Engaging with Disillusionment

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

Not infrequently, readers (among others) people confide how they feel helpless against a tide of socio-cultural-religious forces manipulated by various leaders to their own advantage and/or agenda to the detriment of anyone who chooses not to wear a mask. ‘Why are we all so divided?’ someone only recently wailed in my ear, ‘Why must it take a tragedy like a terrorist atrocity to bring people together …until innate differences start to drive them apart again?

On the grounds that repeating the obvious is sometimes necessary if only to prevent its being lost in a sea of trite, I often make the point in my blogs that our differences do not make us different, simply human; we can and should learn from them, not gang up against them. Far too many if not most socio-cultural-religious leaders are invariably quick to agree in principle, but less willing to practise what they preach.

So… what can we do?

It is (surely?) down to each and every one of us to live our lives as best we can and try not to be judgemental, the very trap our leaders and so-called ‘betters’ would have us fall into by appearing to refute it, thereby planting the very seeds of division in our minds that suit their individual purposes while cleverly avoiding either blame or responsibility.

A socio-cultural-religious metaphor may well be a chess master’s political strategy where the likes of you and I are taken to be vulnerable pawns; it is, however, a game that two can play...

Being our own person (no pressure or aspiration to be someone else) and living our lives as  best we can, refusing to be put down by unfair or irrelevant comparisons...now, that is what's known as being on a winning side.

Who wants to go through life being made to feel a loser by so-called 'betters' who are often only any better than the rest of us by virtue of their being in a position  to make us feel worse,various  if only by pulling invisible strings attached to various socio-cultural-political and/or religious trappings lending them a sense of authority?

ENGAGING WITH DISILLUSIONMENT

What is it really all about,

I’d ask myself as a child, this growing up

among restless giants…?

Why do giants have a mask

for every occasion, always seem so wary

of letting any slip…?

(Why must I tread so warily

for fear of offending by just being honest,

speaking my mind…?)

Diplomacy is all very well,

but no substitute (surely?) for keeping faith

with basic principles…

Oh, and what of love’s light,

come to guide us through a darkening world,

but frequently cutting out?

Yes, we need rules to live by

or sheer chaos likely to get the better of us all,

but who rules what, for whom?

It’s a discerning inner eye

that perceives the flaws in any moral authority

over anxious to flex its muscles

So where does that leave us,

who can but trust basic instincts albeit thwarted

at every turn of phrase and policy?

It leaves us strong, stoic, free

to speak up, make ourselves seen, felt and heard,

risk being ignored, mocked, bullied…

Or... what has it all been for,

I ask myself each new day as time rushes on past

and I grow old…?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poems appeared on the blog several years ago under the title 'Living with Giants'.]

Extracts from a Migrant's Diary

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

This may well be the last (new) poem I will blog before I go into hospital next week (Monday) for an operation on my infected elbow. As it is my right elbow and I am right-handed, keyboarding will almost certainly take longer for some time. Even so, I will link to posts/poems via my Google Plus site as and when I can. Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy browsing the blogs as I may be unable to link to poems vis my Google + site as I try to do on a daily basis since being asked by regular readers to make accessing poems easier than random browsing:

https://plus.google.com/118347623673930289606

This poem was inspired by a conversation with a migrant from war-torn Syria some months ago.

EXTRACTS FROM A MIGRANT’S DIARY

Dreaming of distant lands,

sapphire seas, golden sands, treasures

of mind-body-spirit

equal to none, prize worthy of a poem,

can’t be measured out in coin  

Dreaming of distant shores,

where birds sing a welcome in the ear,

reflected in the shy smile

of a passer-by, equal to none for peace

and love, cue for a better life

Dreams of landing on the moon,

peering back through time and space,

seeing how Here-and-Now

offers so much more than once a place

to call home before crisis-hit

Waking to street sounds roaring

like a pride of hungry lions hunting prey

in a concrete jungle,

no sapphire sea, golden sand, birdsong

a warning, wishing them gone

Waking to damp stains on walls,

courtesy of landlords whose first language

a rhetoric counted out in coin,

invested in one-upmanship, measure

of a common nouveau status 

Wide awake, fierce stirrings within 
a body-mind-spirit so weary of battling time
and tide, yet forever inspired
by a rage to live, no matter the odds 
against winning the peace

Copyright R. N. Taber2017

Toys in a Window

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

Today’s poem was written in 1981, but it was not until the 1990’s that I began submitting poems for publication.  At the time, I was mid-recovery from a severe nervous breakdown s few years earlier. Writing helped considerably towards an initial if fragile recovery that eventually saw me looking for (and finding) a job some18 months later. 

I would like to think I am more optimistic and a shade less cynical about life and society now, but…

Well, we all know what thought did…

TOYS IN A WINDOW

At a window on my life I gaze,

close my ears to the weary windings

of clockwork days, try to imagine

how it might be should these stiff-neck

streets ever cease their turning me

to what I am - part of this global sham

of human boast, comprising toy folk

for the most if a few taking  heart still,

tugging at the sleeve as a child will,

ever anxious to leave the plastic places,

and cartoon faces undermining a flair

for freedom on see-saw, swings, among

other things we forget soon enough

while struggling for reasons unknown

to keep some stubborn noon design

intact; part of the same act invariably

put on for each day’s passing us by,

sure to earn a slow clapping in the head

at bedtime from other toys in the hands 

of toymakers aspiring to coax cash mules

to the world’s water holes

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was first published in a Poetry Today (Forward Press) anthology, Looking through the Mirror of Life (2000) and subsequently in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

Wannabe Hero or the Real Thing?

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

A 'regular' blog reader has contacted me via the the Comments Box to ask that I repeat the link to an interview I gave about my poetry to a postgraduate student of multi-media journalism who emailed to ask if I would mind being the subject of a project. Benjamin Richter, a very talented young man, and I have his permission to post the link on my blog. As the blog reader did not give an e-mail address, I am posting it here in the hope that he or she will read today's post. You may need to copy the link into your browser to access:

https://r224e31251.racontr.com/index.html

We all have our own take on dreams, psychiatrists not the least. Many if not most of us like to think of ourselves as - subconsciously at least -  painters of our own dreams rather than simply subjected to whatever some proverbial Sandman happens to dish us. Some years ago, someone put to me that the greater part of what we know as wakefulness is but a dream, and the greater part of what we call sleep, a living nightmare. An interesting hypothesis, I thought at the time, and wondered how we would be expected to tell to which mind-body and spirit truly belongs...?

I guess it's much as my old English Teacher, 'Jock' Rankin used to say, "You can set your mind to anything if you try, Taber, but don't always expect to succeed, and never forget there is always a  price to pay one way or another."

For the record, I am still trying...

WANNABE HERO OR THE REAL THING?

I've painted pictures
only I will ever get to see,
an alternative reality
to the world surrounding me,
confounding me, creating
an alternative persona to one 
I am meant to be

I have lived in pictures
where only I will ever go,
a surrealist panorama
of the world surrounding me,
confounding me,
creating the kind of person
I 'm not meant to be

Ah, but in every picture
I'll never (really) get to see
a vibrant wood
for a heavily painted tree
or sail an ocean
for expecting its every wave 
to answer to me

I might even mistake
cloud shapes for skylarks,
even missing out 
on nature's other songs 
for starry heavens 
inviting a poet's (wry) take
on life and death

There are no people
in my pictures, smiling,
waving, kissing...
only ghosts, ever gesturing
loss, regret, and pain,
daring me to make the best 
of a sorry world

I archive the pictures
only I will ever get to see
an alternative reality
to all that's surrounding us,
(still) confounding us,
making of us what we will,
we sleepwalkers

Though the memory
exhibit visions of the mind,
imaging what lies
behind the world's chaos
and our confusion,
let's not mistake art for life,
risk missing out

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015

Detour

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

Sometimes we feel let down, even betrayed. and wonder why we carry on. On such occasions, I have always looked to nature for reassurance, strength and inspiration...

DETOUR

On a road of broken dreams and shattered lives,
I took a detour down a dirt track;
among leafy trees, green fields, sheep grazing,
I revisited Earth Mother;
we had been estranged, she and I, for some years
yet it seemed but yesterday
I had risen with larks, let a lullaby of nightingales
lull me into false hopes

I felt fingers stroking my hair as I passed through,
as if to reassure a prodigal child,
but I was bitter for what I (still) saw as a personal
act of betrayal and deceit;
had she not let me believe the finer things of life
would always survive the worst,
yet abandoned me on a road of broken dreams
leading nowhere?

At dusk, a nightingale greeted me like an old friend
but I pretended not to hear
as I settled on a bed of sweetest smelling heather,
afraid to close my eyes;
sleep, though, eventually penetrated my defences,
left me vulnerable
to the iron resolve of Earth Mother under its cover
of gentle persuasion

I journeyed through dark centuries of pain and grief,
defiant ghosts for company,
showing me killing fields where peace and love left
for dead but rose again;
they planted in me, my ghosts, an unspoken trust
to keep faith with them;
accordingly, I flew off on the wings of a dawn skylark
into a new awakening

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