All Change

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

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” - Anne Frank

“Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.” – John Milton (Paradise Lost).

I have to confess I struggled with todays' poem; the confused state of my thought processes down to IT problems made me feel as if I was losing touch with any creative ideas altogether. New technology is not only a challenge I can barely meet halfway these days, but one I suspect, with which many older folks around the world are having difficulty finding ways of coping. Yes, I will be 77 later this year, but that is not considered 'old' by many people, not these days anyway. And, yes, I have some good friends to help me. But...

Ah, but I am also retired and live alone, as are a growing number or people in the world today.  When we find ourselves staring into The Abyss, there is  - more often than not - only willpower to prevent our tumbling over the edge.

Now, age is not necessarily the only diet on which our more positive life forces need to get right in order to function well, enable us to fulfil whatever potential drives us, for better or worse. The circumstances in which we find ourselves as we grow up, older, and (hopefully) wiser with regard to best dealing with what some call 'fate' or 'destiny' - plays no insignificant part. As regular readers will know, I count myself among those who would contend that, to no small degree, we create our own 'fate' or 'destiny' with whatever tools or talents we are gifted by the life forces within us. 

One such tool, and often the hardest to use, is the ability to 'think happy'. So, how do we think happy when our lives take a sudden nosedive? Good question, and no easy answers. I know it sounds trite to resort to such old sayings as 'Where there's life, there's hope' - but it is so true. Hopes is possibly the best motivator for having us rise to some emotional and/ or physical challenge, make the best of a bad job... whatever... and move on, driven by a Willpower provided by sheer resilience with Hope at the wheel... Such, I suspect is the nightmare situation in which not only the people of Ukraine are facing, but also those feeling trapped in 'living nightmares' at home and abroad; indeed, all refugees seeking a better, kinder, emotional and/ or physical landscape.

So how do we 'think happy' when we are in the depths of despair or heading that way? Good question, and no easy answers. While the quotations above may give a clue to how yours truly has coped with the highs and lows of life, everyone has to find their own way. Most of us do, sooner or later; in many if not most cases, including yours truly, tending to be later a lot more often than sooner...

ALL CHANGE

Waking to a beautiful sunrise
on yet another day of having to contend
with such demands as modernity
is inclined to impose on mind-body-spirit
that heart-and-soul are hard put
to play its part, constantly undermined
by ageing thought processes
unable to keep pace with an ever-changing world
where ‘progress’ is the password

As inspirational any dawn may be,
even to the suffering heart-and-soul awakening
to a barrage of slings and arrows
scoring direct hits designed to weaken, render it
more vulnerable to everyday forces
always making excuses that they mean well,
designed as aids to modern life,
not weapons meant to give various powers that be
greater control over this ’n’ that society

Yet, there lies within the heart-and-soul
of human nature a potentially greater affinity
with peace than war, no matter
what mines a changing world may choose to lay
across such finer landscapes as arts 
and sciences seeking to compensate for the worst
that any less noble one-upmanship
seeks to present itself (under a various false colouring)
to heart-and soul, ‘progress’ notwithstanding

Day, come to shine such light across the world
as even refugees made to move on from life forces
familiar, loved and treasured so
can hope to find others, be as inspired by them
as by happier times engraved
on heart-and-soul, feeding into mind-body-spirit,
a native willpower refusing
to be put down for long by enemies without and within,
but take their cue from tomorrow’s rising sun

Though enemy forces may appear to defeat,
even kill it, they invariably underestimate the power
of mind-body-spirit to rise above
the worst of things, make its peace with the past,
not only look positively to the future,
but also reset, recharge, and customise it,
reasoning with heart-and-soul that nothing less than
a whole will do, no paradise lost (ever) quite irredeemable,
can resist an affinity with the seemingly impossible

Having lived, despite tears for various fears haunting us daily,
remains nature and human nature’s enduring legacy

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022

[Note: A reader has emailed to criticise the blog and poems for my often repeating myself (in both). Well, apologies if any readers find it irritating; it is partly down to growing old, I guess, but - as my mother often used to say, anything worth saying has to be worth repeating...?] RT

Refugee

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

“I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.” – Benjamin Disraeli

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, do better.” Maya Angelou

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” - Lao Tzu

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”. – Andy Warhol

As the war in Ukraine rages on, tens of thousands of refugees face an uncertain future. Now, moving on is one thing; being forced to move on, uprooted from the very soil that has shaped your life so far... that’s something else altogether. We wish them every success in rebuilding their lives.

A friend once commented to the effect that that we are all refugees from our own mistakes and/ or misfortunes, trying to give our heart-and-soul the chance to build a better home in a  wiser self. Well, I guess we can but try...

REFUGEE

Need to move on,
but can’t stop keep looking back
at the way things were
when we were happy, just you and me
doing things, sharing dreams
looking for rainbows even as our heavens
falling apart at the seams

Need to move on,
taking inspiration from the way
we were then, can be again,
if we but put our shoulders to the wheel
of change, turn it anti-clockwise,
expose this Here-and-Now for just what it is,
a punchy, fistful of lies...

"Need to move on,"
they keep telling me, much loved
voices in the head, presuming
to speak for the dead, in whom our love
trusted to keep us safe, see us right,
though our thought processes left all weepy
and scared, day and night

Need to move on
from raging against the cruel winds
of war and want; let my fears
remind me there is still hope for us, winds
of peace on pause yet again,
rise above them, get a new, kinder, life for us
no ifs and buts, as and when

Need to move on,
made to run a gauntlet of life and death
challenges to which we are born,
trusting in the power of love-and-peace
to see us over the finishing line.
favourite to win, inner voices first to applaud
in front boxes reserved for reunion

Whenever the need to reshape mind-body-spirit,
the heart-and-soul up to it, never defeated

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

Platform Five

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

“Every heart to love will come but like a refugee.” – Leonard Cohen

“You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” - C.S. Lewis

Today’s poem was written in the wake of seeing TV footage of a packed platform 5 at Lviv central station recently.

Now, yesterday’s open letter post  has been criticised by some readers, but I make no apology for suggesting that we need to err on the side of caution rather than all but sit up and beg for another serious wave of coronavirus. It is too soon, in my humble opinion, to dispense with all, even basic, precautions against Covid-19. Yes, it may result in some delays in the admin processes of registering and welcoming, refugees, but better that, surely, than a repeat of the stress and distress caused to patients, their families and friends, not forgetting over-stretched hospital staff...?

Hopefully, my reservations will be proven utterly groundless, in which case, no one will be more delighted than myself.

Meanwhile, on the matter of welcoming refugees being its own reward, it is always worth remembering that Albert Einstein was a war refugee...

PLATFORM FIVE

Crowds struggling for space,
the sobs of men, woman and children
expressing their distress
at leaving loved ones behind
to suffer the agony
of present and future uncertainties
as reflected all around
in warning sirens like ta partying of devils
trumpeting their evils

No exception made for either age
or disability, caught up in organised chaos
on platform five
at Lviv central station, transformed
into a landscape
of hope and despair, no one even sure
if and when their train
will arrive, unable to expect but more pain
at the end of the line

Train arrives, soon crammed full,
 tear-stained faces pressed against windows,
for final sightings
of those come thus far to see loved ones
at given a chance
to make a new life, though they be denied
their part in it
by an enemy determined to impose sure control
over any surviving soul

Ah, but the human soul, veteran
of wars fought in in bloody trenches, corridors
of power and everyday lives,
has tricks enough up its sleeve to take on,
defy and defeat dark forces
bent on in extinguishing Battalions of Light,
by calling on the wisdom
of all-embracing humanity lending it the authority
to define its spirituality

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello again from London UK

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

Hello again  from London UK

I hope you are all keeping safe and well. I am coping ok, but have to confess I am concerned about the Ukranian refugee crisis as a result of Russia's invasion of their country. It is great news that Europe is opening its arms to welcome them, but politicians  are saying  little or nothing about the numbers of Covid-19 cases in Ukraine being high as recently as late February 2022.

Welcome and help the refugees, of course, but at a time when Covid precautions are being relaxed in parts of Europe, especially in the UK, it is my view that basic precautions against the coronavirus need to be maintained - e.g. wearing face masks in shops, crowded areas and on public transport.

It would place awful stress on everyone if there were to be a resurgence of the pandemic across Europe, but a tragic irony, especially, for any refugees who had survived the horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, only to be struck down with the coronavirus just when they thought they had found a safe haven.

Hopefully, our politicians have allowed for a potential rise in Covid-19 cases even as some leaders- especially president Macron of France, have been openly critical of the UK Government for not doing enough help and house the refugees.  I suspect , though, this has more to do with the UK voting to leave the EU than concern for the refugees themselves. 

The EU continues to nurse the vision of a United States of Europe, which is precisely why many of us in the UK - including yours truly - have no regrets about voting for Brexit. Democracy involves a fair degree of responsible autonomy and  the latter was being slowly but surely coerced by the powers that be who govern the EU. This is, of course, only my personal point of view, but I also have friends in EU countries who share it; they, like myself, were all in favour of the EEC (European Economic Community); it made economic sense. However, it proceeded to expand into the EU with ordinary folks having neither vote nor say in the matter.

Divisions and rivalries between EU leaders are, of course, the least of the world's concerns as Russian forces close in on the Ukraine capital, Kyiv. At the same time, an attack on an artillery base close to its border with Poland, brings the war worryingly close to NATO's doorstep, a matter of deep concern for  many Poles.

As a gay man, I have to say that any LGBT folks among the refugees who have not been made as welcome under Zelenskyy's presidency - as some of his more supportive earlier comments had led them to hope for and expect - will not have an easier time in Poland; although support for LGBT rights continues to grow there, so, too does local opposition.  Poland, of course, has been a member of the European Union  since 2004; attitudes towards LGBG across the European Union , as a whole, remain widely diverse. 

As for those readers who email me from time to time to ask why a gay poet is writing up "not only a straight but secular blog...", I can but put it to them that no one's 'alternative' sexuality means they are any less of  a person in their own right, as free to express opinions on all matters, as anyone else. As regular readers well know, I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with me, respecting as I do., that basic human right of agreeing to differ.

Time to close now and get ready to meet up with my best friend for lunch. Many thanks for joining me, dear readers, and I'll be back with a poem later this week.

Take care, stay safe and keep well,

Hugs

Roger

[Note: If you email me (rogertab@aol.com) please be sure to put 'Poetry' in the subject field or it will not be read. Similarly, any 'spam' will be ignored. I read all emails and try to reply asap, but please remember I am in my late 70's and  having to contend with serious health issues, so there may well be long delays.] RT