A Common Humanity, the Authorised Biography

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

Another new poem today, prompted by mind-body-spirit yesterday.

If any good can be said to come out of this awful COVID-19 it is that more of us have a sense of our all being in he same proverbial boat, regardless of any socio-cultural religious or, yes, sexual persuasion. Hopefully once the pandemic has passed, bigotry will have taken a bad fall if not disappeared altogether. Well, hope springs eternal ...

Across the world, people are struggling to cope various social restrictions, often at the same time as mourning loved ones who have passed away before their time. All due credit to humanity for its remarkable stoicism in the face of tough times.

A neighbour recently lost her mother. When I sympathised, she commented that "She is better off out of all this. I miss her terribly, of course, but her spirit will never leave me so I guess I just have to live with and be thankful for that." True, indeed. As I often try to reassure readers in my poems and blog preambles, love never dies.

Meanwhile, each in his and her own way, we can but continues to do battle with COVID-19 and trust that, when all's said and done, humanity is bigger than it, and will not only endure but survive whatever it throws at us.

A COMMON HUMANITY, THE AUTHORISED BIOGRAPHY 

Yesterday, already past tense,

having left its mark on us some way

or another, more elements

of memory likely to find us engaging

with such varying shades

of light and dark, colour, absences

of colour, and encounters

with such black and white images as preferably

glossed over by way of face-savings

Today, a sense of making the best

of times, enduring the worst, ever urging

mind-body-spirit to reflect 

on kinder, happier climes, lend illusion

all the colours of a rainbow

making promises it may (or may not) keep,

self-appointed Guardian of Hope

in sickness and in health, half-awake and asleep,

feeding mind-body-spirit raison d'être

Tomorrow, left foraging for crumbs

of comfort or even enjoying a hearty meal

where the cap (or metaphor) fits,

feeding human arts, nature, and archives

conclusions that may (or may not)

be grounded in fact, fiction or a predilection

on the part of human nature

to enter into such mind games as engineered by Time,

and passed off as history or philosophy

Call me Past-Present-Future, providing the diversity

that puts the ‘u’ and ‘y’ in a common humanity

Copyright R N Taber, 2020

[Note: this poem also appears on my gay-interest poetry blog today as feedback suggests a significant number of its reader "see no reason" to access this one.

Past-Present-Future, 'Live' Art

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

In mind-body-spirit - or personal space - I am always revisiting people and places I’ve known and loved; invariably they inspire a poem. It is one of my favourite pastimes, looking back at my life and seeing how (albeit unknown to me at the time) interaction with certain people whether they be loved ones, old friends, casual acquaintances or total strangers with whom I may well have got chatting at a bus stop, on a beach, wherever…have directly or indirectly affected me, and how I have progressed (or not) since.

Each time, I go there, I see parts of whatever whole from a different perspective, but always making a connection between my Then-and-Now and my Here-and Now, while also speculating how it may yet affect any or all of my tomorrows…

Each of us are links in various chains of existence; our own, of course, but also other people’s albeit any or none made visible, even to the inner eye, at any one time.

Once, at school some 60+ years ago, our Religious Education teacher, M Partridge, was asked by a classmate what happened to anyone who did not believe in God. Why, he wanted to know, should we go to Hell over a difference of opinion? Mr P did not hesitate. “One way or another, we make our own heaven just as we make our own hell here on Earth,” he replied, “… regardless of what or in whom we believe.” “God goes by different names according to our religion, but no religion has a monopoly on God because, above all. God is Peace, something we all deserve and aspire to. (I, for one, believe that’s what Death is all about.) As for the manner of such peace, who knows…religion shapes it one way but who’s to say there aren’t alternatives we devise for ourselves as we go through life. Does that answer your question?”

It didn’t, of course, and probably wouldn’t to any 14-year-old, but it certainly gave the entire class food for thought; food on which I have chewed over time and again, alone and among friends.  Rarely do we reach a consensus, but we enjoy agreeing to differ, thereby – to my mind at least – driving home the principle that our differences don’t make us different, only human. It is a sound principle (surely) and one that, for me, has its roots in a 50 mins R E lesson in 1959.

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, 'LIVE' ART

I’ve strolled, with ghosts,

by rivers and streams, crossed oceans,

climbed mountains, lain

in green fields under sun, moon and stars,

recreating time and space

I’ve chatted with ghosts

about living for days passing too soon,

finding and losing track

of lesser dreams, harvesting the best,

leaving the rest to others

I’ve wept with ghosts

for missed opportunities, love affairs

lost to poor choices

made in good faith, yet proving nemeses

to all mind-body-spirit

We have made promises

to each other, my ghosts and I, some kept,

many broken or filed

among heartbeats last heard of skipping

multiple lost causes

I’ll sing along with ghosts

of joy and regret, lyrics by sun nymphs,

happy-sad ballads

orchestrated by wind and rain as if to sustain

a kinder Here-and-Now

They wait for me, my ghosts,

where I, too, will inevitably take my place

in a consciousness

loath to surrender any gifts of word-deed

inspiring a greater good

I will know them, my ghosts,

whatever truths they may yet bring home,

though but silhouettes

against a feisty sunset on any favourite places

mind-body spirit revisiting

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019

Lines on the Human Condition

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

Love, like life, has its darker side. Some people have fixed ideas about love and will oppose anyone - including family members - who choose a different variation on the same eternal theme. 

The ability to turn love’s darkness into light is a gift passed on by lovers everywhere throughout history. Sadly, humankind’s other gift - for inhumanity - will all too often try to turn things around yet again…and succeed. It is down to each and every one of us to do our best not to let that happen.

We cannot stand by and let them invade our privacy, those who are blinded to the happiness of others by some misguided and/ or ill-informed interpretation of what is right and wrong.  

Every humanitarian needs to speak up against socio-cultural-religious traditions being used as an excuse for bigotry and sectarian division/violence where it is but the dark side of human nature that is to blame.

As for love…Gay or straight, two people in love have the basic human right to be in love. No one has the right to deny us that. World leaders who abuse their position to support anti-gay legislation (that means you, too, Mr. Putin) and religious leaders who choose to interpret their religion to much the same effect are a disgrace to humanity.

Whatever our ethnicity,  race, religion, gender or sexuality, we are all human beings and deserve to be treated as such.

LINES ON THE HUMAN CONDITION

Mind-Body-Spirit,

writing treaties in various tongues

on a mother’s heart

as it sighs over satirical goings-on

in comic strip cartoons

Mind-Body-Spirit,

providing a eulogy for the failures

of multiculturalism,

observing how occupied territories

live on empty gestures

Mind-Body-Spirit,

inciting revolution among dreamers

who would face facts,

repair broken words to make good

well-heeled intentions

Mind-Body-Spiri,

watching out for black holes blown

by wannabe martyrs,

sending love letters home on scraps

of roadside shrapnel

Mind-Body-Spirit,

last heard arguing for Human Rights

with a world’s tin gods

that so loves to blame their diversity

for its worst nightmares

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

How long Before the Next Bus? OR Fear on the Streets

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

Although this poem was not written until 2003, Stephen Lawrence loomed largely in my thoughts as the death toll among young people subjected to violent, sometimes fatal attacks in London continued to rise; it is still rising. The awful irony is that all the while knife crime remains prevalent, the more young people feel it is necessary for their own protection to carry a knife. 

Stephen Lawrence was an 18-year-old sixth form student. The black British teenager from Eltham, South-East London was stabbed to death while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993. It is only recently that two people have finally been convicted of a murder believed to have been racially motivated.

Racism, like homophobia and all hate crime is invariably fuelled by a prevailing gang culture and/or those less discerning socio-cultural-religious bigots among us without whom societies worldwide would far better served. Education is the key; in  schools, colleges and universities, but first and foremost in the home. Tragically, it is far too often the case that education is found wanting in all of these.

As a gay man, I cannot help but get the feeling that homophobic crime is rarely afforded the same high profile as racism among the press, police, politicians or parents. Oh, and why is that?  Does a person’s sexuality make him or her less of a human being than the colour of their skin? Whatever, discrimination in any shape or form is unacceptable in a civilised society.

HOW LONG BEFORE THE NEXT BUS? or FEAR ON THE STREETS

Blood on the pavement where a body lay

and later someone knelt to pray for the soul

of another youth struck down violently
long before his time; utterly senseless crime,
harsh indictment of a society as inclined
to pass by on the other side as rush to the aid

of anyone being attacked, since it could be
for the sake of not being able to buy some acid,
coke, crack, weed, designer gear, the colour
of their skin, a suspect sexuality or even simply
getting kicks out of attacking, maybe killing
someone, given the chances are some in-crowd
says it's 'cool' to look good, act big enough
give old ladies a heart attack, snatch a blind man's
stick for a (sick) joke. Why tempt fate. risk
pitting ourselves against wolves in sheep's clothing
for any of that?

Years on, the pain still tearing at modernity's 

flimsy fabric, as hate ripped a young man's jacket

whose blood at a bus stop tells its own story,

plaque meant as a memorial but also recalling
the vainglory of a fraternity never properly brought
to book, justice gone to ground so we'll never,
walk down any street without a fear shadowing us
that’s persistently perverting its course; no peace
in a sad world likely to stab us in the back any time,
no matter our ethnicity, creed, sex or sexuality,
(easy targets for the perversity of cowardly thugs)
on a street that could easily be mine or yours,
leaving yet another mother, father, sister, best mate
left grieving us, missing us, forever questioning
the ethos of contemporaneity, feeling abandoned
by a society, left watching anxiously for the next bus

that never comes

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]