

rhetorical question

Yes, waiter, more tea and cakes please

and…any answers?

[From: On The Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

Conversation Piece(s)

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

The original version of today’s poem was written in 1976 and has appeared in several poetry magazines and anthologies. I have since made some revisions, but retained lower case throughout. Why? Because I still feel it makes the point that conversations are like jigsaws; as we try to piece it all together,  we may well find ourselves making poor (not necessarily bad) guesses,  as if our bigger picture in our mind's eye doesn't quite correspond to that on the box cover. 

Now, this may not be one of my best poems, but it remains a firm favourite of mine, not least because it turns on a theme to which I will return time and again in my later poems; a breakdown of communication between two people on a meaningful, personal level in modern society, not least for each of them looking at the same picture in the same conversation's frame, but from different perspectives. The result can be thoughts and conversations left hanging, not unlike gaps in a jigsaw looking to be filled. In terms of conversation, this can only be resolved once those concerned accept the need to keep the same picture in view while allowing for its being approached from different angles.

Here we are in an age of increasingly sophisticated technology, yet fewer and fewer people ever sit down and talk to each other, and I don’t mean making small talk or talking at people (because we so love the sound of our own voices?) or IM'ing on social networks, Internet chat rooms and mobile phones....  I mean face to face sitting down and talking things through, and listening to each other.

Oh, but I have met so many people - members of my own family included - who will only talk about something if they know they are gong to like what they hear; so much as any hint of opposition to their point of view, and they don’t want to know. As for confronting home truths, that is rarely if ever on the agenda; nor can they be persuaded by any suggestion of a mutual exchange.

So is it any wonder that so many relationships fall apart, family members become estranged, best friends become sworn enemies and work colleagues cannot stand to be in the same room as each other....? 

It takes two to talk and two to listen or the chances are there will be more wrong assumptions, misunderstandings, misinterpreted actions or words distorting our personal space than man-made waste polluting the atmosphere.

When did YOU last have a worthwhile two-way conversation or frank exchange of views with someone close rather than let them eat away at your patience till it snaps...or worse? A jigsaw requires patience to piece together the picture on its box. While some of us may well feel we live in boxes, those cover pictures may well be very similar, but rarely the same unless we happen to be on much the  same wavelength. Could that be why the Spirit of Love excels at human jigsaws...?

CONVERSATION PIECE(S)

not a bad day,

so I’ve heard say 

over the jam

could have been worse;

by the way, I saw a hearse this morning

outside number five

good to be alive,

even in a cactus twilight creeping

under the skin

there’s a scratching 

at the door, better let the cat in I suppose,

but before I do...

tell me, who else 

knows about us or even suspects 

anything...?

here we sit, you and I,

like figures at that hearse, scratching away

with each eye...

for something to say 

after clocking up much the usual

hours apart...

what’s that?

okay, I’ll go let in

the cat

Copyright R. N. Taber 1976; 2012 

[Note: An earlier version of this poem has appeared on the blog under the title  Conversation Piece, also in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000] RNT