In the Blink of an Elephant's Eye

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

A reader asks how I manage to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life “... in order to end most of your poems on a positive note?”  Well, I do try and have probably posted more such poems than usual lately, partly to knee-jerk a positive thinking mindset of my own in to action while, hopefully, encouraging any readers who may be feeling at a low ebb, to recharge their batteries.

I am by no means good with new technology. Writing up blog posts on my p c has always been stressful for me, but the kind of stress I welcome, if only for knowing that, by the time I am ready to publish, I will have shown various health issues just who’s boss.

Progress is, of course, part and parcel of life, but some of us adapt to it better than others, for various reasons, not the least of them being growing old and/ or having to tackle mental health issues.

To those who adapt to change fairly easily, welcome it as a challenge even, I would, of course, always encourage so positive and forward-looking approach; at the same time, I would also ask them not to be dismissive of those of us not up to the mark in one respect or another, for whatever reason. 

As we journey through life, our weaknesses often become obvious, less so the strengths that enable us to carry them, not least memories of kinder, happier times; the latter has never been about wanting time to stand still, rather it's about being inspired to journey on... whatever the next day may have in store for us. 

IN THE BLINK OF AN ELEPHANT’S EYE

Peering into the digital eye
of an elephant, my screen saver,
carried on a tide of empathy
by the beast into a digital jungle,
trumpeting our arrival
above other noises, all despairing
of anyone listening

Empathy, mind-body-spirit
conceding any virtual trumpeting
able to suss out surrounds,
savaged every day of every year,
its habitats and sources
of vital life forces put under duress
in the interests of progress

Progress for whom, though,
among creatures great and small,
left behind, struggling
to adapt while not knowing why
needs must all species
move on, make front pages of history
for classroom curiosity?

Can hear new bells tolling
nature and human nature’s failing
to solve new puzzles,
fathom new mysteries, making out
we know what’s going on,
whether or not (really) up to the mark,
all but in the dark...

Computer crashes, leaving me
wondering why, and what on earth I do
next by way of resuming
whatever progress I’d been making
in a winking, blinking,
elephant’s eye, invariably taking heart,
to reboot and restart

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

 

Dotting I's and Crossing T's

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

)I recall various classmates of 1961 becoming very feisty and argumentative when asked to comment on certain lines in T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. 

When asked to explain so many different arguments and points of view, the class became feistier still and even more argumentative. 

Everyone was clearly enjoying themselves, possibly because most of us hadn’t expected to enjoy the poem, not least for having had to read it for homework over the previous school holidays. 

No less aware then now as to how differences of personal opinion and interpretation can touch base with passions in us with which we may or may be overly familiar, it was my first major experience of seriously thinking about it. 

We need to hear and respect different points of view if only to help us formulate a critical response to them.   

DOTTING I’s AND CROSSING T’S

World, all but falling apart
seemingly losing heart, its peoples
coming together
now and then, but only in times
of crises, personal space
and sensitive global consciousness
then left to divide again,
crying over potential healing undone,
dying to review Square One 

World, looking all but dead
on its feet, weary of its weepy days,
anxious to revive kinder ways,
bridge chasms widening, deepening,
invariably by courtesy
of a global consciousness dead set
on reaping the better part
of nature-nurture in the sowing, reaping,
and saving of its own future 

Humanity, playing the world
with its demand for new technologies,
would have us tell tales
on each other, create such histories
of one-upmanship as embrace
all the politics of progress ever needed
to take credit where it’s to be had,
while any getting too close to home truths
dubbed vulnerable to fake news 

No matter how we dot its ‘i’ or cross its ‘t’,
it only takes one ‘y’ to redefine humanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

N-A-T-U-R-E, Pacemakers OR Up for a Challenge

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Now, most if not all of us know only too well how great a challenge the ups and downs of life can be,  especially now as the COVID-19 coronavirus may have passed its peak but persists in affecting daily lives around the world., not least those who have lost loved ones to it.

Nature, not unlike human nature is likely to draw us  into various relationship triangles here at various stages in our lives, not infrequently running circles around us and leaving us uncertain as to which way to turn next;  we can but do our best to shape up on our own account, and may the best man, woman, girl or boy win. As for what we mean by 'best' or 'win'... well, how subjective is that? It depends on your point of view, I guess, and a poem can only ever hope to touch upon skeleton templates. 

My English teacher, 'Jock' Rankin - more years ago that I care to remember - once described the relationship between the reader and any piece of writing as putting flesh on the bones; not an uncommon analogy, but one that went over the head of a slow-learner 12 year-old as I was then. In time, though, I came to see how appropriate it is given that no piece of writing strikes any two readers in quite the same way, thereby taking on a life of its own for the reader/s and in the abstract; the latter, in the course of any subsequent discussion, being left to us to make of what we will. A good teacher will suggest interpretations without imposing any; we may well instinctively opt (at the time) for what we discern as the teacher's preferred point of view, but the best teachers provide food for thought that can last a lifetime. Needless to say, Jock was one of the best. 

In many ways, my secondary schooling was all but irrelevant to my educational needs in the sense that its curriculum embraced more technical and science subjects than I have ever had a talent for. Even so, I learned more from its teachers than anything on the curriculum, and for that I will always be grateful.

'The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.' 

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Image taken from the Internet)

N-A-T-U-R-E, PACEMAKERS or UP FOR A CHALLENGE

Dawn,

demanding we play our part,

do our best

to rise above the worst

society can throw

at us, contrive (or negotiate)

a winning streak

least likely to drag us back

to Square One

Noon,

challenging us to do (far) better

than our peers

if only to earn promotion

of the sort likely

to bring in enough to pay off

the credit cards,

stop the bailiffs returning us

to Square One

Sunset,

too soon for congratulations

on playing our part,

keeping society off our backs

(for now, at least)

long enough (we live in hope)

to take a step back,

get the measure of ourselves

in Square One

Night,

running a gamut of high hopes,

broken promises,

missed opportunities, pipped

to the post every time

by Fate’s favoured, among whom

we are as...chaff

in an ill wind blowing us back

to Square One?

Sunlight,

waking up to chinks in shutters

greeting us

with wicked winks and cheers

from town and field,

applauding our taking off (again)

on wings of a skylark,
setting as tough a pace as any
for being alive

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

Source and Destination

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

The same reader who asked why I often use the expression mind-body-spirit in poems and word search labels rather than mind, body and spirit has also asked why past-present-future appears as one instead of three words. Again, hopefully, the poem below might help the reader to understand my point of view as I am not, as the reader suggests, simply taking poetic licence.

Does anyone really doubt that past, present and future have a significant bearing on the human and natural landscapes that comprise planet Earth, 0000 - 2019 and counting …?

Oh, but counting or countdown … and to what?

This poem is a kenning.

SOURCE AND DESTINATION

Human history, helping to shape

who we are, how we think,

all we believe in – religion or none,

children of Earth Mother,

going with nature as human nature

cajoles, or losing faith

in a socio-cultural consciousness

bogged down in stereotypes recycled

over centuries

Austere shades of contemporaneity

conspiring to project fake news

on social media, aiding and abetting

the worse symptoms

of prejudice, fear, even hate crime

on Everyman’s doorstep,

projecting, in turn, a sense of alarm

following shades of red sunrise to sunset

virtually incognito

Moving on, trusting in the true spirit

of progress to play fair with nature

and human nature, if taking on board

what Hope, Faith and Charity

have to say means providing a future

least likely to be disempowered

by changes of climates and all sorts,

of socio-cultural politics and religion bent

on blaming ghosts

I am past-present-future, making of nature

and human nature … whatever

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2019

The World this Weekend

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[Update: April 15 2017]: It is Easter, when we should all be thinking of love and peace towards each other instead of the threat of a nuclear confrontation between North Korea and the United States of America. I can't recall anything quite like this since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. I am am reminded by the song, Where Have All The Flowers Gone, that I first heard sung by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1962 although I confess I prefer the Joan Baez version (1967). When, indeed, will the conveniently anonymous yet all-encompassing 'they' ever learn? I love the song, not least because it made me think, just as it did a few minutes ago when I listened to it on You Tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCAmQkmBrj8 

Now, some readers find it irritating that I link to historical as well as newer posts/poems while feedback suggests that others take a genuine interest. Possibly, if my blogs/poems survive my eventual passing from this world, posterity, too, may take an interest? [I like to think so, but...who knows?]

Now, the poem below was written in 2002 but could have been written at any time in any century; an earlier version also appeared in an anthology - Daily Reflections, Triumph House [Forward Press] 2003 - and Ygdrasil, an on-line poetry journal, April 2005.

Some readers have questioned my use of the word 'faith' in the last stanza. Well, as I have often said before on my blogs, faith embraces a whole spectrum of feeling and thought. Religion does not have a monopoly on faith even with a capital 'F'; I chose to put mine in nature even as a child. 

Yes, The kind of spiritual strength that religious faith lends is important to many people and we should respect that. No less important to those like myself, though, is the sense of spirituality we take from nature. More importantly still, we need to have faith in ourselves...or how else can we expect it of others?

Where progress is a tool which we shape past, present and future, we need to make sure we get it right. and compose a living poem to last, not an epitaph for the wind to wear down until no one can read what it says, or wants to…

It may be true that money talks, but it doesn't have the wit that words do. (Now, there is potential for a war of words second to none...)

This poem is a villanelle.

THE WORLD THIS WEEKEND

In pastures green or desert sand,

they haunt and pursue us,

history's lessons unlearned

Fear, much like a dead man’s hand,

appears sound, washed clean,

in pastures green or desert sand

Words, drawn swords to the land,

ripping out its spleen;

history's lessons unlearned

Love, a well-worn but infinite strand

of hope on the world scene

in pastures green or desert sand

Time, a chance to make a stand

against war and pain,

history's lessons unlearned?

Faith would keep us safe and sound,

washing raw wounds clean;

in pastures green or desert sand,

history's lessons unlearned

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly  Books, 2002.] 

Making Peace with Progress (On the Waterways of Britain)

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

I wrote today’s poem to accompany the video my friend GrahamCollett shot some time ago for my You Tube channel (a team effort). Feedback suggests that some readers cannot always access You Tube so you can watch it here (see video at the bottom of this page) and listen to me reading the poem  over it OR tune into it directly on You Tube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA8VQoPgX2M

Alternatively, if the link does not work, go to my You Tube Channel and search by title:

 http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

After my being incapacitated for over a year following a bad fall in August 2014, we thought it would be a good idea to test new video software with some earlier - previously unpublished - footage  before proceeding to edit/post the next (recent) video/poem to You Tube comprising footage of The Gift Horse sculpture on the 4th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square. Watch this space…]

The video shows a section of the Kennet and Avon Canal, a waterway in southern England made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal; the name is commonly used to refer to the entire length rather than just the central canal section. In all, the waterway incorporates 105 locks, one of which you can see in the video. The two river stretches were made navigable in the early 18th century, and the 57-mile (92 km) canal section was constructed between 1794 and 1810.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the canal gradually fell into disuse after the opening of the Great Western Railway. In the latter half of the 20th century the canal was restored in stages, largely by volunteers. After decades of dereliction requiring much restoration work, it was fully reopened in 1990. Since developed as a popular heritage tourism location for boating, canoeing, fishing, walking and cycling, it is also important for its wildlife.

This poem that I read over the video (also in the Description on You Tube) is a villanelle.

MAKING PEACE WITH PROGRESS (ON THE WATERWAYS OF BRITAIN)

On the waterways of Britain
(many neglected for years)
Man and nature as one again

Compensating for acid rain,
find honest sweat and tears
on the waterways of Britain

Ever mindful of loss and gain,
(Oh, spirited volunteers!)
Man and nature as one again

A testament to industry’s pain,
toiling through its centuries
on the waterways of Britain

Hosting the occasional swan,
even water voles and otters,
Man and nature as one again

Among such, pages written
of a nation’s finer endeavours;
on the waterways of Britain,
Man and nature as one again


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Progress, Bitter-Sweet

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

Now, can we honestly call the rape of our forests and woodlands…progress?

Humankind needs to balance its own humanitarian needs with the needs of nature to help sustain them. If we are not careful, nature will get the upper hand sooner rather than later, destroy us before we can destroy it or even ourselves.

Whatever, to the victor, the spoils as the march of today’s Titans of big business and entrepreneurial skulduggery proceeds all but unchallenged...

PROGRESS, BITTER-SWEET

Shadows gathering
like crowds for an execution;
storm clouds rumbling
like a malediction on the planet
challenging us to bow out
here and now or put things right
(if it's not already too late)
to bequeath our children a future
in harmony with nature

In a spotlight of sunshine,
luminous corn circles invoking
the mystery of eternity,
human parts all but played out,
hearts put to rout,
hounded by a native savagery
plaguing the purer, simpler,
beauty of a common humanity
haunted by its history

‘Progress’ a bitter-sweet victory
over an earthly vulnerability

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002, 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in the Poetry Now [Forward Press] anthology series, London and Home Counties (2001) and subsequently in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]

Homing in on a Brave New World

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

If learning is a rites of passage, the foundations of learning must lie with love or why do any of us make the journey in the first place…? 

Love is the greater of all human life forces, whoever and wherever we are in the world, regardless of any socio-cultural-religious and, yes, sexual persuasion, not least because it does not discriminate but takes us as it finds us, no holds barred.

It takes various shapes and forms, of course, love; places and aspects of the natural world will often feed us lovely memories, all the more so, though, if they include loved ones and/or close friends who share them also.

HOMING IN ON A BRAVE NEW WORLD

Once upon a time

in the sunshine, fickle world

spinning me round

till a mist closing in on me

where mistakes

and regrets come to haunt

as they always have, and I dare say

always will…

Oh, but hastily passing them by,

my world and I

The mist begins to clear,

and instead of taunts,

I can hear sweet birdsong

in summer air,

singing love songs, reciting poems

about kinder

as well as darker aspects

of humanity…

Oh, but hastily passing them by,

my world and I

Music, still tugging  

at heartstrings,

inspiring we nature lovers

everywhere

to let open mind and spirit take us

by the hand

as a child to its elders bound,

asking questions…

Oh, but hastily passing them by,

my world and I

Words, lightly hovering

on each ear

like birds in mid-flight before

journeying on

(and who knows why or where?);

sense and sensibility

converging from the start

on the human heart

Oh, but hastily passing them by,

my world and I

Love, invading the senses

like sunshine,

lighting up shadowy corners

of the self,

left inarticulate and ineffective

by inexperience,

ready to accept responsibility

for a new maturity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015

Seeing Red OR Human Nature, Parts found Wanting

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Every year life dishes us our highs and lows, successes and failures, fun times and sad times. In no time (or so it often seems) another year will be stretching ahead from Day One. We can but promise ourselves and each other to do our best to make sure it is a better, kinder year...

As for making dreams come true (don’t we all have them?) it has been my experience, on the more promising occasions to which life has treated me now and then, that we may be pleasantly surprised how close we can get just by trying. 

The great thing about Sandmen is that they never discriminate; we can be rich or poor, gay or straight, super fit or severely disabled, from any country in the world...whatever...and they don't prejudge us for any of that,  just as it should be among human beings…

Me? Oh, I’m just one among millions of dreamers out there who hold the world as it could, would, and should be in the palms of our hands. [Slippery things, though, dreams, like good intentions...]

This poem is a villanelle.

SEEING RED or HUMAN NATURE, PARTS FOUND WANTING

A few dreams down, more ahead,

(but haven’t we all been here before?)

humanity (yet again) left seeing red

Integrity as unevenly spread

as ever across the world’s political floor;

a few dreams down, more ahead;

Mutual respect so thinly spread

among this world’s religions’ harder core;

humanity (yet again) left seeing red

Nations’ survivors bury their dead,

the injured left knocking at Heaven’s door;

a few dreams down, more ahead;

A better world, our forefathers said,

that’s what our blood and tears are shed for;

humanity (yet again) left seeing red

A kinder world would bow its head,

seeing fair Progress farmed out for a whore;

a few dreams down, more ahead;
humanity (yet again) left seeing red

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

The Last Donkey Ride

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

Nature may be fickle, but so is human nature; the chances are whoever takes the last donkey ride will look around and see a coastline that’s nowhere near as sound or green as we see now or may have done centuries ago; even the sea is losing its wildlife to a polluted modernity. 

Humankind may we rail against nature where it wreaks havoc and tragedy, the greater irony being that, in our desperation to harness and make it serve our own ends, there is really little to choose between the two.

Most if not all we human beings are vain enough to think we deserve priority over the natural world. Could it be, though, that Earth Mother has other ideas?

THE LAST DONKEY RIDE

Time and again you have passed me by,

turned a cloth ear to cries from a heart

begging its release or at least some relief

from such pain as only they know
who roam  the shores of life asking Why?"

In spite of those willing to lend a hand

where the need is greatest, you  deny

ignore, the rhetoric of discretion being

much the better part of valour

So weary am I of being taken for a ride,

on wings of a prayer or bored donkeys

at the seaside reassuring children

how sand shells tell tales of a golden age

not yet spent … where the sea is as safe

as the sky is blue, grass is green and corn

grows high, hopes for world peace
alive and well if but sailing on driftwood 

among time’s uneasy swell

How long can it last, me doing my best

for kith and kin, you abandoning us

to empty words, promises of better days,

world left railing against humankind’s

inhumanity, sure to get the better of me

without even a native dignity to cover

my blushes as they strip me bare, caring

little more in their naivety for my decline

than our mutual salvation?

Hear me, your Earth Mother in distress,

ye who engineer the Politics of Progress 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

This collection is still in print, but only on sale in the UK.  All readers, including any outside the UK, can obtain (signed) copies direct from me at a generous blogger discount on [retail price + shipping]. Enquiries to: rogertab@aol.com with ‘Poetry collection’ or ‘Blog reader’ in the subject field.

Lullaby for a Fractious Child

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

A college lecturer has contacted me to say he enjoys some of the stories my poems tell but I should write more 'real' poetry.

So what, I ask myself is 'real' poetry? Whatever...I am as I am, and I write as I write. Many people seem to enjoy my poems and that's good enough for me; at least they are real. As for my critics... [Do I care? Better to be read and found wanting than never read at all. I can't and don't expect every reader to like every poem as I write in many voices, and one reader's pleasure may well not be to another's taste at all. C'est la vie. ]

Meanwhile...

Modern life can be hassle, hassle, and more hassle. Thank goodness for nature and its various retreats from t modern life it offers. I live in Kentish Town, a district of London that is close to Hampstead Heath, the Regent’s Canal and the Regent’s Park. I love them all but especially love strolling on the Heath and enjoying the feeling that I could well be a million miles from the heart of one of the world’s frantically busy cities. London may have lots of cultural treasures to enjoy but without its natural retreats living here would be unbearable.

I would hate to see these retreats and all those like them across this sorry world of ours end up in the hands of property developers. They are, for many of us, a lifeline. Killing off nature is tantamount to manslaughter if not cold-blooded murder.

LULLABY FOR A FRACTIOUS CHILD

In a dream I lay in Earth Mothers arms

as we watched the world passing by,

gladly surrendering to the mixed charms

of a tearful twilight’s ages-old lullaby

We saw fair Apollo turn the grass brown,

humanity and beast alike starve and die,

Poseidon cause even his acolytes to drown,

whose wells and streams already run dry

We witnessed such blind grief and despair

as the Grim Reaper lets drop in his wake,

wept to see how our loved-ones might fare,

made to run the gamut for life’s own sake

Waking, I let Earth Mother wipe my tears,

words of a peace song ringing in my ears

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010, 2019

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from the version that appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]