Seeing is Believing, True or False?

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

Years ago, after school, two friends (we’ll call them A and B) were caught kissing behind the bicycle sheds at the back of our school playground by a teacher working late. On being asked for an explanation, one friend said, “We love each other, sir.” 

After a long, ominous silence, the teacher asked “Do your parents know?” The culprits shook their heads. 

“Are you going to rat on us, sir?” Boy A asked, swallowing hard. 

“Somethings need to come from the horse’s mouth,” was all the teacher said, albeit sternly, before dismissing them. 

The two friends thought they had got off lightly, but no such luck it, not least because society was such that it would be years before either felt able to come out of the closet and tell the world they are gay, by which time they hadn’t even kept in touch. 

The following weekend, A spotted B in the local park with another boy. A’s emotions, at fever pitch since the incident in the bike shed, erupted and he let rip with a torrent of abuse; it was only later that he realised it has been aimed at himself. 

Gay or straight, we all do and say things we regret. Boy A was jealous, of course, but the incident in the bicycle sheds only days earlier had scared him more than he cared to admit. It was not a good time then to be gay, and issues on the home front made it impossible to follow the teacher’s good advice and tell the family that, at 14 years-old, he had already discovered his true sexuality.

It was a gay friend who told this story about himself, to me and several straight friends some time ago. All of us admitted we recognised ourselves in it, having suffered mixed emotions in similar situations, not least that love-hate peculiar to jealousy.

 Gay or straight, whoever and wherever, what are any of us but human when all’s said and done?

‘Love sees sharply, hatred sees even more sharp, but Jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time.’  -  Arab Proverb

SEEING IS BELIEVING, TRUE OR FALSE? 

I am, to any life force,
its own worst enemy, that light mist
descending on a wintry
season of the heart mistaken for spring,
taken in its stride by mine host,
a vision of summer haunting the heart
that’s sure to thrive on its heat
if only for letting the power of illusion
fire passions of self-deceit

Like a rose, its thorns
forgiven for the beauty of its having
been nurtured by the love
of Earth Mother, with no small input
from yours truly, anticipating
showcase summers, a rose garden
of our own making,
pledging our love, oblivious to any threat
by storm clouds gathering

One evening, gone jogging,
I chose to take a longer route than usual
for no reason but a whim
to chase pigeons into a sunset, no matter
it put me to such shame
as would be my undoing in showing me
someone picking a rose
and giving it to you with a kiss that drove me
where no sane person goes 

No lovers but old friends had I chanced upon;
jealousy, my hurt-rage-loss-prison

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2020

[Note: This post-poem also appears on my gay poetry blog today.] RT

 

 

Reflections on the Darker Side of Human Nature

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

[Update (Sept 4, 2016) A perceptible rise in hate crime against EU and other migrants in parts of the UK since the Brexit vote is as disturbing as it is appalling; another modern tragedy perpetrated by a significant but vocal minority along with racism and homophobia. Even intolerance of elderly and disabled people is not unheard of in this sorry world of ours While some prejudices are ingrained in certain socio-cultural-religious conventions, others merely service a warped ego; all need to be weeded out, and will be, but not in my lifetime, I fear.]

From time to time (or perhaps more often these days?) stress rears its ugly head and tempers become frayed. We can try and recognise the signs and stay calm, but that's easier said than done. 

Too often, we say things we don’t mean in a temper or, if we do mean them, we probably shouldn’t have said them. If the worst comes to the worst, all we can do is apologise and try and make peace. As my late mother used to say, if your head is too big to apologise, your mind is too small for it.

With some people, of course, the damage done is irreparable but that isn’t always a bad thing. Having let rip with anger, it can sometimes bring a welcome sense of relief, especially when it targets those among us with whom it is impossible to talk things through. If it gives the person with whom we have lost our temper food for thought, so much the better and we should accept any genuine olive branch gracefully. However, some people are too self-centred to concede that it takes two to make a quarrel and two to make it up. They prefer to hug their grievances to them, relating them to all and sundry as a means to gaining an invariably undeserved sympathy vote.

By the way, I speak from personal experience. When I was younger I would put up with ‘friends’ (and family) treating me badly because I knew they didn’t necessarily mean it. Even so, most would run a mile rather than sit down and talk things through. Once I turned sixty, I decided life is too short and time too precious to waste on people like that.

“Angry people are not always wise.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

This poem is kenning.

REFLECTIONS ON THE DARKER SIDE OF HUMAN NATURE 

I watch you, though from shadows,
and you know I am there yet choose
to ignore me, hoping I will go away
but it’s my choice to stay, observe
the way you walk, talk, seeing how
you react to what others do or say,
assessing your hurt by scratch marks
of the queerest designs you pass off
as laughter lines

I follow you about wherever you go
and you would be rid of my company
yet dare not face me with all the facts
I have gleaned over years of grooming
you for my own ends. Any resistance
is futile, though I grow apprehensive
when you mix with others who would
usurp my place, take you for their own,
share love’s crown

Years pass, and now we walk together
and you dare not say ‘no’ to passing
into the shadows with me for have I not
watched over you as I would a child?
Where can the light of the world take us
but among regrets and betrayal, along
tracks made by paper tigers that belong
here, where only leafy skies have shed
tears for centuries

I hold the hand writing history’s next page,
and am called Rage

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2018

[Note: This poem first appears under the title 'The Savage' in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; rev. title 5/18]