A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Sunday 26 April 2020

Getting the Better of Fear OR Stranger than Fiction

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

[Update - April 26th 2020: Many of us suffer from depression at the best of times. The coronavirus pandemic means we are living in the worst of times many people will have had to confront in their lifetimes so far; the toll on mental health worldwide is incalculable. Where many of us will admit to being 'stressed out' those same people often prefer to avoid the term, 'mental illness'; they see its some kind of stigma. Whatever, our mental health is every bit as important as our physical health; both are necessary for our general well-being. 

Regular readers will know how much importance I place on positive thinking, the key to mental and physical health, now more than ever as we fight not only the pandemic itself, but our fears for its potential economic and social consequences worldwide. 

Enter, the human spirit, always on hand to lead us away from negative thinking by substituting a natural optimism ... if we let it. Life is tough for everyone at the moment, especially those struggling with the virus itself or who have already lost loved ones and friends to COVID-19, but also the world population in general; everyone fears the unknown and needs must find their own way of rising above that fear.  For me, it is creative therapy, and I recommend it;; this can be the arts, gardening, physical exercise ... anything we can enjoy, that will lift our spirits, offer the human spirit an opportunity to actively engage with us and  help us to help ourselves and encourage others to do the same.

The human condition is no pushover, not least in its capacity for love; let its nemeses throw what it will at us, we will overcome them if we but engage with its spirit full-on. As I've said on the blogs many times, I'm not a religious person, and it's my belief that religion does not have a monopoly on spirituality, but whatever ... if it works for you, GO for it.
..................................................................................

Now, regular readers will know I have suffered regular bouts of depression all my life. Creative writing is the lifeline that empowers me to drag myself out of it. Okay, so some of it that may not satisfy my critics, but it helps to keep me on an even(ish) keel and feedback suggests that it helps some readers to do the same.

Depression is a form of retreat from reality when we try (and inevitably fail miserably) to run away from aspects of life we prefer not to confront head-on for whatever reason; if we end up confronting anything it is our failure to run away which, of course, only exacerbates the depression.

Depressed people need patience, understanding and help. Sadly, all three are often found wanting in modern society. Indeed, I would go so far as to say there is little more of any now than when I had a severe nervous breakdown way back in the late 1970's.

It is important to remember that depression is an invisible illness; you cannot tell simply from looking at a person that he or she is depressed. If someone you know, though, starts behaving uncharacteristically in any way, please give them the benefit of the doubt and be there for them. Depressed people are often in denial (as I was myself all those years ago) so be supportive even where someone may well reject the idea they are in need of any support. 

I suffered from depression even as a child; being an avid reader saved me from the worst of it. I never thought of reading as creative therapy, but of course it was, just as writing would become in later years.  No one considered that children might get depressed in those days, but thankfully, attitudes have changed, and about time too.

Invariably, it takes time and care for mind, body and spirit to get back into sync, but where there's a will, there really is a way ....

GETTING THE BETTER OF FEAR or STRANGER THAN FICTION

I ran like a frightened rabbit,
a once-friendly darkness all but
choking my lungs;
every exit blocked, no escape,
sentenced to death in the pages
of a novel

Panic-stricken now, desperate
to feast my eyes on one glimpse
of freedom;
finally, surrendering to despair,
I paused, all but ready to see how
my story ends

Suddenly, the faintest memory
of some long-ago spring charged
my ailing heart;
calling upon a half buried will,
I somehow managed to chase it
down the last tunnel

In fresh air and warm sunshine
I found the peace that closes eyes
and lets dreams pass
where, oh, but we would follow,
give reality the slip and be a hero
in someone else’s novel

Yet, the story is mine alone to tell,
second chance at living, promising
a kinder ending;
as for those readers burrowing
dusty bookshelves, may they too
re-invent themselves

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]

[Note: This poem first appeared on the blog in 2013 under the title, 'Run, Rabbit,Run'.]

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Saturday 29 August 2015

Home Truths, Martyrs to Love


A reader once got in touch to say he feels such a fool because he can’t help loving his girlfriend even though she continues to see other guys. 

That same day, there was an email in my In Box from a gay guy relating how he could not get even begin to get his head around his boyfriend's wanting an open relationship. While I, personally, would walk away, I do not underestimate either the power of love  or of well-meaning (if often ill-advised) pressure from family and/or friends - reminding us of our various 'responsibilities'; in other words, we mustn't be seen to let the side down. (Better to let ourselves down...?)

What can I say except these are among many men and women around the world who, for centuries, have settled for less - sometimes far less - in a relationship than, at heart, they desire and need. Some people, of course, can live with open relationships; for others (like me) it is asking too much.

It has to be one of the saddest facts of life that many potential partners cannot always see the other person’s take on love or…each other. Yet, many of us will settle for a one-sided relationship than no relationship at all, and the threat of loneliness; the latter reason perhaps why the world is full of martyrs to love.

Relationships between two people can only work if both partners want it to work, and neither should forget that everyone has a choice.

HOME TRUTHS, MARTYRS TO LOVE

You warned me not to fall in love with you,
that it was sex alone, never love, spurring us on,
for love is only for fools (you said) its course
set and steered by wet dreams; we worldly types
know better (you said) while tonguing words
of intimacy as if rites for a benign conspiracy

Keeping up appearances, it was nothing more
(never love) fuelling inspiration. Gladly I’d let
your fine body take mine, clung to the hope
that you’d come to love me, despairing as each
frantic, mindless, orgasm ripped through us
like that double-edged sword we call honesty

A culture of hypocrisy concealing human needs,
never quite able to satisfy the loneliness it feeds
  
Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2015



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Thursday 12 March 2015

Toys in a Window


Today’s poem was written in 1981, but it was not until the 1990’s that I began submitting poems for publication.  At the time, I was mid-recovery from a severe nervous breakdown s few years earlier. Writing helped considerably towards an initial if fragile recovery that eventually saw me looking for (and finding) a job some18 months later. 

I would like to think I am more optimistic and a shade less cynical about life and society now, but…

Well, we all know what thought did…

TOYS IN A WINDOW

At a window on my life I gaze,
close my ears to the weary windings
of clockwork days, try to imagine
how it might be should these stiff-neck
streets ever cease their turning me
to what I am - part of this global sham
of human boast, comprising toy folk
for the most if a few taking  heart still,
tugging at the sleeve as a child will,
ever anxious to leave the plastic places,
and cartoon faces undermining a flair
for freedom on see-saw, swings, among
other things we forget soon enough
while struggling for reasons unknown
to keep some stubborn noon design
intact; part of the same act invariably
put on for each day’s passing us by,
sure to earn a slow clapping in the head
at bedtime from other toys in the hands 
of toymakers aspiring to coax cash mules
to the world’s water holes

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was first published in a Poetry Today (Forward Press) anthology, Looking through the Mirror of Life (2000) and subsequently in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]


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Saturday 5 July 2014

Configuring Personal Space

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

A human being is a human being is a human being, whatever his or her race, creed, sex or sexuality. 

Love is a live poem. 

Just as a poem is a poem is a poem whatever its structure or theme, so, too, love is love is love … in whatever shape or form.

Those who rage against the world's lovers on grounds of  race, creed, sex or sexuality, rage against humanity.

I look at various socio-cultural-religious factions dead set on imposing their ideas and ideals on anyone who does not share theirs … and …thank goodness for the enduring power of love, rising above all else. 

‘Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs; Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes; Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.’ - William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)

CONFIGURING PERSONAL SPACE

Today is all we have;
yesterday left long, long, ago
where tomorrow plays host
to a sandman waiting to say,
‘Hello’

Tonight is all we have;
tomorrow left long, long, ago,
and yesterday never was
until love came by and said,
‘Hello’

This life is all we have;
its ghosts left long, long, ago
on fleeting wings of time
inspiring  a sandman’s cheery
‘Hello’

This love is all we have
to be sure, ourselves, to know
in that personal space
forever sounding out its first
‘Hello’

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

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Saturday 21 June 2014

Pages in a Photo Album

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

Clouds tell many stories, not least our own...

PAGES IN A PHOTO ALBUM

Lying in the grass,
studying the sky as cloud faces drift by
like the years of my life from cradle
to now, wondering where did they go,
and why, how…?

Grandpa and grandma,
long since gone to dreams in the urn;
family and friends I have loved,
and those who freely gave their love
in return

Teachers, liked or loathed,
rarely understanding how hard
some kids find it to be good
at this or that so get into trouble
at an early age, and few bother
to turn the next page in their history
so - misery!

Prisoners’ faces, too, putting
on a show, believing they know
they are done for, puppets
made to wriggle and squirm
on all-invisible strings, even pray
for better things, but to what, where,
or whom…?

Faces in a global room
looking out, always too scared to shout
for Love and Peace
as Apollo and today’s tin gods
make sport with us

Lying in long grass,
studying the sky as cloud faces drift by
like the years of my life from cradle
to now, wondering where did they go,
and why, how…?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Looks Familiar' in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Book, 2001.]

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