The Seekers OR Beyond Rhyme and Reason ... What?

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2016 under a different title.

I am often asked (a) Why do I write poetry, and why so little blank verse when everyone knows rhyme is old hat, especially as the media ignores me for the most part so I’m not even "famous"? and  (b) Why spoil a good poetry site by including gay poetry? [Thank you for the praise element there.]

Well, fame isn’t everything, nor is blank verse, and I do have a reputation of sorts around the world if feedback from my blogs and other Internet sites is anything to go by. The most important thing to me is that there are people out there who read what I write; whether or not they like what I write is less important than it may give them food for thought. [Even not liking something demands we ask ourselves, why?] As for including gay-interest poems, as I do in all my collections…why not? I am a gay man and a poem is a poem is a poem. I have received emails from heterosexual readers to say it has helped them think differently (better) about gay people and from gay readers thanking me for my inclusiveness. Opinions will always be divided; such is the nature of food for thought.

Poetry is a passion with me. Prior to university, I wrote many poems; less so for some time afterwards. Reading and writing critical essays about great poets was very enjoyable, but also very daunting. How could I possibly follow in the footsteps of the likes of Wordsworth, Shelley, Blake, Hardy and so many more? It took a while for the penny to drop. I could not hope to follow in their footsteps nor should I even try. No, I must create footprints of my own. It would not matter if few people found them worth following so long as they were there, to be chanced upon; hopefully, of some worth to someone somewhere at some time or another finding their way in life (and losing it now and then) as I have done. Reading great writers has helped me become a positive thinker; no mean feat considering the inferiority complex that dogged me at home, school and young manhood.

I have only ever been in love once in my whole life, but love takes various forms and I have loved many people in various ways. Take friendship, a form of love at all its various levels, and probably the most commonly open to abuse. Sometimes love is returned; often, though, it is abused. Nor am I referring to just physical but also  psychological abuse; people taking advantage of love, taking it (and us) for granted, always taking, taking, taking… with little or no thought about what it means to give. It can hurt, really hurt. For me, poetry has always helped ease that hurt. 

Yes, poetry is my passion, a love that returns far more than I can ever give. Especially as I grow old, the passion continues to course through my veins and remind me of all that is beautiful in this sorry world, in nature and human nature; more than a match for cynic or pessimist, and music to the ears of a positive thinker so long as he or she remembers to listen out with inner ear, see with inner eye, feel a way through bad times to better. I recall loves of my life - in all shapes and forms - that inspire me, always have and always will.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are all poets in the sense that poetry is the very act of living; how we chose to define it - and ourselves - is down to each and every one of us, each in our own way, not least in poetry, bearing in mind how there is a poetry of sorts in everything we are, do, regret, aspire to ... whatever, if we care to look, and learn  from the looking whether or not we ever quite find it.

This poem is a villanelle.

THE SEEKERS or BEYOND RHYME AND REASON ... WHAT?

Who seeks out poetry, seeks love,

always listening out for its call

in nest or flight, wings of a dove

Between earth and heavens above,

as human passions rise and fall.

who seeks out poetry, seeks love 

Find nature’s finest, hand in glove

with Man’s first aim, survival;

in nest or flight, wings of a dove

Where a trophy hunter may prove 

keen eyes for a potential kill,

who seeks out poetry, seeks love

A power to make mountains move,

centuries-old nightmares repel;

in nest or flight, wings of a dove

Grown cold, hand out of its glove

among rhetoric's overspill?

who seeks out poetry, seeks love,

in nest or flight, wings of a dove

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

Drumming up Raison d'être OR Music to the Ear

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

Still stressed out here, but where there's stress, there may well be - invariably so, in my case - a poem attempting to relieve it ...

Now, regular readers will know that I subscribe to no religion; the closest I identify with any sense of a God is as a philosophy that turns on nature rather than dogma which has, in turn, led me to identify closely with pantheism. 

My Religious Education teacher at secondary school once asked my fifth form class to put our hands up if we believed in God. A forest of hands shot up to confirm that, yes, most of the class did. Only a few of us kept hands on desks. One by one we were asked why we didn't believe in God. While most  simply shrugged and looked increasingly embarrassed, somehow found the nerve to insist that I could not imagine a personified God and saw no reason to take the word of any religious text since I saw religion as being one of the most divisive forces in world history. (I had recently read something along those lines and instantly empathised with the author.) To my surprise and relief, I was not taken to task for presuming to differ. Instead, the teacher asked me if I believe in nature, to which I managed a positive "Yes, sir!" 

"Then you are a pantheist, Taber," the teacher said, and went on to try and explain pantheism to the whole class. Someone asked if pantheism was a sin. "Not exactly," said the teacher, "because it does not deny the existence of God, only of God as an individual.The pantheist sees God as an expression of everything in the universe, especially nature; it is a philosophy as opposed to a Faith. A person's faith may well consider pantheism a sacrilege, but that is only according to its dogma. Whether we accept or reject any dogma, on whatever grounds, is entirely up to the individual. Taber's choosing to reject it, doesn't mean he is right or wrong any more than the rest of us who choose to accept it. Either way, attributing a meaning to God that is meaningful to the inner self will, hopefully, sustain us all our lives and beyond. Now, to move on ..."

I am paraphrasing in part, but this has to be more than simply the gist because those words were destined to remain in my head for the next sixty years. (I will be 75 in December)

Hopefully, I have also answered the question recently emailed me by a reader who  is offended by  my commenting - on more than one occasion - that religion does not have a monopoly on spirituality. The latter, this reader insists, 'requires a Belief in God as laid down by Holy Books.'

What can I say? I can only suggest we agree to differ, especially as he (or she) also has some nice things to say about my poetry, and is clearly a regular visitor to this blog.

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

DRUMMING UP RAISON D'ÊTRE or MUSIC TO THE EAR

I smell autumn,

even as sounds of summer

drift by my window

on a gentle, southerly breeze;

Earth Mother

at my ear, ever warning me

against despair;

each season's heart beating out

the slow-quick-slow

rhythms of any given life span

on drums across the world

I spot swallows,

aware their time has come again

to elude winter's bite

before it's too late to take wing

for kinder climes,

taking their cue (invariably)

from a north wind

now plucking, now tearing leaves

from nesting trees,

like a bailiff serving due notice

to quit, little if any reprieve

Elderly couples,

grandchildren skipping alongside

mums pushing prams,

all pause to watch the swallows,

all noise and silence

asking a what-where-why 

mentoring humankind,

listening out for answers in the wind

that are a blur on the ear

manifesting itself in sciences, arts,

and philosophies of religion

Gone, the swallows.

out of sight, out of mind, like friends

who have moved away,

promising to have us come and stay

'one of these days';

loneliness, a snowfall of the heart

on mind-body-spirit;

Memory, keeping a weather eye open 

for swallows in the course

of its seeking answers to questions

posed by past-present-future

Time passes, winter 

melts into spring, swallows returning;

an invitation out of the blue

from friends moved away, anxious

to avoid speculation;

nature, left sleeping on sounds-smells

of other seasons

by way of its nurturing more life forms;

humanity, left asking

of arts and sciences such proof of life

as might nurture raison d'être

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2019; 2020