Remembrance, (Another) Poem for All Seasons

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

Today's short poem first appeared on the blog in 2014.

Love, like life, has its seasons and, yes, we all know how changeable seasons can be while always making their presence felt. To no small extent, our capacity for love - in all shapes and forms - and friendship identifies our potential as human beings, no matter how far we may manage to fulfil it in real terms.

Much the same can be said of time. (We only have to look in a mirror to work that one out.)  

Yet, of one thing we can be certain; whatever our ethnicity, creed, gender or sexuality and, yes, age too, spring will always follow winter as sure as sunshine and rainbows follow rain.

REMEMBRANCE, (ANOTHER) POEM FOR ALL SEASONS

When I dream of you, we are in springtime

among high hopes I’ll not forget

When I think of you, it is midsummer,

(that light rainy day we first met)

Your kisses linger on my lips, invoke images  

of autumn leaves so gently falling

When I hear someone speak your name,

I fancy I hear a winter robin calling

To love, like nature, a splendour all its own,

and we, though parted, never alone

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2020

Keeping-Up-Appearances

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

Not so long ago, I spent an evening with a couple about my own age (68) who are so obsessed with looks that they have resorted to cosmetic surgery on more than one occasion. Ironically, the results are none too flattering. Besides, its's personality that counts more than looks, and don't let anyone tell you different. 

Respect comes into it to, doesn't it? Personally, I have more respect for the person who lets nature take its course and stays young in at heart than for the man or woman who prefers to kid themselves they have discovered the secret of eternal youth. The body may be a slave to time, but that doesn't have to be true of the spirit. The mind may well be vulnerable, but a strong dose of positive thinking and avoiding daytime TV has to be a good start. Couch potatoes do not age well in my experience.

Now, I ask you. Gay or straight, let;s stay young at heart by all means, but what’s wrong with growing old naturally?

Surely, it's enough that so many celebrities love to make fools of themselves by trying to turn back nature's clock without we ordinary men and women playing the same silly game?

On my opinion, cosmetic surgery is only ever justifiable in cases when people may have some kind of visible disfigurement that causes them distress. [It would probably cause them less distress if other people were less obsessed with outward appearances and more concerned with the person behind them.]

This poem is a kenning.

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

I’ll make a hunchback of you,

both feet arguing with waistline,

whitened teeth making tongue

abort any truer word in the offing

as if you have no real affinity

with the fix you’re in, only dimly

aware of any discomfort, unable

(or unwilling) to follow it through,

and carrying on regardless

I’ll make a fine fool of you,

object of scorn (though tempered

with compassion among family,

friends who may well stay silent,

fearing you confuse concern

with interference, pity, jealousy,

for preferring home truths

stay backward in coming forward

in case anyone notices

I’ll make a poor loser of you,

unless you choose to take me on;

recognize the enemy within

for what I am or else go as a lamb

to slaughter at the altar of vanity,

always seeking shelter from life’s

worst storms in love’s harbours,

but as a guest, no sense of belonging,

only a hungry yearning

I am foolish pride, oblivious to the fact

that my folly is perceived a poor act

Copyright, R. N. Taber 2007; 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title Obsession in Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; this rev. version, 2019.]

Tell-Tale Mind

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

How many of us, I wonder, show ourselves to others as we really are rather than whom we would like them to think we are? Many people seem to think I am a strong person and very self-confident. Yet, nothing could be further than the truth. I portray a fictionalized version of myself in which I believe, because I have never quite managed to work out what it is about my real self that I can believe in.

Sometimes, when we are discussing mutual friends or colleagues with other friends and colleagues, even members of our own family with other members of the family, we are not infrequently surprised by what we hear and may even wonder if we are talking about the same person. I guess we present a different persona to different people. Yet, those personae are all the same person. So are we, I wonder, all caught up in our own fictions?

I have kept faith with my sexuality since I came out as an openly gay person many years ago, and am certainly not ashamed of being gay. At the same time, all those formative years of having to lie because being gay was a criminal offence have left their mark. In those days, I had to create an alternative persona in order to survive. On the one hand, there was the conscientious if not very bright schoolboy; on the other, there was the shy, scared teenager struggling to come to terms with an awakening sexuality and finding ways of satisfying it that would have shocked just about everyone I knew. I’d cruise for sex and love-hate every minute of it. I was like a good-bad character in a novel. My life, for years was a split reality. Even now, years on, no one knows or will ever know how much so or just how much of that split personality remains.

Oh, I am no Jekyll and Hyde, but if someone were to ask, ‘Will the real Roger Taber stand up please,’ it would be a motley collection of characters that step out of the storybook that is my life.

This poem is a villanelle.

TELL-TALE MIND 

I’d show the world what I would be

(as if make-believe pays)

but the mind, it tells tales on me

Terrified, as I confront adversity,

a sailor on angry waves,

I’d show the world what I would be

‘Be brave, go free,’ love told me,

quick to learn its ways,

but the mind, it tells tales on me

From nature, I take my humanity

(lost in a temporal maze);

I’d show the world what I would be

I have kept faith with my sexuality,

(mastering its ways)

but the mind, it tells tales on me

The heart, it seeks refuge in poetry

(from its nightmares);

I’d show the world what I would be,

but the mind, it tells tales on me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2011

[Note: Yes, I know I’ve been oversimplifying in my preamble and not saying anything original, but readers often ask what lies behind a poem, what prompted me to write it in the first place. Besides, I am writing a blog, not an essay on the human psyche.]

Engaging with Mr Hyde

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

Most if not all of us have a dark side, possibly never more memorably illustrated than by Robert Louis Stevenson in his famous novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

What do we see when we look in a mirror? Sometimes, reflecting on how we look exposes much of how we are feeling but cannot articulate at the time; an indefinable anxiety about giving much if anything away.

In my experience, we need to give more away, feel less inhibited about confiding worries, fears, even a sense of split personality that can only fuel both.

On the whole, we all do a good job of camouflage. But is that a good thing? I suspect people would be less likely to crack under the strain of whatever it was causes them to do terrible things if they had felt able to talk to someone who might have been able to help them reach a clearer, less awful perspective on friends, family, colleagues, and life in general.

Having experienced a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago, I remain haunted by how much worse it so easily could have been if I hadn’t received the help and support I needed. This, I should add, was more by accident then design.

Looking back, I can see how feelings of distress fuelled by an emotionally damaged childhood and early manhood erupted as they did. I am only surprised this didn’t occur years earlier. Possibly, compensating very well (too well) for a significant hearing loss and having to conceal the fact that I am gay for many years (when gay relationships were a criminal offence) made me such an expert in the art of hiding my feelings that I could not even make them out myself. Certainly, I could not articulate on them and needed help in flushing them out before I could even begin to come to terms with how I really felt or who I really am.

Traumatic and distressing though my breakdown was, I was one of the lucky ones. 30+ years on, I still suffer bouts of depression from time to time, but these are nothing compared to what happened to me then. Tragically, mental health is still something of a taboo subject which is probably why most people’s conception of mental health issues continues to be naïve if not downright ignorant; more often than not, it is a distorted one. Only those of us who have experienced it and the relatively few people who have supported us on that ghastly roller-coaster ride, have any idea of the damage it does to the human psyche.

So if someone you know starts behaving strangely and out of character, please don’t give up on them. Try to help and support them. (Professional help and support is not always either forthcoming or constructive.) It isn’t always easy being a friend, but friendship means taking the rough with the smooth. Sadly, some people are only interested in the latter; they cannot or will not contend with the other.

This poem is a villanelle.

ENGAGING WITH MR HYDE

Find beasties in mirrors weeping

for those looking fear in the eye,

never truly awake or ever sleeping

Silent as dawn’s stealth creeping

over bedcovers where we lie,

find beasties in mirrors weeping

Werewolves in sheep’s clothing

(human nature knows us by)

never truly awake or ever sleeping

Consorting with gargoyles sweeping

up mistakes and lies we’ll deny,

find beasties in mirrors weeping

Through a lace curtain of empathy,

home truths from which we shy,

never truly awake or ever sleeping

Alter ego, a chameleon peeping

through a roaming glass eye;

find beasties in mirrors weeping,

never truly awake or ever sleeping

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010