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]

The Crusher

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

This Age of New Technology is an Information Age like no other (so far) with information available to us at the press of a button. How much of this, though, is reliable or even correct? Although it is a good 50+ years since I left school, I well recall being taught how to discriminate fact from speculation, points of view from an extended imagination which only just falls short of pure fiction.

Often, I hear people tell me they like to speak their minds, and I am all for it. More often than not, though, they are repeating parrot fashion something they have heard or read about with which they happen to relate; relating, however, and agreeing are not the same thing. We need to investigate further in order to reach an informed conclusion.

While many of us have strong opinions on various subjects, we need to respect that others may agree to differ. Better still, we need to be able to support out opinions with information gained from reliable sources. At the same time, we should not dig our heels in to such an extent that we cannot be drawn into alternative arguments which may lead us to reach an altogether different conclusion.

If a closed mind is a dull mind, an open mind is a lively one although sitting on the proverbial fence is not an option and we need to feel confident about deciding where we stand, and be prepared to be counted; that way, the human animal remains free and primed to resists any attempts to cage it by  misleading information or propaganda. 

Where seeing is believing then sadly so, too, is deceiving at times, no one spared, neither political nor religious leaders, while social media targeting the likes of you and me as well.

THE CRUSHER

I will crush you in my grip,

but slowly, relishing the torment

of each victim fallen

into a trap of his or her own making

but deserving better (perhaps?)

than finding me there, rendering

any bid for freedom

no more or less than a pathetic

waste of time

If I show mercy now and then,

be sure it is but part of a dark design

intended to give more false

an impression even than I gave you,

who thought you knew better,

leaving yourself underestimating

your defences, vulnerable

to attack on all sides, quick thinking

your only recourse

I cherish any advantage over you,

relish reminding you time and again

of what deaf-blind vanity

has given you to me like a sacrifice

to Gods of Desire on hand

to enjoy their wicked ways with you,

only to toss their leftovers

where I wait to chew away at live flesh

on the bones

Call me Fake News, active and scary

in world societies believing in me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016, rev. 2021

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised since it last  appeared on the blog under title 'Enemy at the Door' 2016.] RNT

x

Real-Life Heroes and Popcorn Soldiers

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

I know I have said this before but it never ceases to amaze me how, when terrible clips of deaths and injuries suffered during the war in Afghanistan are shown on TV News, some people - especially children and young people - instead of being appalled, become excited, as if they were watching a war movie!

Oh, but it’s a sad reflection on our times if we cannot get across to everyone how to discriminate between fact and fiction.

REAL-LIFE HEROES AND POPCORN SOLDIERS

Dust, sand and blood

on his boots;

dust, sand and blood

on his uniform;

blood, sweat and tears

on his face;

blood, sweat and tears

in his eyes;

only a quiet heart kept

clean if not safe;

as for more of the same,

bags of them

No dust, sand or blood

on designer shoes;

no dust, sand or blood

on custom tee shirts;

no blood, sweat or tears

in high places;

no blood, sweat or tears

in eyes glued to TV,

only the armchair soldier

biting popcorn bullets;

as for more of the same,

bags of them

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2010

Stormy Weather

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

[Update: 26.9.2019: Only six years have passed since I published this post/poem on the blog, but during that time bullying has raised its ugly head time and again on social media. Boys, especially, are inclined to suffer in silence, probably having been raised to think it isn't macho to tell tales out of school, but no small number of girls as well. Bullies are sick; reporting them is actually helping them to focus on what and who really matters in this life. So never suffer in silence. Tell a parent, teacher, best friend...someone you can trust to help you find the moral courage to do whatever needs to be done to expose the bully for the cowardly scum he or she is, and put a stop to it if only to prevent them putting someone else through the hell they are putting you through.] RNT

The main reason I am on the blog today is to recommend tyDi's great song/ video on You Tube  about some of the worst aspects of modern life that continue to plague many of us, especially young people, homophobic bullying among them. In case you haven’t found it yet, I urge you to go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CseffFUSAkg

I am 67 years old, and yet it wasn’t so different when I was young. What does that say about the world we live in, eh?  Even so, change is happening and people are becoming more aware of bullying and how it can drive people over the Edge of Reason into the Abyss. More importantly, come what may, love and the better, kinder, side of human nature continue to assert themselves over bigotry and ignorance.

Now, while I’m here…

I find writing increasingly stressful at the moment as my cataracts are getting worse. This poem is an early piece that appeared in several poetry magazines, 1996-1998, before I included it in my first major collection. Regular readers may be surprised to see that I made more (conventional) use of upper case letters at the start of lines in those days. I wrote it one stormy day while sheltering from the rain in a bus shelter.

I suspect the ‘rush of images had as much to do with seeing Derek Jarman’s amazing film 'The Garden' (1990) a few days earlier as a sense of nature ‘rushing’ me into…what? Writing a poem, maybe…

STORMY WEATHER

Cloud faces grimace;
lifelines leafing
through pouring rain;
fantastic canvas
leaping at the eye;
rooftops dripping
(sweat of heavens);
rhythm of children
braving a temporary
freedom

A rush of images
as ever seen;
Van Gogh, Jarman
each to their own
spirited inspiration;
distant thunder
rumbling our fears
while (reprieved)
we try to pass it off
as living

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2017

[Note: This poem has been slightly but significantly revised from the original version as it appears in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000]