Shades of Comic Genius (and Quinquagenarian Angst)

 

From Roger’s good friend – Graham

 

Sap is rising, shoots are sprouting and buds are throbbing in anticipation…

Today’s poem ‘Shades of Comic Genius’ offers an amusing take on a couple who rediscover the passions of youth in their later years. A blaze of glory as they surrender to the unbridled urges of nature and cast away, if briefly, the burden of age. It’s an enchanting example of the whimsical aspect in some of Roger’s writing.

Speaking of age, I imagine that cresting past that mid-life hill can be daunting for many of those in my generation. Especially if they find themselves single and there’s an incentive to maintain that sylph-like physique of youth! Although that objective does become a bit of a pipedream, unfortunately, as years advance.

It’s an unsightly truth that age and gravity conspire to steer one’s finest assets on a southward migration. Looking in the mirror recently, I was reminded of one of those mudslide events that you might see in a disaster movie. Although I consider myself fortunate that I can still glimpse my feet between shoegazing moobs. (It’s certainly a stark contrast with the type of ‘hangovers’ I faced during my student days.) Sitting in the bath the other day was reminiscent of a baggy old armchair that had become waterlogged.

As if that wasn’t bad enough I was disappointed recently when my young niece asked me why I appeared to be frowning in some of the family photos. I had to explain that I was just facing down slightly and the mouth was sagging. She was kind enough to offer the assistance of a photo enhancer app although I gratefully declined. (Fastening a large bulldog clip to the back of the scalp might be more effective?)

I remember poor Rog complaining about ten years ago about his midriff getting wider. He was worried about becoming ‘bell-shaped’. I couldn’t think of anything diplomatic to say so I suggested that at least, he’d be the ‘belle of the ball’. Fortunately he was immune to my cheeky banter and laughed. Latterly, his avoidance of dairy products seemed to stop the expanding girth which was some consolation.

Much of the time we tried to laugh about our frailties and work around them. Or imagine, at least, that our salad days hadn’t entirely withered on the vine. Anyway, it’s good to throw caution to the wind sometimes; budding with memories from the bloom of youth…

 

*  *  *

 

‘She said she was approaching forty, and I couldn't help wondering from what direction’. Bob Hope (British-born American entertainer).

 

*  *  *

 

SHADES OF COMIC GENIUS
(For old[er] people everywhere)

We stripped naked under a leafy sky,
saw our bodies turn gold,
for a while forgot about growing old

Rediscovering youth’s feisty passion
we surfed its glorious tide,
put aches, pains and home truths aside

A balmy breeze gave us its blessing
and songbirds sang amen
while halcyon days revisited us again

Though years pass and take their toll,
the spirit of adventure remains
to seize the day, throw off its chains

If love is the greatest adventure of all,
sex is but half the story,
a shared empathy, its power and glory

We dressed quickly, nature applauding
bodies frayed at the seams
acknowledging its comedy of dreams

 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010. From the collection On the Battlefields of Love

 

*  *  *

 

I’ve also included a jokey poem that I found in an old email which never quite made the grade for publication (‘Senior Moments…’) . However, it ties in so well I’ve included it. I think older readers will appreciate it...

 

SENIOR MOMENTS or GROWING OLD WITH CHUCKLES
(And, no, Chuckles is not my cat.)

This little poem of mine
may well be missing the occasional line
since senior moments with me
are as common as sugar or milk in a cup
of coffee or tea

Whenever out and about,
I rely on my trusty walking stick’s support,
but will often raise the alarm
when I put it aside and it chooses to hide
(usually on my arm)

An easy to follow recipe
(meant to impress old friends visiting me)
might well prove a mistake
when I get proportions sufficiently wrong
to make us all feel sick

I have hurried for buses
only to find I’m soon counting my losses
for its heading (miles) away
from whatever destination I’d had in mind
and forgetting that anyway

A positive thinking person,
I refuse to let senior moments get me down,
but love to laugh at them
among friends over a few drinks in the pub,
ever toasting, ‘Carpe Diem’

 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

A Healing Within OR Back on Form

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

Not the least of human concerns around the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, is mental health; many if not most of us are stressed out either by social distancing and not being able to see family and friends, money worries for not being able to work, and let's not forget the stress grief imposes on us whenever we lose a loved-one. We all must find a way of alleviating stress if we can hope to survive the pandemic as much the same person - if not better and stronger, mentally if not physically  - than we were before it struck.

An actor friend once described how when he takes on a character it takes him over to the extent that he becomes that character and all but loses sight of his own self. It occurred to me that much the same might be said of stress; it takes us over and we can't see it because we are it, and lose sight of what is happening to our natural selves.

From time to time in the blogs, I have referred to a bad mental breakdown I had in the 1970’s, just a few years after my mother died. I was still in my 30’s, and a psychological mess for all kinds of reasons. It may be an overworked metaphor, but true enough to say I was drowning in a sea of confused and conflicting  feelings that had less to do with being gay than a sense of failure as a person, again for more reasons than I could begin to define. To make matters worse, there was no one in whom I could even begin to confide and there are limits to how anyone in a state of crisis, as I most certainly was, can cope with it on their own.

Inevitably, mind-body-spirit lost not only the ability to communicate in any positive form, but also the will to survive.  I experienced a complete mental breakdown with far-reaching consequences; in the short term, these were pretty dire, but in the longer term they saw me emerge a stronger, more focused person. I lost my job and did not work again for nearly four years. It was a terrible time and I would not have survived but for the support of some good friends who showed me the way back to Hope where all there had been was Despair; the rest was up to me.

Thankfully, mental health issues carry less of a stigma these days. Even so, the mentally ill person has not one battle on his or her hands but a series of battles. We win some, lose some, but practical as well as emotional support is needed before innate survival instincts start to kick in and a glimmer of positive mind-set appears at the outer edge of an all-devouring Black Hole; it is called motivation, and more often than not it is triggered by the return of a much missed sense of humour. 

“If I had no sense of humour, I would long ago have committed suicide.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

Fortunately, once rediscovered, I have not lost my sense of humour again since; it has helped me through 6+ years of coping with prostate cancer, inspired me to learn to walk again after a bad fall in 2012, and I dare say it will see me through an impending operation on my infected elbow and subsequent stay in hospital.

Religion does not have a monopoly on spirituality; never underestimate the human spirit as it can help us overcome even the worst life throws at us ... if we but let it.

A HEALING WITHIN 

Weary of fumbling

through a maze of ugly shapes;

nothing beautiful

to be seen or heard even

by the inner self,

its default to a positive mind-set

left for dead under

a mind-body-spirit anaesthetised

by helplessness, 

as in up against huge waves

of negativity,

no existential surfboard, tired

of having a pathetic dog-paddling

pass for progress

World, acknowledging me

party to its ugliness.

bearing down on human senses

day after day

on the early morning commuter run;

a cacophony

of buses, trains and people anxious

to be on time

for places and faces they would prefer

to avoid, but needs must

as some ambivalent ethos drives

the human engine beyond its limits

with no regard for whose, where, why
or consequences 

World, reconnecting me

(slowly but surely) with the beauty

of Below Surface,

fishes passing by without tossing

judgemental glances,

sharks causing a stir on the look-out

for sustenance,

not a fast buck to line the pockets

of designer gear

intended to impress or intimidate;

splendid rainbows

among coral spewing beer cans

along with other evidence of human

complacency and waste

Suddenly,

a so-weird glow of crabs and starfish

on the ocean floor

opening the inner eye to tales

of the unexpected

coursing the blood of living creatures

great and smell,

alerting us to danger, even death,

but also the wonders

of creation among which the greatest

has to be life itself,

its delights as well as hardships

around every corner if only by way

of ‘no pain, no gain’

Lungs bursting

with no less self-doubt than before,

but tempered

with hope of finding a kinder world

than I had sought

to quit without notice like a tenant

in high arrears

or that square peg in the round hole

of a workforce,

unwilling to face the situation

head-on, imagining
devils with human faces,

the easier to find excuses for opting

out of the damn scrum

On home ground,

concerned voices and helping hands

reaching out to me

to clutch, not as one all but drowning

but as someone

encouraged to restructure a whole

whose parts

have broken loose from each other,

need reconnecting

and (still) reshaping into a form

least likely to fall prey

to human frailties for staying focused 
on evergreen life forces

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020

Laughter, the Best Medicine

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

Hi folks! 

Sorry, nothing new on my You Tube channel lately, but Graham (who shoots the videos) and I have plans... that is to say, we did have until the COVID-19 virus struck just about everywhere.

Meanwhile, I was SO pleased to hear from a reader who emailed to say she loves browsing the channel whenever she is feeling fed-up as it always cheers her up. Thanks, Monica, positive feedback always welcome:

http://www.youtube.com/user/rogerNtaber

Now, just in case you think I am getting too serious in my old age…

Since my mid-late 60’s, I seem to be having more than my fair share of senior moments. I can’t help wondering…what lies ahead now I will be 75 this year?

Oh, but life is too short to let such things get you down. Besides, sharing senior moments has to be more fun than discussing the weather…well, hasn’t it? As my mother used to say, if you can't laugh at yourself, you really need to get a life. 

Humour, I have always believed, is that ultimate free spirit that invites us all to enjoy precious moments in time away from those aspects of life seemingly conspiring to hurt us. Sometime, when life gets us down and it seems, at our nadir, that no one gives a damn something happens to make us laugh; it mat be a memory, someone cracking a good joke on the radio or TV,but whatever its is, the sound of our laughing aloud is invariably music to a lonely person's ears. The years drop away. Being able to laugh, moreover, reminds us that we are alive and, yes, where there's life there really is hope. 

Been there, got the tee shirt ...

LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE

This little poem of mine
may well be missing the occasional line;
since senior moments with me
are as common as sugar or milk in a cup
of tea or coffee

Whenever out and about,
I rely on my trusty walking stick’s support,
but will often raise the alarm
when I put it aside and it chooses to hide
(usually on my arm)

An easy to follow recipe
(meant to impress old friends visiting me)
might well prove a mistake
when I get proportions sufficiently wrong
to make us all feel sick

I have hurried for buses
only to find I’m soon counting my losses
for its heading (miles) away
from whatever destination I’d had in mind
or forgetting that anyway

A positive thinking person,
I refuse to let senior moments get me down,
but love to laugh at them
among friends over a few drinks in the pub,
ever toasting, ‘Carpe Diem’

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Joker

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

Telling jokes about people is a cruel pastime in which too many of us are inclined to indulge. Humour is wonderful, and some jokes can be very funny...until they get personal and take on shades of malice; for the butt of the latter, life is no laughing matter.

We all know how cruel some children and young people can be towards peers somehow marked out as ‘different’ from others… whether by a disability or whatever. At least younger children rarely appreciate the gravity of their actions. We adults, on the other hand, have no excuse.

Let's be kind to each other, yeah?

JOKER

You dropped the joke into a humming pool,

let ripples spread

from merry chuckle

to sly whisper

I watched the whisper take its course

from eye to eye

until someone

laughed

Like a freak wave, that laughter came

tumbling upon the whisper,

dashing it to pieces,

scattering me

Everywhere

[From: Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001]

Shades of Comic Genius

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

[Update Nov 2, 2018: A reader wrote in to say I 'clearly have no idea about the physical issues that come with growing old.' Well, I will be 73 soon, have been living with prostate cancer for nearly eight years and have arthritis in both my neck and a leg injured in a bad fall in 2014 when I fractured my ankle and spent months learning to walk again. Yes, old age can be a nightmare, but - whatever our age and whatever we are up against - it's all about the human spirit...isn't it?] RNT

Growing old can bring all manner of health and other problems. Yet, most of us feel little different
within ourselves than we did as we passed through various stages of youth and middle age although (hopefully) more than a shade wiser.

Every now and then, it feels GOOD to defy the outward signs of age and let the inner self let its hair down…

Never let anyone tell you that old age is nothing but a killing field.

SHADES OF COMIC GENIUS
(For old[er] people everywhere)

We stripped naked under a leafy sky,
saw our bodies turn to gold,
for a while forgot about growing old

Rediscovering youth’s feisty passion,
we surfed its glorious tide,
put aches, pains and home truths aside

A balmy breeze gave us its blessing
and songbirds sang an amen
while halcyon days revisited us again

Though years pass and take their toll,
the spirit of adventure remains
to seize the day, throw off its chains

If love is the greatest adventure of all,
sex is but half the story,
a shared empathy, its power and glory

We dressed quickly, nature applauding
bodies frayed at the seams
acknowledging its comedy of dreams

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

Master Baiter

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

This wryly emotive poem was written as a protest against political correctness creeping into and even censoring humour and satire. As I have said before on the blogs, if we cannot laugh at ourselves, we might as well be dead.

I speak from personal experience. As a partially deaf person, I had a speech defect for many years and peers were always making fun of me for it. I’d simply exaggerate the defect and make them laugh; the teasing invariably stopped. For the same reason, I’d often mishear what people said and give a totally inappropriate answer to a question. Again, I learned to laugh it off although my teachers at school despaired of me.

It was years before hearing aids were available here in the UK for my kind of (perceptive) deafness and life is much easier and richer for that.  Even so, I like to think my sense of humour - if quirky at times - prevails and helps me carry on the Monty Python tradition of looking on the bright side of life.  It saw me through a traumatic youth and early manhood at a time when being gay was a criminal offence .(It still is in some parts of the world!)

Never underestimate the power of humour. As regular readers will know only too well, it helped me through a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago when I almost lost it to the extent that I attempted suicide and very nearly succeeded. Thankfully, instinct eventually kicked in. I survived to tell the tale and bore the pants off everyone.

Incidentally the dictionary definition of peristalsis reads, ‘The wavelike muscular contractions of the alimentary canal or other tubular structures by which contents are forced onward toward the opening …’

This poem is a kenning.

MASTER BAITER

I take centre-stage,
audience in the palm of my hand,
or wait in the wings for a cue
along the lines of something borrowed
that was blue but turned green
in the wash so let’s air the laundry,
on the Internet (of course)
so socially screwed-up networks
can web-stream the divorce

I make politicians smart
till he or she is wriggling like a maggot
on my line at election time,
drive religious folks to drink (or worse)
for exposing a putting of cart
before horse and making sure it’s loaded
so a congregation’s conscience
all the lighter (and its pockets) saved
by heaven-sent Muppets

I make misanthropists believe
that what their keeping up their sleeve
is the sunshine of a smile,
ready to spread like butter on my bread
(though some say that’s not healthy)
to help keep hearty a world on the blink
that, damn it, needs the likes of me
to get it thinking about mud it’s throwing
and where it’s sticking

Take your cue from me, catch a whopper;
I am called Humour... (Gotcha!)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

The Teacher

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

A reader has asked "... why on earth would anyone would want to access Edwin Black’s blog or even follow it?"  [at http://bardicblackspot.blogspot.com ]

Apparently, he doesn’t find it in the least amusing and considers it, at times, to be ‘quite offensive’. Well, Edwin doesn’t offend me. He makes me laugh…sometimes uncomfortably, it’s true. But isn’t it that element of discomfort, often associated with humour, that gives rise to various concerns that, in turn, offer food for serious thought?

Everyone’s sense of humour is different of course. Even so, surely it’s better to let it run a whole gamut of expression than settle for its getting stuck in any particular groove?

Incidentally, Edwin performed on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square last year a couple of months after my own appearance as part of Antony Gormley's  One and Other 'living sculpture'  project:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Edwin [This link is temporarily out of action as it is incompatible with new B L software, but B L hope to reinstall all the plinth links at a later date.] RT

Me, I guess I have a predilection for anything (and anyone) that makes me laugh.

This poem is a kenning.

THE TEACHER

I light up dark corners of the heart,
bring smiles to lips turned down in a scowl,
temper sorrow with happier times,
turn back even pain’s relentless attack
into a victory for the human spirit’s
capacity for rising above the worst of things,
and reaching for its kinder side,
on show but, oh, too rarely, in a world
preferring secrets and lies

I give Youth a chance to score points
over peers preoccupied with one-upmanship
in some bleak, sordid arena
of gang warfare, where the weak are seen
as targets for bullies, even killers,
armed with knives and guns on the grounds
that actions speak louder than words
and it’s only fools learn the body language
of peace and love

I bring to Old Age welcome respite
from an inclination to turn back the pages
of memory, wishing we had done
things differently, trod more carefully
among muddy leaves of desire,
considered the needs of others more
in our anxiety to leave footprints
of memorable endeavour once left to wing
time’s corridor forever

Oh, I can be cruel (can’t we all?) Yet, no finer
teacher of life’s ways than I, called Laughter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010