A Window in Time

 

(From Roger’s friend, Graham)

 

Hi everyone,

Over the years I’ve attended many of Roger’s poetry readings. Many took place in public libraries or art centres. Occasionally they were part of an events programme for LGBT+ History Month (February, here in the UK). Often, friends and old colleagues would attend.

I recently discovered a sound recording among Roger’s personal effects. A reading at the Society of Genealogists hire space, London, back in March 2017. Hearing his voice again was evocative. It made me recount those many convivial evenings enjoying poetry and wine. More interestingly though, it offers the listener an extra dimension. They’re more expressive and nuanced than mere lines of printed verse. The added intonation and emphasis illuminates and counter-shades the narrative.

I’ve opted to add some imagery. A simple slideshow really, which hopefully provides a suitable backdrop. My plan is to publish the entire reading in full on Roger’s YouTube channel. For now though, I’m including a link to the first part here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klMtjNWuSQ

Happy listening and thanks for reading.

Graham

 

*  *  *

 

ROGER TABER - POETRY READING

Tuesday, 21 March 2017

 

PART 1

Close Friends, Distant Lives

A Short History of London

The Busker or Music, Spirit of Life

Last Take on Multiculturalism

Whatever Happened To Love?

The Ballad of Neighbour Joe

Darkness, The Poetry of Mixed Feelings or The Scenic Route To Daylight

View From A Church Window

Life At The Shallow End or Keeping Up Appearances

The Zen Of Counting Beans

A Family Connection or Time Travel Firsthand

Harvesting Imagination

Looking For Answers or Passing Comment On The Human Psyche

Mother Love

The Guardian

 

(CC) R N. Taber 2017

 

Love in all its Rainbow Hues

 

From Roger’s friend, Graham

Growing up is challenging enough, even without the burden of stigmatisation for loving someone of the same gender. There’s room for improvement here in Britain, but generally LGBT+ citizens have equal rights enshrined by law. In places of employment (excepting religious organisations) discrimination on the grounds sexuality or gender identity is illegal. Since the Civil Partnership Act in 2004, same sex couples can join in a legally recognised partnership. And after the UK Marriage Act in 2013, LGBT+ couples are able to marry.

Marriage is perhaps the ultimate expression of love for those fortunate enough to find a soulmate. It’s also a declaration of love to family, friends and beyond. For couples with religious faith, it’s a sacred vow of love with God as their witness.

Love is also a scintillating rainbow of sentiments. Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle wrote of a whole spectrum of emotions such as friendship love; philia, familial love; storge and passionate love; éros. Greek mythology also abounds with inspirational tales of profound and tragic love such as Orpheus and Eurydice. Love can be the light of your life - or the heart of your darkness…

Roger explores these epic themes expansively throughout his writing. Sometimes in sonnet form - popularised in Elizabethan England by William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. (I hope to explore this theme in a later posting). His printed works often devote a section to the theme of love. They are, doubtless, poems interwoven with personal experience.

Roger and I occasionally discussed past relationships and compared notes on our respective missed opportunities, dashed hopes and even disasters. Alas for Rog, he wasn’t lucky enough to find a long-term partner. Although I believe his romantic soul never lost hope in meeting someone special.

In later life, I feel assured that Roger derived fulfilment through the reciprocal love of close friendships. Can this be enough to sustain anyone in the absence of a partner, estrangement from family or societal ostracisation? I imagine we’d all have a differing answer. Throughout my own voyage of self-discovery, friendship has certainly proven to be the most unconditional form of love. An enduring bond with Roger remains testament to that.

 

*  *  *

 

‘Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.’ Dalai Lama

‘Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.’ Voltaire

‘Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.’ Oscar Wilde

 

*  *  *

 

I’ll leave you with a trio of love poems – all from Accomplices to Illusion, Roger’s 2007 collection. I should explain that I’m staying with family presently - with only one book for source material. Wiltshire offers a welcome change of scenery. Tall oak trees surround the house. Their upper branches sweep back and forth like an artist’s frantic brushstrokes on a grey-marbled canvas. I look out on the small garden; the colours of shrubs diluted under a dull watercolour sky. A crow flies past; its hoarse cry breaking the mesmeric spell of birdsong. It fades to a black smudge on a watery treeline.

Thanks for reading.

 

*  *  *

 

NIGHT WATCH

I have greeted chimes at midnight
lain half dead at the toll for one
as my lifeblood ebbs to a starlight
behind clouds, watch all but done

I have heard the clock ticking over
for the passing of happy hours…
nor shall, when it stops, run for cover
but embrace a time forever ours

I have heard sweet songs at sunrise,
watched the last stars slip away,
seen my life’s light bright in your eyes
promise a beautiful spring day

As nature pauses at stark winter’s cold
so lovers dream, beyond a growing old

 

Copyright R N. Taber 2007 [a sonnet].

 

*  *  *

 

BONDING WITH ETERNITY

It was love opened up my heart
to all life means to me…
nor shall death its bonding part

Sands of time, soulmates at the start,
a song of destiny;
it was love opened up my heart

May the world no finer truths impart
than its natural beauty;
nor shall death its bonding part

Like summer skies, stars, even clouds
charting a fragile humanity…
it was love opened up my heart

If a taste on the tongue sweet or tart,
our togetherness a delicacy;
nor shall death its bonding part

Be nature’s kin struck by poison dart
comprising all humanity…
it was love opened up my heart
nor shall death its bonding part

 

Copyright R N. Taber 2007 [a villanelle].

 

*  *  *

 

WEATHERING LOVE

When I dream of you it is a springtime
of high hopes I’ll not forget

When I think of you it is midsummer,
(that rainy day we first met)

When I speak of you, each word is like
an autumn leaf that’s falling

When I hear your name on another’s lips
it’s but a winter robin calling

At nature’s whims, a beauty, each its own
though we weather it alone…

 

Copyright R N. Taber 2007.

Regret, Companion to the Fool

 

 Roger, 1945-2023. A note from his friend Graham

 

Welcome from the ‘Essex Riviera’ at night. Thank you for reading.

Job, a minor contributing author to Bible canon, suggests that ‘wisdom comes with age’. Although I’m fairly sure that accumulating years merely confers experience and wrinkles. It’s rather retrospection that informs better choices.

Roger always promoted the idea of agreeing to differ. Even where diametrically opposing opinions clash. It’s the difference between a feisty debate or a blazing row. It is the discipline of healthy discourse, rather than viewing an opposing opinion through the distortion of ad hominem. In a wider sphere, it’s the difference between coexistence and war.

It is an uncomfortable truth that, as with most friendships, Roger and I had our occasional arguments. Even to the extent of hitching up petticoat tails and flouncing away in high dudgeon! Looking back, especially now that he’s passed away, I regret those occasions. They evoke a sense of self-recrimination, and rightfully become somehow absurd under the shadow of mortality. Most of our arguments occurred in the early days of our friendship. Predominantly over my awful timekeeping. I was in my early 30s and so blasé about punctuality. It annoyed him intensely - and rightly so. Mea culpa.

In so many ways, Roger made me a better person. He encouraged me to read great works of literature. He offered constructive criticism with my early attempts at poetry. A mentor really - as well as a best friend. We agreed on most things. But there were contentious issues at times.

The toppling of Edward Colston’s statue by student activists on 7 June 2020 in Bristol, being an example.* Yes, it’s true that destruction of public property is, on the face of it, criminality. And true, reinterpreting history for a political agenda is also problematic. (In this instance relating to Black Lives Matter.) However Roger’s disapproval of ‘vandalism’ by students seemed to me at odds with his core ethos on decrying hypocrisy. It looked like a sop to a politically conservative viewpoint (or perhaps it simply highlighted our generational divide). He regarded the removal of the bronze cast (by John Cassidy, 1895) as a version of mob-rule (ochlocracy). The destruction of ‘art’, Roger suggested, was a prelude to another Kristallnacht** and the horrors that followed in its wake. It remains a valid viewpoint.

But was it really ‘criminal damage’ or mindless destruction in this case? There’s something inescapably symbolic, and subjective, about placing a figure on a pedestal in a public space. It implies moral virtue. Specifically, Colston (1636–1721), a pious, ‘Christian’ man and MP, made various grandiose gestures to charities like Almshouses - to great public acclaim (virtue-signaling in modern terms). A self-publicising philanthropist. Although, his effigy emanates that unholy stench of hypocrisy. As an investor in the slave-trade, he weighed the lives of enslaved Africans as little more than chattel. Does this eugenicist worldview inspire civic pride among Bristol’s multi-ethnic community…?

It seems befitting that Colston’s effigy was cast into the depths of Bristol Harbour. A watery grave shared by so many of those rebellious West Africans aboard trans-Atlantic slave vessels. Karma perhaps. Nowadays, let’s face it, Colston would be languishing in prison for people smuggling and modern-day slavery - rather than occupying the elevated position to which his blood-money afforded him. In my opinion, ridding the public space of him was an act of cleansing. And a collective gesture of moral aestheticism. It is surely valid to question the legitimacy of those figures who are held aloft as pillars of society? (As are the motives of those local civic leaders who strive to keep them there.)

With hindsight though, I realise both our opinions were valid. Both grounded in history and both informed by moral conviction. Opposing interpretations…

I think the point I’m trying to make is that obstinacy (or hubris) has a price to pay. It can be an obstacle to making amends with someone dear to our heart. And to some extent the conceit that accompanies a fervently held opinion deafens a person to other perspectives and blinds them to another’s legitimate counter-argument. It mutes expressions of regret and stifles the words ‘I’m sorry’. It is the genesis of regret. In my experience, a degree of humility is easier to live with than regret.

 

‘A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams.’ Yiddish proverb

 

Notes:

* It was quite a heated disagreement. I think my indignance stems from visiting Cape Coast and Elmina slave castles in Ghana, 2006. Both housing churches to administer blessings and hear the prayers of men like Colston. And their depravities regarding enslaved female Africans resulted a fair-skinned, biracial local population that continues to this day.

** Nazi thugs destroying Jewish homes, hospitals schools and businesses in Germany, 1938.

 

* * *

 

REGRET

I move with favour or prejudice
among men, women, children;
To whomsoever calls me out, I will
always answer, no one denied
the music I bring, Blues I sing;
Rich, poor, famous, infamous, saints
and sinners… welcome to tap into
a wisdom some say down to Fate,
lessons learned too late

I touch without favour or prejudice
the loose thread missing a button
that old sock, empty vase in rooms
yawning with boredom for what’s
on TV and must have heard that CD
a thousand times (surely?) though
any sound better than none and
(finally) settling for a plaintive purr
by a lap tray set for one

I bury without favour or prejudice
forgotten dreams, misspent ideals,
wishful thinking on falling stars…
meant to light a kinder, better world;
alas, not meant to be though we
mull over old letters, photos, poems,
home videos… as dead as the cat
whose meows we miss and listen for
at every mealtime

I move without favour or prejudices
among life’s pleasures and losses

 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015. From the collection ‘Accomplices to Illusion’.

Lines on the Politics of Personal Space

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

“Friendship improves happiness and abates misery by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of out grief.” Marcus Tullius Cicero

 “We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.” – Stephen Hawking

“As an anthropologist, I believe strongly in our common humanity. We can rise above the tribal divisions that have caused so much anguish and real damage in the past.” - Alice Roberts

“Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact”.  -William James

Now, In many ways, today’s poem-post continues yesterday’s theme/s. 

Many people, especially LGBT + folks, including yours truly, have been very disturbed and upset by the banning of rainbow armbands on the pitch during the World Cup in Qatar in support of diversity  and Human Rights; even fans wearing similarly supportive headgear have been told to remove it before entering the ground. Even so,  this action by the authorities  - including and backed by FIFA - has possibly brought the subject  even more to the fore of people's minds across the world than was intended; an own goal, so to speak, by Qatar.

Oh, and one cannot help but admire and applaud the Iranian football  team's bravery for refusing to sing their national anthem by way of making a similar protest.. Hopefully, they will not be subjected to abuse by the Iranian regime on their return home...

As regular readers will know, and some share the sentiment, growing old(er) can be heavy going at any age; either the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak or circumstances cause us to lose heart altogether and depression sets in. Somehow, we have to find our own way to rise above certain everyday ups and downs that challenge us all. (No, never easy, but… we have a choice?)

I recently had a bath lift installed after being unable to get out of the bath for a good thirty minutes some weeks ago, due to mobility problems.😀 A walk-in shower might have been suitable for some, but not someone like myself who needs to be extra careful not to get water in my ears due to perforated eardrums. After being trapped that first time, I did devise a strategy for getting in and out of the bath, but involved a degree of acrobatics that was an accident waiting to happen. Now I feel safer. 

Two close friends were a huge help and supervised my first attempts. They helped boost my patience and self-confidence to the extent that today I managed my first unsupervised bath, using the lift with no one around to help even if I needed it. Sounds simple enough, I know, but nothing is simple once years of hormone therapy for prostate cancer have messed with your thought processes. Yes, I experienced a few teething problems today, but at least I will find the next time I take a bath, a less scary and more relaxing experience.

We all need help sometimes, just as we all need to find our own pace for doing whatever, despite the pace of modern life threatening to leave us behind for one reason or another. 

Well, let it threaten; the human spirit is not easily put down… not for long, anyway, despite any temporary put-downs…

LINES ON THE POLITICS OF PERSONAL SPACE

Life is making the most of its seasons,
growing older, hopefully wiser to the tricks
time so loves to play on us all,
mind-body-spirit continuing to engage 
with an enduring heart-and-soul, 
endeavouring to keep us on the right track,
no matter such ways of a world
that would have us playing deaf, blind and dumb 
to the Politics of Outcome

It’s a tried and tested mind-body-spirit
needs to keep drawing on the native patience
at its command, constantly encouraging us
all to stay true to an evergreen heart-and-soul
urging we engage with patience, 
such patience as will see us through tough times,
head held high, resolutely refusing 
to be cowed by such ways of the world as see many
feeling defeated and empty

The world may well have its reasons,
temptations, and calls to You-Me-Us to comply,
though heart-and-soul cries out
to defy, ignore, turn a deaf ear, no matter
any alternative desires;
wiser by far to steer through troubles and strife,
follow the road map our senses
assure us will lead to far kinder, better times in store,
well worth waiting, working for...

Such is the gift of heart-and-soul, to a shared humanity,
if but the patience to devise a winning strategy

Copyright R.N. Taber, 2022

A Life in the Day of Mind-body-Spirit

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

“Make the most of your regrets; Never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it ’til it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

“Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom. Think of love as a state of grace, not the means to anything, but the alpha and omega. An end in itself.” – Gabriel García Márquez  

“Look closely and you will see almost everyone carrying bags of cement on their shoulders. That’s why it takes courage to get out of bed in the morning and climb into the day.” ~ Edward Hirsch

“Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.” – Charlotte Bronte

Now, as each day passes, my 77th birthday looming (in December) I am often hard pressed to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. I so miss being young, fit, able to make plans and feel confident that I will be well enough to not only carry them through, but also enjoy and learn from them. I miss having friends around for cosy chats and a laugh; many have moved away now and mobility problems make travelling difficult.

Ah, corny though it may sound, the human spirit really can keep us young at heart and soul, if only we will let it, Rarely (if ever) easy. We can but try, even if, as life itself invariably proves, it’s a case of ‘win some, lose some…’

A LIFE IN THE DAY OF MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

There are times in any life
when the flesh is weak, but the spirit
remains as strong as ever,
whatever its reasons or seasons,
be it a spring, summer, 
autumn or winter of mind-body-spirit;
it perseveres, encouraged
by a heart-and-soul, wiser beyond its years
to sources of human tears

There are times in any life
when waking after a poor night’s sleep 
leaves the body too weary
to even raise a smile at dawn’s rising
above early mist and cloud,
trying to force its way to half-open eyes 
and ears, through drapes 
at windows obscuring Everyman’s perception
of life, love, regeneration…

Finally, though, mind and body
takes its cue from what lends it sense,
sensibility and stability,
from birth to death, whatever in-between
may lie in wait, ready to pounce
and test us to limits sure to weigh heavy
on any host body, 
all the love attending it beseeching its survival
of Humanity’s heart-and soul

Alas, not every ear that hears
can comply with every caller’s bidding;
no call, though, is ever in vain,
no matter of the human outcome be loss,
and pain, in whatever form;
living, partly living, or stored in Memory’s
vault of eternal springtime,
there remain such ways for all selves to choose,
every which way, then…loose?

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

Sometimes...

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

 “And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” – G. K. Chesterton 

“…Remember you are half water. If you cannot go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”- Margaret Atwood

"Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse the earth, the air and you.”- Langston Hughes

The unseasonable heat, having got me down, I went for a walk in a welcome downpour yesterday. Not enough rain to ease the drought situation here in London, but enough to make me feel alive again, and up for whatever...especially after a friend caught up with me who was feeling much the same; we could not put the world to eights, but we managed a pretty good job on each other... 😁

SOMETIMES…

Sometimes, I lose myself
in dim passages, open spaces,
even on familiar trails,
a sense of loneliness for nowhere
to turn, no one to ask
whom I can trust not to mock me,
but understand why
I feel as I do, no Happy Wanderer, me,
but sad, anxious and lonely…

Sometimes, I need to walk
in the rain, let it soak me through
till even self-pity wearies
of getting nowhere fast. when a gap
in the clouds, lets the sun
sneak back in, grinning down at me.
not unsympathetically,
but as if anxious to remind the likes of me
there’s no salvation in self-pity

Rain teeming, sky seeming
to mock me for being, not a realist,
but a defeatist in the face
of such adversity that’s demanding
more of me than is fair,
given less of me to blame for seeking
inspiration from raindrops
as if they were ideas, but badgering my skin 
to let heart-and-soul back in 

Rain, easing, but teasingly,
as if calling on all mind-body-spirit 
to wake up and get real
with life as it is, not always as we dream 
nor we, ourselves only
to blame for it’s not working out for us
we can hide our tears
in the rain for just so long, before loved ones 
embark on wrong conclusions

Rain, giving way to Apollo,
long enough for sunshine and smiles
to light up a world
that can’t see its way to helping us out
unless we start confiding,
instead of hiding away in personal spaces,
making out we’re coping,
just pretending to get by, a fear of losing face
awarded faux pride of place

Out of nowhere, a friend suggests we find shelter;
soon confiding, laughing, feeling better...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022

 

Hi, folks, from London UK

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

Hi, folks, from London UK

Sorry, everyone, no poem today. Yes, I am working on one, though, and hope to post it here soon.

Meanwhile, several readers have emailed me to comment on yesterday’s poem, given that I don’t often depart from my passion for internal and/ or external rhyme. For some years now, I have contributed to a US poetry magazine, CC&D, published by Scars Publications whose editor only accepts blank verse or poems where external rhyme is absent. 

Scars have released a collection book of the January-April 2022 issues which includes my poem ‘Classroom Politics’; the book is called ‘Unfinished Business’ and can be ordered from Amazon; to submit a poem and/ or ask for further details regarding other Scars publications on sale and to access to the works of various contributors, including yours truly, contact: ccandd96@scars.tv for various links.

Another reader, PW, asks how I am coping with my prostate cancer, especially in the light of how years of hormone therapy have messed with my memory and thought processes generally; his mother has recently been diagnosed with dementia. For me, as well as writing up the poetry blogs, Wordsearch books have proven a godsend; they are fun, relaxing and challenge the thought processes all at the same time, much as crosswords do (at which I have never been any good.😉) Wordsearch books are available from The Works stores around the UK and/or can be ordered online.  For more details about these books and other items such as jigsaws etc: https://www.theworks.co.uk 

PW also asks how I "cope generally" with growing old and living alone. Readers often ask this and there are no easy answers. Yes, I get lonely sometimes and family, friends and neighbours friends can be a blessing, of course, but, generally speaking, I guess it’s a case of providing mind-body-spirit with the willpower to deal as best we can with the many and various obstacles that can present themselves to any of us anywhere, at any time; more so, possibly, as we grow old, physically and/ or mentally  less able to run such gauntlets.😉 At the end of the day, though, I suspect it’s all down to that old rogue, Hobson’s, choice…(wry bardic chuckle)

Positive thinking is the key to life, in whatever field we endeavour to excel or at least make our presence felt. For me, it has been the key to surviving health and psychological issues that have plagued me for much of my life; even though it hasn't opened many of the doors I hoped it would, I am still here to tell the tale, so I just focus on the positives in my life - past and present - and try, as far as humanly possible, to avoid the kind of pitfalls attached to any negatives...😉

Now, without digressing entirely, PW also asks if my poetry collections are still in print. Some UK public libraries may have copies in a Reserve Stock collection. Unable to find a publisher in the UK, not least because I insisted on including a selection of gay-interest poems, I only self-published a limited number of volumes of each title. (I probably gave up trying to find a publisher too soon, but health problems took the wind out of my sails.) An American publisher agreed to publish one volume, but messed me about to such an extent that I finally withdrew from a potential contract by mutual consent. I continued to contribute to various UK poetry magazines for some years, but latterly have only published to my blogs. Maybe one day…

That’s it for today, folks. Do browse the archives attached to any of my poetry  blogs, sometime, where you will find an assortment of earlier posts-poems. In the meantime, I will endeavour yet again to stir willpower and thought processes to work on a new poem. As I have said before, I don't expect everyone to like every poem I write. Hopefully, though, everyone will find poems they can relate to and/ or enjoy.

Many thanks for dropping by, 

Take care, stay safe, and keep well,

Hugs,

Roger

[Note: PW also suggests I upload the novels on my fiction blog to Google Books, as well as promoting them, along along with my poetry blogs, on social media. I will certainly give  Google Books some thought as  Blasphemy is already there; Sacrilege  was intended as Book Two of a trilogy, but the American publisher who had showed an interest in publishing the trilogy, lost interest when Blasphemy failed to give him the kind of access to the UK market that he'd hoped for. Subsequently, I lost interest in writing Book Three (Redemption) as I was quite ill at the time anyway. A younger version of yours truly would almost certainly have pressed on, but growing old has a nasty habit of undermining self-confidence. 😉]

Hello again, from London UK

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

Hello again, from London UK

I thought you might be interested to know that, according to the stats on the home page from which I publish my poem-posts on blogspot.com, readership now stands at 203,004. So, a BIG thank you from yours truly for staying the course with me.

I did not think many people would be interested in my poetry when I first started writing up the blog    nearly 10 years ago, especially as feedback from poems I have published in UK magazines and elsewhere was not always in a positive vein. One reader went s far as to complain that “... I don’t see how you can write general and gay-interest poems of the socio-psychological kind you write and call it poetry...

Clearly that reader hasn’t read much poetry; all poetry attempts to convey a socio-psychological landscape as the poet sees it at any moment in time. As for my gay-interest poems, the title of the blog to which I publish them speaks for itself, surely? Some heterosexual readers have even browsed it from time to time; feedback suggests they have found it helpful in coming to a better (and kinder) understanding of LGBT family members, friends, peers and work colleagues. It is due to such encouragement that I have continued (and enjoyed) writing up all three blogs.

While it is true that my gay poetry blog lags behind this one, stats confirm close to 169,000 views, so I am well-pleased.

There are both gay and general novels on my fiction blog, whose stats are much lower, approaching around 22,000 views. I enjoyed writing my novels, but came to the conclusion that I am no novelist. I cannot deny I was disappointed to discover this about myself, and seeing pipe dreams of fame and fortune burst like playful soap bubbles.

As Robert Louis Stevenson suggested: "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive." (Virginibus Puerisque,1881.) Besides, nothing, including fame and fortune, is ever quite how it is portrayed by various media which, in turn, brings to mind another old truism along the lines that none of us knows quite what goes on behind closed doors. The rich and famous are only human, after all, and life is no less likely to have its ups and downs for them as for the

Need to rest now. It is inly mid-morning here in the UK, but while growing old doesn't have to be a major issue in itself when like, yours truly, you are having to contend with various health issues as well, it is no picnic...😉 Even so, I continue to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life and urge you to do the same; never easy at any age, but the alternative is we spend our lives peering into The Abyss while life itself passes us by...

Bye for now, folks, and many thanks for dropping in. I am working on a new poem and hope to publish it here very soon.

Take care, keep safe and be sure to treat those who show they care for you with the love and respect they deserve,

Hugs,

Roger

Hi Folks...

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

Hi folks, 

Yes, me again in London UK. I've been having a bad day with the prostate cancer and mobility problems, so just dropping by to let you know I hope to post a new poem tomorrow. More to the point, perhaps, is that it helps provide a better quality of sleep if I can stay up a bit later rather than go to bed earlier, however exhausted I might feel. My sleep will still be interrupted (ole Prostate will see to that) but the chances are I may well sleep more soundly between toilet interruptions.😉

Several readers have emailed me to ask just how the cancer affects my quality of life. Well, it certainly does Q o L no favours, but  worrying and hinging about anything never did anyone any favours wither, so as I have said before, I keep nurturing as positive-thinking a mindset as I can (most of the time) and try not to dwell to much on Q o L being in decline and adamantly refusing to measure it on a scale of one to ten... or I would probably burst into tears. 😉

I can at least count myself very fortunate in so far as I remain free of Covid-19 and its variants, although I sometimes wonder why I have been spared so far when far more deserving folks and families have lost loved ones. I live alone, after all, have no family to speak of and, yes, friends would miss me and I them, but it's hardly the same as losing a life partner or close relative...

Such are the ups and downs of life, neither rhyme nor reason to many of them; we can but do our best to overcome the latter and move on, although, as I have said many times on the blog, moving on means leaving no one behind who has contributed to better, kinder, happier times... such memories never die, continuing to support and inspire us even as we struggle to put any hard times behind us.

Oh, yes, I really do practise what I  preach or the prostate cancer and other health issues would have  seen me laid out on a mortuary slab years ago...😉

As I'd invariably I hit hard times when I was younger, I would think myself into a positive frame of mind, look and drive myself  into forward-thinking mode and devise a plan of action (of sorts) rather than start feeling sorry for myself.; after all, travelling hopefully has always had the advantage over going nowhere fast. 😉

Although I have reservations about coronavirus precautions being relaxed next week here in London and much of the UK, especially with a new Omicron variant doing the rounds,  I took the plunge recently and ventured farther afield than usual, taking the London Underground  to have lunch with an old friend in a favourite pub. We enjoyed catching up over a meal and several pints. I only allowed myself one pint and two half pint glasses of Guinness, but had a bad night all the same. Even so, it was well worth it; if friendship and good conversation requires the occasional sacrifice, so be it...😉

Well, time to bid you all "Goodnight" here in London and many thanks again for your supporting the blog and giving me a good reason for getting up in the mornings during the pandemic, not forgetting your motivating me to write poems, among which I hope you will enjoy some, at least, and feel lighter of heart  for reading them as I do for writing them. Although my poems attempt to convey various shades of nature and human nature, I always try to end on a  positive note. Well, it has to beat the alternative, yeah...? 😉

Take care, dear readers, and keep well,

Back again tomorrow with (hopefully) a new poem that is proving a devil to get right,

Hugs,

Roger

Peace and Goodwill, True or Bluff?

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

I used to love playing 'True or Bluff' with friends, although I could never quite shake off  a sense of its being a game I have engaged in all my life that is no game at all but part and parcel of mind-body-spirit's tenuous grasp of what, indeed, is true or bluff... no less often with myself than with others in all walks of life, at various levels of consciousness and conscience.

On the subject of Christmas, a clergyman once told my Sunday School class that “Religious festivals are all about bringing peoples of the world together in the sight of God.”  to which a voice piped up, loud and clear, “He must be get very disappointed by what he sees then...”

Everyone laughed... whether at the child’s precocity or the look of sheer perplexity on the face of the clergymen, who was clearly at a loss for words, I wonder even now. 70 years on. He quickly recovered his composure and proceeded to tell the Christmas Story. I would have been about ten years-old at the time, and found myself wishing even then that he has responded to my young peer’s comment. It was a watershed moment for me as I began to address my inner self increasingly more closely as to just what it was about religion – not just Sunday School – with which I was less than comfortable.

A few years later I would confide in my Religious Education teacher at Secondary school that I found difficulty in relating a growing sense of spirituality in nature rather than religion. He explained that, as God created nature, it was all part of the same scenario, although he also said that human beings have complex needs and no religion has a monopoly on spirituality. I had a problem, even then, with a personified God and those words would eventually lead me to Pantheism.

As I have said before on the blog, I have every respect for a person’s Belief or non-Belief, but, each to our own, and Pantheism works for me in so far as it sees God as nature rather than its creator..

PEACE AND GOODWILL... TRUE OR BLUFF?

Christmas is that time of year
when we are all meant to put on a show
of good cheer, often a bluff,
but convincing enough to keep family
and friends from suspecting
we are more fragile than we seem,
at breaking point even,
but the Christmas show needs must go on,
if only for the children

On that first Christmas, long ago
the Christ child was born, and must be so
because the Bible tells us so;
myth, fairy tale, what’s the truth of it?
Ask the preacher or trust
in gut feelings and mind-body-spirit
feeding us a sense of peace
as we’d dearly l have comfort, console us
for all we see in tea leaves

Singing carls around the tree,
thankful to be in much loved company,
lending us a sense
of a common humanity sure to find
its way one day, coming
together to fight a common enemy,
no matter our religion
or differences in whatever kinder life forces,
we make our life choices

Christmas, over, a new year
around the next corner, time to reflect
on knowns and unknowns
likely to lead or mislead us, such
is the way of all flesh,
sun, moon and stars taking turns
to let us enter into
a spirituality akin to that we enjoy, embrace
one and all, at Christmas

Yet another Covid Christmas,
a human tragedy that it takes a pandemic
to create a sense of unity,
world against a common enemy;
yet, old habits die hard,
never easy to admit we were wrong
to judge or assume,
better, surely, to give and take the gift of Peace
at all-embracing festivities?

“United we stand, divided we fall,” Earth Mother
might well have us remind each other...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

Tattered Remains OR The Fall and Rise of Mind-Body-Spirit

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

“Sometimes, even to live is an act of courage.” – Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c.4BCE – 65 CE)

In trying to encourage readers around this mad, Mad, MAD world of ours to take heart in whatever life crisis they may be struggling to overcome, Covid-19 and variants notwithstanding, I have to confess that, at the same time, I am addressing my inner self and, yes, urging it to help me practice what I preach. This is why – and has always been why – poetry as creative therapy has invariably worked for me, even as a schoolboy in a school to which I was not best suited, made to move away from friends I had known since early years and struggling with being gay in an essentially homophobic society, as the UK was (predominantly) then.

Hopefully, some of my poems on this often-repeated theme encourage at least some readers to go into survival mode and (eventually) find an inner peace and happiness that is not only priceless, but meaningful to the individual in such a way that no one – even with the best of intentions - should feel entitled to advise on or judge according to their own standards; sadly, of course, the latter is only too common and too many of us fall for it every time.

So, thanks again. dear readers, for not only dropping by, but also being my inspiration, especially at the moment when I really need to lean on its friendly arm.

Take care, try to stay safe and well, and be sure to continue nurturing a positive-thinking mindset, especially in a crisis.

Hugs,

Roger

TATTERED REMAINS or THE FALL AND RISE OF MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

Worry, worry, worry,
all but getting the better of me,
confusion giving way
to apprehension just for trying
to make sense
of a society struggling to deal
with a global pandemic,
world leaders sending out mixed messages,
having to rely on their scientists

Scientists, in their turn
having to interpret emerging data
as it comes through,
though what it suggests we do
may well conflict
with political aims and policies
declared by this or that
Party in this or that race to convince society
to let it take overall responsibility

Responsibility, a sword
that’s double-edged, spur to ambition,
may well promote
peace and goodwill, at least until
Crisis rears its ugly head
opinions divided as to what to do,
put Party before Society
and bluff it out, or be seen to give priority
to a weary, stressed humanity?

Humanity, left battered
and feeling as if in tatters by pandemic
or governments or both,
yet as loath as ever to concede defeat,
reassembling its life forces
to rise above any growing despair,
restore a positive mindset,
let love and friendships rise above our pain
see us all start over again...

Time, not always on our side when in need,
but kinder life forces, good friends indeed...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

[Note: Back with another poem soon, a lighter theme, I promise. 😉]

 

 

 

The Inheritors

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

Today's poem is one that was written in 1973 and had appeared in several UK poetry magazines before being included in my first collection, Love and Human Remains, in 2000; I have only recently slightly but significantly revised it while struggling to rise above certain health issues and compile new editions.

How often, as a child, I would wish I was an adult, especially whenever prevented from doing something for which I was considered too young! Invariably, my mother would wryly comment, "Be careful what you wish for..."

THE INHERITORS  

Man, discovering diamonds
in the sand, hastily gathers them up
in a greedy hand;
a breeze blows the fortune
in his face 

Poets, reflecting on diamonds
in the sand, love counting them out
in the palm of a hand,
then clouds happen along,
hijack the lot 

Lovers, dreaming of diamonds
in the sand, till enemies at the door
forcing our hands;
yet another lonely dawn,
and we’re gone 

Children, discover diamonds
in the sand, happy to share them  
among dear friends;
a fun day to remember, a treasure,
 for keeps 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2000; rev. 2021

Keeping Tabs

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

The subject of today’s poem will be no stranger to many if not most people, whoever and wherever they may be in the world...pandemic or no pandemic.

KEEPING TABS 

Adept at finding ways
of taking advantage of humankind,
especially at such times
as may find it weak and least able
to keep from visiting
dark places, struggle though it may
against my resolve to attack
any life forces likely to offer resistance,
sure to be watching its back 

Be sure, I will infiltrate
such defences as no mind-body-spirit
can resist, a foxy cunning
as innate to me as a desire to best
any who would deny me
an opportunity to prove my worth,
take a random soul
to a Black Hole at the edge of its universe,
see it suffer, watch it fall 

I creep up on my targets
with such stealth that none are aware
that I am near, closing in,
posed for the kill, despite the pull
of other life forces
encouraging it to out its devils,
no more clutching at straws,
get the better of me, inspire self-awareness
to rise above its worst fears 

I am Stress, keeping tabs on Man and Beast,
with a view to putting us all to the test

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

 

Emissary OR The 'u', 'i' and 'y' of Humanity, Parts of a Whole

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

Overheard in a local supermarket on the day (widely reported in the media) when princes William and Harry recently unveiled a statue of their late mother, Princess Diana:

LITLE GIRL:     What happens when you die, Mummy?

MOTHER:          If you’re a good girl, you go to Heaven.”

LITTLE GIRL:   Is Princess Diana in Heaven?”

MOTHER:          I imagine so, yes.

CHILD:               And will I go there, too, when I die?”

MOTHER            If you’re a good girl, yes, of course.

CHILD:                So, will I get to meet Princess Diana?

MOTHER:           Well, err, maybe, who knows what lies ahead for any of us.

A long pause

CHILD:                So, if I’m bad, will I go to Hell?

MOTHER:           Oh, look, darling, there’s Penny and her mummy. let’s go and say hello...”

 As a child, I well recall being promised Heaven and threatened with Hell as according to this or that religious dogma, and 75+ years on it is still happening. No wonder I feared death then, before I discovered that the human spirit, too, has a mind of its own, and is less threatening than inspiring. 

People are entitled to their faith, and should be respected for it, but no browbeating religious agenda / dogma will ever get a thumbs-up from yours truly. 

As for Death, I remain pragmatic, but also hopeful that the better part of me will continue to commune with those I have loved (as they do with me) and any among humankind whose own mind-body-spirit is happy to let me in.... unlike the former work colleague (a clergyman's wife) who told me she thought it was a shame I'd go to hell (for being gay.) She is as entitled to her faith, as I am entitled to reject it, as I did...long before I realised I'm gay. 

EMMISARY or THE ‘U’, ‘I’ & ‘Y’ OF HUMANITY, PARTS OF A WHOLE 

Sooner or later,
I call on everyone everywhere,
sparing no one;
rich or poor, young or old,
none ever get to run
whenever I choose to appear
and make myself known,
nor do I need to wait for an invitation,
such is the nature of my mission 

Oh, many are they
who would slam doors in my face
rather than let me in,
having no time or use for me,
preferring to send me
on my way, were I to but listen
to what they have to say,
while I prefer to avoid any altercation,
such is the nature of my mission 

Misted-over eyes
of a wistful, wishful, woeful world,
see me as bad news,
not least for refusing to budge
on my demands;
some, though, make a good case
for staying put awhile,
and I'll mull over making due provision,
such is the nature of my mission 

While I can’t claim
to come as friend, neither am I enemy,
though assumed so
by kith and kin, neither ready yet
nor (quite) willing
to explore a universal truth with us.
the like of which
defies even the most creative imagination,
such is the nature of my mission 

We’ll pass on dreams,
beyond the ken of mortals, bid the portals
of those mind-body-spirits
we may have known, loved, touched
by word, deed, hearsay
or art forms invariably inspiring debate 
for centuries by courtesy
of empathies surpassing all expectation,
such is the nature of my mission 

I am the Spirit of Death,
come to restore, rework, reshape human life
whenever, wherever,
take it through personal space
into as evergreen a beauty
as grows from seeds of love and friendship,
(life-forms without equal)
sure to nurture remembrance and celebration,
such is the nature of my mission 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello again, from London UK

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

Hello again, from London UK

No poem today, but I hope to have one ready for you fairly soon. I don't expect everyone to like every poem, of course, but I feel encouraged that many of you continue to stick with this struggling senior as, like many of you, I struggle with all the changes in everyday life that the coronavirus has imposed. 

A reader asks if I practise what I preach with regard to nurturing a positive mindset. Well, I do my best and manage to do so most of the time, but like all of us, I have good days and bad days.  I can only speak from the perspective of an old codger living alone; different people will have different problem. Partners will have each other to share any difficulties with, but in the kind of circumstances imposed on us by the coronavirus, tempers may well fray. Families will have encountered a different spectrum of problems altogether, especially those with young children. For many if not most  older children and young people, not being able to mix with friends and peers will have been a waking nightmare.

Now, living alone and growing old ain't easy at the best of times. Everything takes so much longer and I get tired so much more easily. Everyday tasks - like stripping a bed and turning a mattress - are a challenge; it takes me ages to replace a duvet cover now too.😊

I coped well with the first lockdown here in the UK, but the latter stages of the second were a nightmare. I often felt lonely, and scared too, a though the latter has more to do with the hormone therapy for my prostate cancer as it can have that effect on some people sometimes. An ear infection and mobility problems haven't helped. So, how do I cope with it all...? Well, better some days than others, that's for sure.😉 

I try to keep reminding myself that there are so many people in the world so much worse off than myself, some of whom I know personally. I tell myself that if they can cope, so can I. Writing up the blogs and posting poems when I can has been a godsend; it distracts me not only from my own problems, but the whole coronavirus scenario. I think everyone needs to find ways of distracting themselves from any personal problems anyway  (coronavirus or no coronavirus) whether it's pursuing a hobby or just watching a favourite video/ TV programme. Me, I avoid News programmes apart from catching up with the headlines. While I am interested and concerned about what else  is going on in the mad, mad world of ours...there is just so much a person can take when so much of it is so depressing.

Now, although lockdown restrictions are being lifted here in the UK, we still have to deal with the threat of a so-called Indian variant, already prevalent in parts. Yet again, all we can do is take care, and (yes!) nurture a positive thinking mindset. We won't always succeed, but just trying can make all the difference.

As I have said on past blogs, I honestly think a healthy diet is a huge help when it comes to dealing with stress.

At the end of the day, of course, we are all different and needs must find our own way through our own waking nightmares. As my mother used to say, though, we should never be afraid to ask for help, never think anyone will think the worse of us for doing so. Each of us, in our own way is, vulnerable; if counselling is not an option and there is no close friend on hand or at the end of a telephone, call The Samaritans. Even simply talking (or writing) about our worst fears can give us an entirely new perspective on them. If I had confided my problems with being a gay man so someone years earlier, I may well have avoided a nasty nervous breakdown in early 30's.

What else can I say for now but... good luck everyone, and bear in mind that most of the time it's down to each and every one of us to make our own luck... or not, as the case may be.

Take care, everyone, and many thanks for dropping by.

Hugs,

Roger

PS In the course of transferring about 1000 poems to a memory stick (so far unpublished except on the blogs) I have significantly revised more earlier poems that you will find in the blog archives. Do feel free to browse now and then, and I hope any revisions (including some titles) will meet with your approval...but won't be offended if they don't. 😉

An Open Letter to Readers

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

Dear Readers,

No poem today as I live alone, am feeling very tired, and need to get on with some housework. However, still trying to keep one step ahead of tomorrow here... by writing a poem for New Year's Day; it is taking shape already, and I intend to finish it in time to publish on January 1st.

Writing poetry this year has been tough, given the effects of Covid-19 worldwide. More than one reader has complained that my poems "lack imagination, not least for being less concerned with poetry as an art form than with social commentary." and I have to concede that they may well have a point. However, with people losing hope and struggling to rise above that as well as the coronavirus itself, I have concentrated, for the most part, in trying to inject significant positive thinking into my poems. As I do so, it helps me, and I can only hope it helps some of you as well.

To be honest, I doubted whether I had another poem in me, having written nearly a thousand for this blog alone.  If some poems appear to lack imagination, I can only say that I have had to summon no small degree of that for every poem I have written during the pandemic; sifting through the tumult of my own emotions - from a growing sense of fear and despair to those old standbys love and hope - in I try reach out to readers in such a way that they can feel my reaching out to them, especially those who are feeling isolated and/ or lonely.

I cannot expect every reader to like every poem, and I often have second thoughts about a poem myself; as you may have noticed, I will significantly revise a poem and even replace titles from time to time. On the whole, though, I take your staying with me and the blog as an appreciation of my efforts for which I feel  both grateful and inspired. 

In the sense that I am, after all, just an ordinary Joe, trying to make the most of retirement in spite of various health issues, you, my readers, play as important a part in my well-being as the poems I write for the you-me-us that is the common multicultural and multinational humanity on which the world turns. For all its faults and flaws (and ours) it is a good world that, one way or another, will get the better of those criminal and bigoted elements that try to turn it (and us) upside down and inside out., not least by our joining forces against them whenever and wherever we can. 

Okay, no one is perfect, least of all yours truly, but personalities do clash, misunderstandings do occur and  neither bode well with regard to mending bridges. Perhaps if we talked to each other more instead of rushing to judgement and/ or being so cocksure that we are right and the other person is wrong...?

Communication  is a common theme in my poems. Too many of us don't talk to each other enough; talk, that is, to hear, to listen, and be prepared to see the other person's point of view. I write from personal experience; apart from my mother, few among my immediate or extended family were ever prepared to engage in a conversation which might not go completely in their favour, so now we are estranged, for which I'm sorry and not sorry; sorry because family should mean more than it has ever meant to me and not sorry because living without being able to engage in mutual communication as opposed to mere conversation is just too stressful. 

If I had been able to discuss my being gay with my family instead of their asking me and coming to their own stereotypical conclusions amongst themselves, I might well have made less of a mess of my younger years, and fewer mistakes. It was much the same with my deafness, at home and at work; both were a nightmare at times, not least because few people understand perceptive deafness; how much  a person hears depends not only on the pitch of another person's voice, but on local acoustics as well. As I did not see a specialist until I was twenty-one and had left home, my schooldays were a nightmare. I could not understand why I could hear a teacher in one classroom, but not in another, so would often sit at the back and hear/ learn very little. 

Even in later years, explanations would often be seen as excuses of which relatively few people took any notice, so my quality of life continued in much the same vein.

At 75, I can honestly say that, on balance, there have been more good times than bad in my life. Time . Time and again ,a flagging faith in myself and human nature generally has been restored by engaging with those such wonderful people as are not only willing to help and/or advise others, but listen to them as well; more often then not, the latter it is the best form of help one person can give another. 

Who knows? Maybe this year's having been so awful for so many of us, the true value of listening may yet be restored wherever, in the past, it has been woefully neglected; whenever it is taken on board and acted upon appropriately, may none of us take it for granted. 

A reader asks, only yesterday, how i can write about the human spirit when I do not subscribe to any of the world religions. As regular readers well know, I have never seen religion as having a monopoly on spirituality.  Where people take comfort and inspiration from their religion, I have every respect for that; it is with certain religious agendas that I have taken issue since childhood.

Back (with a poem) on New Year's Day, folks,

Hugs,

Roger

PS Enjoy the blog archives; see right hand side of any blog page.

. 

Life-saver

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

A few months ago, I called a friend on the phone who has health problems, just to say hello and let him know I was thinking of and rooting for him, especially during these troubled times of Covid-19. Like me, he lives alone, but has always been far more sociable than yours truly so I was surprised and not a little guilt-ridden to hear him say I was the first person with whom he had chatted all week. “No one gives a damn if you’re on your own,” he sighed, “They are so busy getting on with their own lives, they can’t even make time to give a friend a call.” I  confessed I had friends like that, but …

“Don’t wait for them to call, call them,” I said, “It’s not a matter of their not caring, more like they cannot imagine what it’s like to be lonely. People like us need to swallow our pride and just pick up the damn phone.”

“You get lonely too?” It was his turn to be surprised.

“You bet!” I laughed, “But if I start to feel forgotten then I know I need to give a few people a nudge. The chances are, I won’t have to wait so long next time, and if I do, well, I’ll just give them another nudge …”

“What about people who have no one to call or email?” he wanted to know.

“There are organizations that recruit volunteers to befriend others. You have a computer. Look some up and maybe even think about giving it a go.”

He did, and has enjoyed being a volunteer for some time, not least for the two-way rapport in making new friends; even if it’s a voice at the other end of a phone, the chances are that voice will become a friend.

LIFE-SAVER 

It was a scary hollow of the heart
keeping me from seeing my way clearly,
a sense of dying slowly,
no one near to hold my hand, understand
the depth of my despair,
reason barely clinging to kinder memories
on the wings of a child’s prayer 

Each breath I took was but sapping
mind-body-spirit, tossing away dreams
like human waste
without a care even where they might fall,
no pride left to save,
nor reassuring voice, or comforting hands
to help lift me from the grave 

Out of nowhere, a shrill bell ringing
as if calling on mind-body-spirit to recover
any discarded waste,
time yet to recycle, put it to as good a use
as invention can contrive
if fuelled by such friendly persuasion as leans
on the human heart to live 

I answered the telephone just in time
to let a voice from the past haul me back
into a Here-and-Now
I had all but given up on, lively conversation
putting despair in its place,
filling this hollow heart with joie de vivre
for turning its back on loneliness

No longer feeling scared, alone, in free fall,
and always first to make a life-saver call

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Profiling a Fair-Weather Friend

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

Today’s post-poem first appeared on the blog in 2013.

Seven years on, we are, all of us, having to cope with a nasty pandemic so are we all rooting for and looking out for each other, neighbours as well as friends and family, at the very least keeping in touch? Hopefully, we do what we can; what may not seem much to the casual observer may well mean more than words can say to someone in need.

Gay or straight, human nature is much the same worldwide. I dare say a good many of you can count at least one or two fair-weather friends of your own. Maybe they might even recognise themselves in what I have to say on the subject, although I doubt it.

Now, my mother rarely had a bad word to say about anyone and would put herself out for just about everyone. But I recall how she once referred to one of her closest friends as a vampire. I was curious. She told me that some people are only after what they can get out of a friendship; once they have taken their fill they will waste no time looking elsewhere. So why bother with them, I wanted to know? My mother shrugged. ‘When people need you, what choice do you have but to be there for them?’

True enough, when we moved and it meant making an effort to stay in touch, the friend soon dumped my mother for someone who was more convenient, and we never saw her again. I was angry on my mother’s behalf, but she took it in her stride. ‘Yes, some people can be very hurtful,’ she explained to boy Roger, but they can’t help it. For them, it comes with being human just as some of us were born to be hurt.’ She said this without a trace of bitterness although she was clearly upset.

I, too, have suffered my share of vampires. Not anymore. There comes a time when you have to escape their clutches or go on letting them hurt you. They are not horrible people, just thoughtless and self-centred. Neither are uncommon traits, but only human albeit aspects of human nature we much prefer to gloss over. 

Fortunately, though, I have also inherited my mother's spirit of endurance, especially while I have to deal with side effects of treatment for my prostate cancer. For now, at least, yours truly is putting himself first. Even so, if a good friend has a problem, its mine too, and I will help as and when I can, not least because another trait from which I try to take a leaf from my mother's book embraces yet another of her frequently repeated sayings; we reap what we sow in this world.

In recent years, I have experienced various health problems, not easy to deal with when you live on your own. Fortunately, too, though, I have some good friends who have rallied round and given much-needed support. The old saying is so true in so far as we never know who our true friends are until we really need them.

I am reminded of a much-quoted wry comment by the poet, Robert Frost: "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain."  Much the same can be said for some 'friends' too

This poem is a kenning.

PROFILING A FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND

I pose as an ally,

yet in time you will realise

I feed on

the milk of human kindness

and will drain it dry

any chance I get, though it

leave a trail

of hurt and pain I’ll never

turn to see

I speak as an ally,

yet in time you will realise

all I say

turns on all I am, and you

count for little

alongside my needy ego;

even though

I mean no harm, I will

wear you down

I know all the excuses

that spring to mind whenever

challenged to give

thought where thought is due,

but I have little for you,

for where would that leave me

but unhappiness,

one straw less to help

keep me afloat

A fair-weather friend, indeed, am I;

look for me not under a stormy sky

Copyright R N. Taber 2012; 2020

[Note: This poem has been slightly but significantly revised since first published under the title 'Being Human' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]