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.

Sea and Sand OR Rediscovering the Art of Positive Thinking

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

Todays poem first appeared on the blog in 2015. Now seemed as good a time as any to repeat it as there can rarely have been a time in the lives of many of us when positive thinking was harder or more essential as in seeing us through the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.

Sometimes, we do our best, and yet it never seems to be enough for some people while others simply take our efforts for granted.

Yes, it hurts when all we seek is a little encouragement, and all we seem to have to show for it is grains of sand.

It is so often the case that people do not mean to cause hurt, yet fail to see their comments as a parody of their finer feelings towards us.

We all need to think before we speak sometimes, learn to acknowledge and trust our better instincts, formulate our ideas with care instead of (all too often) falling prey to so-called 'public opinion'.

Easier said than done, though, this refusing to either rush to judgement on others or let ourselves fall victim to those rushing to judgement on us.

Whatever, praise is no endgame in itself but a by-product of succeeding - as far as anyone can - in finding and being true to ourselves as opposed to more or less repeating what others may have said and done, however much we may admire them for it; being inspired by someone enough to follow  in their footsteps, on the other hand, is something else altogether. 

I suspect Nietzsche makes a valid point when he says: “So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's.”  ― Friedrich Nietzsche

SEA AND SAND, INSPIRATION or REDISCOVERING THE ART OF POSITIVE THINKING

Alone on a beach

among restless white ponies

panting heavily,

rearing at me for they know

a storm is coming,

although not yet a while;

time yet to let me see

the Old Man smile as I drop stars

through tearful fingers

relentlessly measuring out

the rest of my life

Air hot and stale

like the stillness of a coffin,

funeral prayers

long since dead and gone,

tossed to playful waves

as we’d throw a much-loved dog

a bone and watch it run,

tail wagging, anxiously homing in

on its reward

for whatever, only ever needing

to deserve praise

No bones here,

only flailing limbs of ghosts

in dark water

striving for landfall, but sure

of nothing,

like flotsam and jetsam taking turns

to see which will

fall into loving hands anxious

to shape an art form

if for no other reason than leaving

its mark... 

What to do?

Needs must…choose well

or wait for a stampede

to render me less than hoof prints

in the sand,

all human potential left

to natural erosion

unknowingly hastened by fishers

of men rushing to judgement

if for no other reason than needing

to deserve attention

Nothing for me here,

but rage and pain in a pool of stars

at my feet,

urging me to leap a feisty pony,

let it take me where it will,

escape not only storm but wreckage

as sure to follow as day

follows night and tides of humanity,

the course its nature sets us

if for no other reason than failing

to find peace...

Yet, treasures to be had,

sparkling views of sea, sky and sand

filing the inner eye

with memories of (far) kinder times

filled with faith in dreams

nurturing mind, body and spirit

no matter where the spotlight

on everyday lives may choose to fall,

urging that we follow the course

nature sets us if for no other reason

than deserving each other

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2020

contemporaneity, gender, human, identity, imagination, life, love, mind-body-spirit, nature, personal, poetry, positive, relationships, self-awareness, self-confidence, society, space, spirit, thinking

Love, an Agenda all its Own

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

This poem is from my gay-interest poetry blog for April 2016.

We cannot help with whom we fall in love, but our love is not always reciprocated in the same way. Loving someone who sees us as a close friend, no more or less, can be hard sometimes. Even so, - whether we are gay or straight, male or female - friendship is a wonderful thing, and if worth having, always worth saving…whatever it takes.

No one gender or sexual orientation has a monopoly on love; it really does have an agenda all its own, and who are we to argue with that?

Any commitment to loving each other is down to those immediately concerned, no one else, whatever our socio-cultural-religious (or sexual) preferences. I put it to you that more of us should respect and at least try to support those choices instead of criticising (or worse) simply because we do not agree with them.

LOVE, AN AGENDA ALL ITS OWN

There’s a poem I’ve often tried to write

about the way his hair blows in a breeze

and his face almost vanishes from sight

but for a wicked laughter in the eyes

There’s a poem I’ve often tried to write

about the way his voice eases my pain

like a balm to sores, moon to wintry night,

sunshine filtering through a summer rain

There’s a poem I’ve often tried to write

about the way his hugs near break my heart

and how, as his arms are holding me tight,

it aches for knowing we must quickly part

There’s a friend for whom I often begin 

poems I know he’ll wish I’d not written…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from an earlier version that appears under the title 'Genesis' in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]

Mind-Body-Spirit, Making Connections

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

Today's poem (and much of the same post) appears in my gay-interest poetry archives for January 2014; archives for either of my poetry blogs can be accessed on the right hand side of blog entries.

Incidentally, today’s poem was inspired by a very moving gay-interest film (available on DVD) called Eyes Wide Open about the relationship between two orthodox Jewish men, one of whom, when confronted with and acting upon his homosexuality starts to ‘feel alive’ for the first time in his (married) life.

Now, some gay friends take offence at the word ‘homosexual’. As I see it, it’s a perfectly respectable word for a perfectly respectable state of mind, body, and spirit. Yes, some people use it as a form of abuse, but that is their problem and not mine.

Meaning is defined by less by what we say than how we say it. Similarly, the human condition is defined less by how it looks than how it conducts itself. In turn, how we conduct ourselves is defined less by any socio-cultural-religious dogma than by the sense and sensibility of minds and hearts left open to the subtleties of natural human goodness.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, MAKING CONNECTIONS

A human body
makes itself known
in a thousand ways,
inner voices crowding
but never (quite)
drowning its mind
or spirit out

Come, but listen to what
it has to say,
feed its needs or hold back
for all the things
you’ve been warned,
told never to forget,
yet longed for in dusty corners
of a mind inaccessible
to a world (far) better known
throughout history
for its darker shades of bigotry
and hate than any light
of human understanding
shown its own kind

A human mind
makes itself known
in a thousand ways,
inner voices crowding
but never (quite)
driving host body
or spirit out

Come, follow or follow not,
ours to choose
freedom or chains imposed
by well-meaning others
who haven’t a clue about half
of what's going on in a man
or woman’s own personal space
in never (quite) sharing
the same perceptions of grace
and harmony as even family,
or friends committed to dogma
stigmatising any differences
for flaws if not sins irreconcilable
with a common humanity

A human spirit
makes itself known
in a thousand ways,
inner voices crowding
but never (quite)
driving host body
or mind out

Come, follow or follow not
ours to let the heart in
on the act and let its beat
lead the world a dance
with our heads held high,
play the wallflower
or (worse) take a partner
for appearances’ sake
nodding politely to family,
friends, peers insisting
our best interests
are of such prime concern
that any bones of contention
form part of no equation

Better (surely?)
to insist on at least one
of a thousand voices,
speaking up for us
as nature intended,
refusing to let the world
drown us out

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

[Note: This poem has been considerably revised; while it does not appear in my collections, regular readers may notice that it was previously posted on the blog in a very different form. Feedback suggested the original poem did not (quite) work, and I always take constructive criticism on board.]

Family Ties

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

This poem is from my gay-interest poetry blog archives for August 2009.

A reader asks why I should encourage people to dip into both blogs on the grounds that "What straight person would be interested in a load of homoerotic poetry?" Yes, there are some poems there that might be considered mildly homoerotic, but I started the blog for two reasons: (1) to encourage  any gay people to feel good about themselves wherever they feel put down by those in the home and/or socio-cultural- religious environment simply for their sexuality and (2) to educate those who insist on putting us down for our sexuality into a better understanding of the whole LGBT ethos and how misleading stereotypes give a false impression of what it means to be gay to a gay person. I have said it many times on the blogs and will say it again; we are all part of a common humanity, and the keyword should be mutual respect.

Whatever happened to respect, I ask you! A person only has to adopt a different point of view these days to be verbally and/or physically abused. World religions preach love and peace, but many religious people are disrespectful to anyone who follows a different religion or (like me) subscribes to no religion at all.

A cleric once said to me that family is at the heart if any religion. "religion is a family," he said, "and we should love and respect one another as we would our immediate family." yet I have met numerous gay men and women  disowned and cast out by both their immediate and religious 'families'; if that isn't a 'sin', it is an attitude or dogma that deserves less respect than any LGBT ethos. Fortunately there are many religious (and other) people in this world who have open hearts, open minds and will take anyone as they find them without rushing to judgement; sadly, these are relatively few. My gay-interest blog targets such bigots among us as well as LGBT readers.

Now, regular readers will already have some idea how my father was jealous of anyone who - as he saw it - came between him and my mother. That included his children. It was one reason he and I had an appalling relationship from my early childhood into adulthood that never improved.

My mother fretted about my relationship with my father. In latter years, she told me not to tell my father or brother I was gay as it would only make things worse. [If they guessed, I daresay I will never know as my father died in 1985 and my brother and I have been estranged since that year also]. We were never a close family although my mother liked to think so.

My mother’s anxiety regarding my sexuality dragged on my nerves and conscience for years. It was not until a few years after her death (in 1976 ) that I finally came out as a gay man and stayed out (I had been selectively in and out, here and there like a jack-in-the-box for years).

Much as I still miss my mother - a remarkable woman in many ways and to whom I was very close - it was (and still is) a good feeling to be free of all that parental angst. I have always envied families who are close and where, in spite of whatever differences individual members might have with each other, mutual love and respect will always win through.

Most parents want the best for their children but should remember and respect the fact that their children might have different ideas as to what is best for them.

It is a wise parent who will let a child find his or her own way in life while letting them know their love is unconditional. They should not impose their own desires and/ or go the way of emotional blackmail as many do. Parents should be role models and mentors, not jailers (intentionally or otherwise). The latter is nothing less than a form of mental cruelty…from which the scars are slow to heal and some never do.

Family ties should be a joy, not a ball and chain.

This poem is a villanelle.

FAMILY TIES

How I long to be free
(in a world usurping Nature's crown)
of maternal anxiety

And I would assuage paternity
though not for me, ambition's clown.
How I long to be free!

I seek good company
to lift the heart, ease the kindly frown
of maternal anxiety.

A gay inspiration fills me
(or in paternal conflict, surely drown)
How I long to be free!

Father, will you walk with me?
Any jealousy (just for once) no clone
of maternal anxiety…

What matter, the stains of history
on a much cherished christening gown?
How I long to be free
of maternal anxiety...

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2000; 2018

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised (5th stanza) since first appearing in Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000; poetic licence with the use of 'clone'.]

Just a Question of Love

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

Today’s poem  is from my gay-interest blog archives for April 2012 and takes its title from a delightful and moving gay movie of the same name (in translation) Juste une Question d’Amour; it was first shown on French television in January 2000.

There was a time, especially in the 1980's and early 1990's, that Channel 4 here showed a variety of mainstream gay films, but we rarely see any on British television these days. [By mainstream, I mean an alternative to the kind of soft porn stuff that’s easy enough to come by. No worries there, but I for one enjoy a good story line with believable characters. Titles like The Torchsong Trilogy, Beautiful Thing, Get Real and Brokeback Mountain instantly spring to mind...]

Only relatively rarely do we even hear any discussion on gay issues here, either on TV or radio. Could it be that broadcasters are afraid of offending the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority, increasing in numbers all the time in a multicultural society in which various socio-cultural-religious hang-ups invariably include homophobia?

Now, as I have said many times, love does not discriminate so why should anyone? Sometimes I wonder, are we really living in the 21^st century?

Even nowadays, many gay people are made to feel they have to choose between sexuality and family, friends, culture, entire home environment. No one should have to make such a choice anywhere in the world. and no one has the right to impose it on anyone else. To each, their own, of course, but we can agree to differ without going into hostile overdrive, surely?

 Whatever our gender, race, religion, sexuality, disability, age etc. - oh, and politics as well - .we are a common humanity; as such, we need to start treating people we consider 'different' with the same respect we would ask them to pay us. Ageism, sexism, racism, homophobia....there is far too much of such prejudices across the world, as damaging in our Here-and-Now as climate change to our futures, for young people especially since it will be they, not us, who will be expected to bear the long-term consequences. 

Wake up, world, and get real!

This poem is a villanelle.

JUST A QUESTION OF LOVE 

As spring rain from above

on Earth Mother in pain;

it's just a question of love

As push comes to shove,

so love into its own,

as spring rain from above

The healing wing of a dove

will learn to fly again;

it’s just a question of love

Love has nothing to prove;

a bigot’s loss, its gain,

as spring rain from above

See a hand torn from glove

beat cold and pain;

it’s just a question of love

If nature’s sexuality prove

as precious a bane

as spring rain from above,

it’s just a question of love

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

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

Blueprint for Mornings-After-a-One-Night Stand

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

A less than gay-friendly straight reader writes,"You talk a lot about a common humanity on your blog, but what has any hot-blooded heterosexual have in common with gays?"

Over the past ten years, I have often wondered whether to post a poem on either or both blogs; this one first appeared on my gay-interest blog in 2011. At the time,there was an emphasis in the popular press on a perceived promiscuity on the part of gay men.

I dare say most of us have enjoyed a one-night stand or two...or three... or more in our lives. The sad thing is it’s more often the lows (a hangover even?) of the morning after that we remember rather than the highs of the night before. Gay or straight, it makes no difference. There’s nothing quite like that wistful morning-after feeling...not quite regret, but not quite resembling any feel-good factor either.

Enjoy, but play safe out there. (Yes, with medication, people can live with HIV-AIDS for years longer now, but who wants that hanging over them if it can be avoided?)

BLUEPRINT FOR MORNINGS-AFTER-A-ONE-NIGHT STAND

Slowly descending ceiling stills,
walls settle and squat,
all the colours of night-clamour
dissemble into a stale dawn
glimpsed through ragged curtains
at a weary window

Eyes peering, Mind stretching,
Body smoothing over cracks
in its cradle, summoning succour
from a worldly benevolence
that's stinging, oh, but so sweetly
at some leafy breast

Tears, oozing from a breathless
dreaming on this marble slab
of rude awakening, dispelling
any fleeting trust that today
might (just might) carry us along
on cosy kitchen sounds

Together, we saw a candle flare
in the darkness of our night.
Ah, but it was a heavenly light!
Yet, better by far to leave us
sleeping, oh, but so sweetly there

than revisit its shadows

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001

[Note: This poem has been revised from an earlier version that appears in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001.]

Free Spirit, Beautiful Mind

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

We hear speak of a common humanity for which a common denominator has to be love. [Well, doesn’t it?] so whatever happened to either in the global scale of things?

There is much love in the world so how about we start sharing it out more fairly and cease discriminating against those of whose social, sexual, political, religious or cultural identity happens to be quite different from our own. 

As I have said so many times on the blogs, one person’s take on another person’s differences, works both ways. Being different, though, does not make us right or wrong, only human.

Religious fundamentalists need to keep in mind that the God of their religion created all humankind in His (or Her) image not theirs. Similarly, we all need to bear in mind that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder; the inner eye, that is, discerning beauty where, to all outward appearances, there is only ugliness.

FREE SPIRIT, BEAUTIFUL MIND 

Love embraces all that is beautiful,

(doves of peace winging freely);

London, New York, Baghdad, Kabul,

anxious not to be seen its enemy

Love stands for all that is beautiful

(doves of peace drinking its tears);

London, New York, Baghdad, Kabul

prey to a world feasting on its fears

In love we are beautiful, made whole

(doves of peace never discriminate);

London, New York, Baghdad, Kabul,

making a show of demonizing hate

Love, a fair measure of the shortfall

in life cultures, religions, politics;

London, New York, Baghdad, Kabul,

(adrenalin junkies looking for a fix)

Love, bitter-sweeter fruit of Creation,

a freedom of heavens, earth and sea,

laughter and tears, hell and salvation,

defining (and redefining) humanity

Wherever life persuasions under fire,

love may lose battles, but not the war

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2009

Unsung Heroes

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

March 31st is International Trangender Day of Visibility.

Transgender men and women are often society’s forgotten heroes. I once knew one quite well (she died some years ago) and had every admiration for her; she inspired my character, Jackie, in my novel Sacrilege, [Book 2 of my Laurence Fisher trilogy, Blasphemy-Sacrilege-Redemption.]

I read this poem among others on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square back in July 14th 2009 (see link below) as my contribution to sculptor Antony Gormley’s One & Other ‘living sculpture’ project. It was both sad and heart-warming to receive emails from transsexuals worldwide who had incredibly inspiring stories to tell and were pleased I had helped raise Transgender Awareness a notch higher by reading it to a global audience. [I should add that I also received emails criticising me for standing up for transgender people, but I get them for supporting my fellow gay men and women too so dare say it’s par for the course for anyone whose concerns for the society in which he or she lives extend beyond those in whom they have a special &/or vested interest.]

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18

This poem has appeared on the blogs before, but not for a very long time; it is repeated today especially for ‘Shirley’ who has been in touch to ask that I have more to say about transgender people on my blogs. Well, I’m sorry if you feel I neglect transgender men and women Shirley. I do my best to be as all-embracing as I can in my poems and comments, I can’t expect to please everyone.

UNSUNG HEROES

Girl meets Boy in the same body,
demands what shall we do…
pretend everything is hunky dory
or come true?

Girl pleads with Boy for priority
though she may not look the part;
Boy agrees, since it’s a certainty
he has her heart

Boy takes on the world for her sake,
appealing to truth and justice;
Girl but seeking her peace to make
with its prejudice

Boy meets Girl in the same body
after a transformation,
glad to have done right by history
and salvation

Girl thanks Boy for his selflessness
and courage under enemy fire,
leaving her free to seek a happiness
we all aspire

If the world’s humanity a democracy
worth dying for to win…
dare a sometime prison of the body
but let freedom in?

Among centuries of unsung heroes,
our transgender brothers and sisters

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