Teller of Tales, Second to None

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

What I wouldn’t give to be a fly on the wall in the Corridors of Power, just about anywhere in the world! 

There is a saying, ‘Truth will out’ and it invariably will, if only in bits and pieces for us to make of them what we will, our own bias making no less a contribution to our interpretation of those same bits and pieces as whatever personal agenda various sources releasing them may be following. 

As England prepares to enter a second lockdown on Thursday, the local gossips are having as much a field day as party politicians. As ever, I can’t help recalling what my mother used to say of national politics and local gossip alike, “Never rely on one source, and always try to keep an open mind.”

This poem is a kenning.

TELLER OF TALES, SECOND TO NONE 

I mingle with the rich and famous
every day, but am rarely in the public eye
although you may glimpse me
on the telly now and then helping to set
the scene for an interview,
a silent witness never anything to say there
and then, although the chances are
you’ll hear more from me, and openly,
no anonymity 

Politicians have always had my ear,
along with icons of sport and other masters
of their art, whether he or she
be a movie star or small screen celebrity,
writer of novels, poems, recipes
to try at home or travel tales sure to tempt
even a diehard stay-at-home
to roam beyond house and garden, by courtesy
of imagination 

I rub shoulders with kings and queens,
help lift the lid on various world intrigues
(if better late than never);
I can travel past, present and future as easily
as hailing a cab, catching a bus,
free to fly air corridors, saol oceans wide,
summon emotions good and bad,
play such games with the human psyche anyone
engaging with me 

No more sworn to secrecy than bound by time
or place, your everyday bookcase

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

Setting the Pace

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

Here is another poem from my collections that is not on the blog; as I continue to work through them, adding revised poems for e-editions to publish at a later date, there may well be others appearing here. (Poems already on my poetry blogs have long since been revised where appropriate.)

It often seems to me that we live in an increasingly heartless world, one in which people don't care enough about each other as befits a common humanity. Even so, despite the hypocrisy, bigotry, fake news and other divisive aspects of human nature, its humanity continues to shine through because most people DO care; it's just that few hit the headlines, and we are invariably  influenced by media headlines - local and national -more than we might care to admit.

It is the human heart's capacity for empathy and caring that will always let mind-body-spirit have the edge on the worst aspects of human nature...as and when we choose to let it; in any socio-cultural-religious context.

SETTING THE PACE

I am a cry in the night,

world cocking but half an ear

as it tosses and turns

its sleepy heads on damp pillows

that will need laundering

come morning if only to hide

tell-tale patches of grief,

guilt, betrayal, loss of innocence

and worse

I am tears in the rain,

no one able to tell I am crying,

no matter that I am

dying inside, needing to show

a kinder side than seen

by those who have no pity

for the likes of a cry

in the night or tears in the rain

soon forgotten

I am shadows in twilight,

precursor to darker deeds than

any God imagined

or else He (or She) would never

have laid life on me

but left me to pass like a dream

across time and space,

no cries or tears or fretting

about losing face

The faster beat of the human heart,

I give its humanity a head start

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: This poem appears in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]