Damper, In-out-In ... OR Tempering the Human Consciousness

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

Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2016; it was slightly revised in 2003 (for my collection the following year) from an earlier [1980's] poem, and you are invited to make of it what you will.

Now, in my 70's, I still find myself recalling the words of a song from early childhood:

Well, you push the damper in and you pull the damper out,

but the smoke goes up the chimney just the same…

I well recall what a teacher once said (n the 1950's) when I asked about philosophy, having read the word in a book and found a dictionary of little help. (I was 11 years-old.) ‘Philosophy,’ he mused, possibly more to himself than to me, ‘…is a vehicle for language devised by human nature to fire its passions without its having to commit to any responsibility other than just that. Think of the fireplace damper in your living room at home; the more it is opened, the more air to fuel the fire. So it is, as I see it, with philosophy. The more open a mind you apply, the fiercer the passions of intellect are sure to burn. On the other hand, if it’s absolute proof or even meaning you’re after, that is tantamount to the damper being closed and the fire left to go out. Either way, we have to be prepared for some smoke in our eyes ir not our Does that answer your question?’ It did not, of course (and I'm pretty sure he knew it) but I hadn’t the nerve to say so. Besides, my head was already swimming.

Years on, I begin to see the appropriateness of the simile although I should perhaps add that, as I progressed from first year to 6th form, I came to see my teacher, for whom I had much affection and respect, as something of a devil's advocate. As for philosophy, I am still inclined to see it as wisdom's get-out clause for explaining away everything and nothing.

DAMPER, IN-OUT-IN … or TEMPERING THE HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Thoughts

drifting, circling,

sending us here, there,

everywhere,

ever homing in 

on us …

obscuring,

deluding and confusing

the senses about

who we are, 

where we’re going,

whatever will become

of us …?

Rumours

drifting, circling,

sending us here, there

everywhere,

ever homing in

on us ...

obscuring,

deluding and confusing 

rights and wrongs

keeping an eye on us

like buzzards

in a mist anticipating

our end

Hopes

drifting, circling,

sending us here, there,

everywhere,

ever homing in on us,

obscuring, 

resolving to get the better

of any delusion

or confusion driving us

to ask who we are, 

going where,

whatever will become

of us …?

History

drifting, circling,

sending us here, there,

everywhere,

feeding leftover dreams

to mind-body-spirit,

intending to reassure us

who we are,

and going where, if only

we can get it right,

wherever it is we need

to be going,

whatever will become

of us

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was first published under the title Smokescreen in an anthology Sometimes I Wonder, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2004 and subsequently in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Potential for Inspiration

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

A colleague once remarked, not a little facetiously, that poets think they have the answer to everything.

Oh, but I wish!

At school, some 50+ years ago, my English teacher, Mr Rankin, (a Scotsman) once commented to the effect that life is all about discovery, and that is all about asking questions. 'Stop asking questions,' he told us, 'and you might as well be dead.'

Oh, but YES.

So what is life all about? Why are we here?  Different people, different answers, but it’s asking the question that counts, and makes us who we are.

POTENTIAL FOR INSPIRATION

What is life, but to have lived at all?

What is death, but all we‘ve not missed?

What is love, but to have loved at all?

What is beauty, but its flowers in a mist?

What is desire but to know desire at all?

(What is loss but by its light never kissed?)

What are dreams, but a life unfulfilled?

What are regrets, but art’s timelines?

What are hopes, but the inner eye’s take

on seasonal colours?

What is life, but to have lived it all?

What is death, but refuting all we missed?

What is love, but to have loved it all,

the beauty of its flowers in a spring mist?

What is desire, but to have desired it all,

loss but shadows where its light has passed

in a dream, the stuff a common humanity

lets pass for peace where its regrets run

with its hopes along timelines recording

art’s penchant for copycat?

In being moved to ask just one question

lies the potential for inspiration

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

Sun Worshippers

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

Some new readers have asked if there is a recording available of my informal poetry reading on the 4^th plinth in London’s Trafalgar square back in 2009 as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s One and Other ‘live art’ project.  Unfortunately, there isn’t one, but you are welcome to make a note of the link:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T    [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18

Now, all of us love the sunshine although I am no sun worshipper (as such) because I have very sensitive skin which even the best sun creams don't protect. Oh, but for those who can lie in the sun to their heart's content...heavenly, indeed!

SUN WORSHIPPERS 

Lying on the sand

letting the sea lick our feet,

listening to waves

like the heartbeat of a god

crashing against

the temple of its Being,

sending adrenalin

flowing through the veins

of acolytes thinking

to serve a Higher Power

than priests playing

mind games of their own

with our lives,

thoughts, ideas, faiths

likely to inspire

man, woman, child, across

land, sea, air, to bring

their joys, sorrows, hopes

for a (far) better life

to the altar of self-sacrifice,

arms and legs spread,

heads bowed, eyes closed,

listening for that still,

small voice, ever engaging
in a sense of spirituality

inviting a sense of our being

at one with its creation

Apollo among other gods

looking on blankly

as humankind all but bares all
on the sand, letting waves

tickle toes, and (who knows?)
even trying to understand

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2012

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from the version that appeared on the blog in 2009 and in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

A Seasonal Magic

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

[Update August 4th 2018: This poem was written before the effects of climate change began to make themselves well and truly felt...as during this, one of the hottest summers on record worldwide, Even so, every season in our lives is reflected one way or another in nature. In the latter, the keyword is renewal so, yes, I have no fear of death; pain, though, that is something else altogether.]

Some years ago,  I confided to friend (always an inspiration) on his 80th birthday that I sometimes felt scared of growing old. The lively 80 year-old in question told me not to worry. ‘Me, I think of myself as a tree going through its seasons, time after time, every one different and each, in its own way, as magical as any that have gone before,’ he said with a wry grin. .

‘What about winter?’ I asked sceptically.  

‘Time to enjoy a good rest and conserve our energy for whatever (or whoever) may be just around the next corner,’ came the unhesitating reply.

‘What if there’s no one and nothing?’ I persisted.

My elderly friend threw back his head and roared. ‘Well, if you’re that much of a pessimist it’s probably no more than you deserve.’

We both laughed, and I have never feared growing old since.

 (Image taken for the Internet)

A SEASONAL MAGIC

Often, as spring is fading,

I spot a face in clouds I know well,

as sure as a late lark working

the magic of its ages-old spell

Often, as summer is fading,

I hear a voice in my ears I know well,

as sure as a fine rain seducing

the trees with its ages-old spell

Often, as autumn is fading,

I feel caresses on my skin I know well,

as sure as a fair wind rising

to Earth Mother’s ages-old spell

Often, as winter is falling,

I surrender to an embrace I know well,

as sure as home fires reworking

what passes for an ages-old spell

Where a season’s colours fading

like the dream we knew only too well,

other lovers are discovering

the magic of its ages-old spell

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

On Cherry-picking Life-force Metaphors and Straws

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

As regular readers will know only too well, I like to think I have a strong sense of spirituality but find it - along with a sense of raison d’être - in nature, not religion. (I find dogma more imprisoning than enlightening.) At the same time, I am often accused of hypocrisy because I use religious metaphor in many of my poems.

For me, the more sensitive, imaginative, and spiritually enlightening passages in Holy Books are metaphors for humanity, its weaknesses and strengths.

Raised a Christian, I have never been able to take the Bible literally, but always found much food for thought in it and poetry to enjoy. I admire the historical Jesus of Nazareth as a man ahead of his time who spoke good sense and encouraged the kind of open mind and heart that many so-called Christians today would do well to follow.  

We have much to learn from founders of all the world’s religions.  So, yes, I often use religious metaphor in my poetry, and don’t consider this makes me a hypocrite.

Readers of my gay-interest blog often contact me on the subject of religion versus sexuality. Among them, ‘Julie M’ who wrote to say that she too ‘turned to nature for spiritual strength and reassurance after my religion failed me, a lesbian, when I needed it most.' Others have written to say they have been disowned by their family and friends for making life choices (not necessarily to do with sexuality) considered ‘inappropriate’ in the context of various socio-cultural-religious traditions.  [As the title of a poem of mine asks, whatever happened to love?]

This poem is a villanelle.

ON CHERRY PICKING LIFE FORCE METAPHORS AND STRAWS

Passive spectator to war,

the last tree left standing, evergreen;

God, a first and last metaphor

Tested like Adam (all the more)

by a world’s dark intentions unseen;

passive spectator to war

Eve called out for a whore

by busy minds hastily swept ultra-clean;

God, a first and last metaphor

Snake in the grass and more…

making of nature something obscene,

passive spectator to war

Behind the kitchen door,

preparing to feed off a television screen,

God, a first and last metaphor

Presuming to keep the score,

let one coin outshine a leaf’s dawn sheen;

passive spectator to war...

God, a first and last metaphor

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'God's Metaphor' in 1^st eds. of Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; 2^nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.]

Reaching for Raison d’être

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

Christmas come but once a year, and I say thank goodness for that. No killjoy, me, but whenever its followers celebrate this religion or that, we have a sense of one Faith providing answers to our raison d’être over another. This, in turn, finds some people angry, others fearful, and others even further than ever along private paths littered with doubts and misgivings. The results, for even the most impassioned Believer can be a terrible sense of loneliness that even prayer cannot always assuage.

Many, if not most people like me, who no longer subscribe to any religion but put their faith in nature, are only touched by religious differences in so far as we would like to see more people of all persuasions - religious, political, sexual, whatever - better able to enter into other points of view than divided by them, more integrated if not unified. Even so, we are no more immune to feelings of doubt, fear and loneliness than anyone else. And (as in my case) being gay has nothing to do with it although it is very hurtful that the more zealous members of some religions seem bent on whipping up an all but hysterical hostility against gay people.

Whatever our colour, creed, sex or sexuality we can but find our own way through the maze of human emotions that, if we are honest, are more likely than not to undermine any spiritual convictions if only now and then.

A teacher once told my class - way back in the 1950's - that whatever else we did not learn in life, we should learn to care. I took little notice at the time, but his words have returned to haunt me time and time again, especially when I feel at my lowest ebb. Moreover, we are a common humanity, warts 'n' all, and I put it to you that it is also a lesson that various contemporary societies around the world would do well to learn, and learn before it is too late to matter.

REACHING FOR RAISON D’ETRE

Bells ringing, but not for me
so why should I care?
Snowmen smiling, but not at me
so why should I care?
Kids playing, but not with me
so why should I care?

People laughing, but not at me
so why should I care?
Robins singing, but not for me
so why should I care?
Some folks praying, but not for me
so why should I care?

Future generations relying on me
because I care;
nature’s vulnerability nagging at me
because I care;
religious differences preying on me
because I care

A feeling for peace and love in me
because I care;
an eye on the politics of change in me
because I care;
poetry of the human spirit, my reward
because I care

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Cracking The Code

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

What is life all about? Why are we here at all? Well, who really cares about why?

Me, I feel we should make the most of life as it comes, take the bad with the good and try to come through it all a better person.

If I had to point to just one reason for living, it would have to be love. I guess that's why I have written so many poems about love, loving and being loved.

CRACKING THE CODE

Come a time we die, who’ll know
or care (for long) that once we walked
this earth, whose mother gave birth
to this or that child-person as likely as not
spending a lifetime seeking answers
to questions where there are none, love
taunted by tales of make-believe,
peace where there’s but pain for knowing
how things might have been
but for those wasted chances, missed
opportunities, wrong calls
as a loaded dice falls on ego’s gaming board,
lost chords of pretty songs intended
to make rights out of petty wrongs (and worse)
but merely adding fuel to flames
erasing names from movie tapes of memory
wherein we can love, live forever?

Let it be said, once we're dead and gone,
here's living proof of people walking the Earth,
giving water-birth to brave worlds of words,
never quite grasped for principle or purpose
ghosts lending creativity to the mind
and tongue (hopefully, someone ‘staking
the trouble to write it down for others
to make sense, crack the code, even learn
from our mistakes, replace a lost chord
or two, redefine the fragility of happiness
as variations on a theme of loneliness

Be humanity selfish, selfless, false or true,
flowers of the forest made to cry …
blessed am I whose life brought me to you
and you to me though, yes, we die

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2010

[Note: This poem has been  slightly but significantly revised from the original as it appears in 1st eds. of A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; 2nd ed. in preparation.]