Anthem Played on a Grass Harp

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

Some years ago, the children of friends of mine married without the blessing of their parents because both sets of parents disapproved of the match because is a lot older than her. Neither could accept their grown-up children’s choice of life partner. As it is, they have missed out on all the pleasures of being grandparents and seeing their grandchildren grow up.

Among all prejudices, ageism is often seen as the ‘poor relation’ but it can devastate lives as much and as needlessly as any other form of prejudice, whether it be based on the colour of a person’s skin, the nature of their sexuality or... whatever.

The couple in question had celebrated their silver wedding anniversary and were very happy until the younger partner died in a car accident. Only then did the families rally round and try to make peace “for the sake of the grandchildren...” Better late than never, I suppose, but so much time wasted, so many golden opportunities missed.

Prejudice in any shape or form doesn’t only eat away at a person’s mind-body-spirit, however much he or she may resist and rise above it, but can destroy families, even communities that are the chief losers in a human equation that will never quite add up until certain people see sense and recognise that all good people have a right to live their lives as they see fit, whether or not it quite adds up to what others might prefer.

I have seen prejudice drive people to crime, even suicide; such a waste of human potential. Whatever happened to respecting and making the best of our loved one’s choices for the good of everyone concerned? Driving home a point from a which misplaced pride refuses to let us budge can so easily make losers of us all.

ANTHEM PLAYED ON A GRASS HARP

Watery sun dripping through trees,
leaves sparkling like jewels in a crown
where we’d wander, my love and I,
ears pricking up at a chick’s first cry,
looking out for others flapping their way
on first flights through dawn rainbows
till gliding with ease as nature meant
for us all, although less so among humans,
a species well known for thinking they
know better than Earth Mother, wishing
them ill (and Hell) who resist straitjackets
and persist in walking tall

On a magic carpet of many colours,
among daisies passing for fairies
in a palace of dreams, we’d go free,
where all prejudices and bigotry
mean less than a fair breeze in the face,
Earth Mother’s caress in the hair,
reminding us how we are, one and all,
as nature intended, no one creature
any more or less precious than another,
each, in their own way, a ‘live’
testament to mind-body-spirit and a history
lending meaning to eternity

We arrived where the carpet
tuned into stone, where no sun shining,
only Shadows, a gathering of forces
preparing to take humanity on and win
any fight it may choose to pick,
no matter rights and wrongs (or alternative
points of view); for them, a certainty
that the world has no place for men, women
and young people whose sexuality
offends a majority choosing to make stand
on a Ship of Fools in a gale force wind, set on
making sense of humankind

Oh, but spring in our hair like jewels in a crown
Love takes for its own!

Copyright R.N. Taber 2010; rev.2021

Note: This poem has recently been significantly revised since first appearing in my collection On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Book, 2010.] 

S-e-x-u-a-l-i-t-y, Life Drawings OR L-O-V-E, the Anthology

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

Despite the usual trolls, the likes of which I always ignore, yesterday’s prose post on my gay-interest poetry blog appears to have been well received by its readers, so much so that I felt inspired to write a new poem; while it will be of special interest to LGBT readers, I am also posting it here although I suspect it may offend some people. What’s that I hear? How can a poem offend anyone?  Oh, but I learned way back in my formative years how quickly some people take offence, even where none is intended. 

An old friend, knowing that I am gay, once commented that he feels uncomfortable in the presence of gay people. I chose not to take offence, especially as he hadn't known I was gay when we first met some 40 years previously, but the hurt I felt remains to this day.

At 75, my memory is none too reliable, not least due to various health issues and subsequent treatment  and I’m often told off for repeating myself, but - as my dear mother would often say - if something is worth saying, it is always worth repeating; in this case, that a poem is a poem is a poem, whatever its theme, just as a person is a person is a person, whatever their gender, ethnicity, political/ religious persuasion or, yes, sexuality. Few of us would argue differently on principle; as for putting that same principle into practise, human nature being what it is...

A schoolfriend once commented with a huge sigh that the world turns on human nature, to which another friend commented, “Better that than stereotypes,” to which a third friend added, with a wicked grin, “There’s a difference?” All three looked at me expectantly, but, coward that I was back then, I refused to be drawn and changed the subject. That was some 60 years ago, yet I overheard much the same conversation while keeping a social distance behind four young people only the other day… with my hearing aid turned on, of course. 😉

S-E-X-U-A-L-I-T-Y, LIFE DRAWINGS or L-O-V-E, THE ANTHOLOGY

Once, I hid within myself,
afraid of coming out or being outed
to the world, given to believe
that my being gay was at best, a crime,
at worst, a sin 

Once, when I was younger,
and gullible, less wise to societies open
to homophobic agenda-dogma,
I was given to believe my homosexuality
made me an outcast 

Once, while growing older,
I met a man, fell in love despite my fears,
shared a heavenly spirituality,
of a beauty I’d been warned You-Me-Us
needs must forfeit 

Old now, looking back in anger
for years I may well have missed had love
in all its richness not come my way,
for fear of its being stigmatised by the likes
of my so-called 'betters' 

Some may well wish me in Hell
for my engaging in same-sex relationships,
but love is a heaven of its own making,
and God is Love, so how, by its very nature,
any less worthy of nurture? 

Many questions, as many answers,
as we journey our years and personal space,
but let not fear deprive us of love’s ways;
in love, the greater part of the human condition,
that’s first among equals 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021

 

A Virtuous Irony

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

Now, every religion has its own Belief while some of us cannot believe in (any) religion.

Who’s to say who’s right or wrong?

Should we not give everyone the benefit of the doubt, each going his or her own way while taking care to share the better, kinder, principles of a common humanity? Some religions treat any diversion from its dogma as a cardinal sin. Whatever happened to that freedom of the human spirit to express itself in its own way, and who has the right to condemn someone for acting in good faith if not within dogma's stricter parameters?

Religion is meant to be about love and peace...and mutual respect for another person's spiritual identity, whether or not it relates to the same religion or any religion at all if only because religion (as I discovered for myself even as a child) has no monopoly on spirituality.

A sense of spirituality is common to us all, just as it is down to each and every one of us to tap into it
if and how we choose. Yet, what is a cause for celebration is so often marked by those who should know better as a cause for division.

A VIRTUOUS IRONY

Religious festivals are times
people come together,
are good to one another, braving
dark and stormy weather

Religious festivals make merry
come rain, snow, winter mist,
find sunny smiles not on any list
left by old Jack Frost

But you can’t always believe
all they so love to feed us,
like comfort and joy at Christmas
(just ask the homeless)

No, you cannot always believe
everything they tell you,
be the preacher Christian, Muslim,
Sikh, Jew or Hindu…

Religion (not God) is the listener
ever turning a deaf ear
come Ramadan, Diwali, Passover
and Easter once a year

In truth, we should learn to respect
Faiths across the world,
ironically divided by a single word,
a comfort zone called ‘God’

Who and what should we believe
when so many use religion
for their own ends, as ammunition,
back-up for a safe h(e)aven?

All religions encourage suspicion,
led by Masters of Ceremony
tasked with making a virtue of irony
behind a mask of spirituality

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2016

Answering back

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

Today's entry is from my gay-interest poetry archives for June 2017.

Regular readers know full well that I do not subscribe to any religion. I consider myself a pantheist, , preferring to take a (strong) sense of spirituality from nature in whose life forces I do not discount the work of a greater power. At the same time, I respect all religions, even though few (if any) respect neither my being (actively) gay nor my agnosticism. We are all free to make our own choices in life and should not be so quick to condemn any into which we cannot enter ourselves…for whatever reason. (It has been my experience that many people who insist they are not judgemental, prove by way of word and deed to be among the most judgemental. We are all different and it is our human right to be different.

I have met gay people from various socio-cultural-religious backgrounds who remain in the closet regarding their sexuality for fear of offending religious leaders who cannot reconcile sex and sexuality with religious. My understanding f God is that no God would want these people to suffer as they do, some terribly, from a sense of guilt no God worthy of the name would impose upon anyone.

More than once it has been put to me that I should put aside my gay ways and reconcile myself to a way of life likely to find favour with God as laid down in Holy Books; in my case, the Holy Bible. God, though, did not write any Holy Books, humankind did, and who’s to say how much was lost in translation and/or shaped in such a way as most likely to appeal to select writer/s and readers alike.

ANSWERING BACK

Being gay is no sin
a priest told a gathering
of gay men, women,
and gay-friendly souls;
the sin, it lies
in practising (gay) rites
of sex, even worse
for taking such pleasure
in them as cannot
(ever) be justified in the eyes
of any God
according to any religion
whose dogma
needs must be respected
by all followers,
no exceptions made for a select
minority of gays

Being gay is a life force
in me, spoke up someone
among the audience,
just as that blessed sense
of spirituality
I have (always) taken not only
from my religion
but also such life forces
all around us…
as in nature’s predilection
for renewal…
nor less so in a common humanity
whose needs,
(spiritual as well as temporal )
deserve common respect,
no exceptions made  for a select
minority of clerics

The priest begged
to differ, quoting passages
from Holy Books
that rang hollow for being taken out
of context and century,
even dogma, given its intention
to underwrite  
a sense of peace and love taken
from life forces
common to mind- body- spirit,
bent on reinforcing
a spiritual well-being independent
of any religious dogma,
audience reserving a human
right of reply,
likely to fall on many a deaf ear
in Church arenas

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

Mortality, a 'live' Canvas

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

As regular readers know, I have not been well for some time, not least due to  8+ years of being treated with hormone therapy for my prostate cancer. Lately, a venous ulcer hasn't helped and arthritis can always be relied upon to make matters worse. It's enough, sometimes, for even a do-or-die spirit like mine to wonder whether it has really been worth every heartbeat. The answer has to be 'yes' of course, misgivings notwithstanding. Lately, I have to confess to being somewhat preoccupied with the latter.

Having to buy a new computer and discovering how much of a dinosaur I am when it comes to matters I T, has finally driven home the fact that I will be 74 in December; no spring chicken, indeed. I find myself wondering what happened to the chicken and taking no small comfort and pleasure in the fact that he is still here to tell the tale in spite of a good roasting along the way. Yes, I could have done some, if not many things differently and better, but I didn't, so why let the benefit of hindsight plague me so? I haven't achieved a fraction of what I once hoped to achieve, and bitterly regret letting a mental breakdown in my 30's become the trigger for looking the world in the eye about my being gay. I should have been open about my sexuality years earlier, especially given that I had realised I am gay by the time I was 14 years-old in 1959...

Even so, I have enjoyed much of my life in my own way, and that has to count for something. More to the point, perhaps, I have learned a lot from some wonderful people who have - knowingly or unwittingly - been my mentors; in good times and bad, in sickness and in health. Hopefully, I, too, may have played my part in mentoring or at least encouraging others in making of themselves what they will, not what anyone else may have in mind for them by way of compensating for their own shortcomings. Self-awareness is one thing, remaining loyal to it in the face of everything (and everyone) that is meaningful in our lives, that's something else. Well, we can but try and that has to count for a lot too.

Every living thing dies, but what never dies is whatever good their their life has brought to someone else's. There may well be good and bad in all of us, but it is the good we need to focus on, the better part of any mentoring because it comprises all we leave behind that's worth the leaving, has been worth every heartbeat whoever we are; rich or poor, whatever our ethnicity, sex or sexuality, there is something about all of us that's helping to write up someone else' life long after mortality has claimed us for its own.

We may or may not choose to follow a path as laid down in tablets of stone, but the human spirit has a mind of its own; as I learned long ago, our differences do not make us different, only human, and  - more often than not - no less deserving of respect. There has been an outcry from some parents only recently about schools having to include LGBT issues on school curricula from next year. Now, the  majority of children and young people are probably the least judgemental members of any society; what is wrong in encouraging to stay that way? I am reminded of the title of a poem posted here some time ago, 'Whatever happened to Agreeing to Differ?'

MORTALITY, A 'LIVE' CANVAS

Time, like saliva on my chin,
mind and body losing momentum,
spirit doing its best
to keep up with a digital world
testing its strengths
and weaknesses daily, yet failing
to (quite) prevent
its capacity for imagination
finding purpose,
though its hold on motivation
losing its grip

Years, trying to catch me out;
the past, much like a walking stick
sustaining my balance
as I but lean on past pleasures
to find a way
through such present predicaments
as ganging up on me,
if only to undermine processes
of thought summoned
to resist  my being outmanoeuvred
by contemporaneity

An everlasting feeling for nature;
a future much like an autumnal mist
screening off any winter
of mind-body-spirit likely to kill off
the life forces
of its spring where sense and sensibility
turning no less
on nature's capacity for self-nurture
than any human interest
in growing things, cashing in on it,
climate notwithstanding

Come that certain moment in time
I exchange the vibrant colours of life
created by engaging
with a capacity for arts-sciences-sports
(whatever cap fits)
for a mortality that's still a blank sheet
despite all the shades
of love-hope-wishful thinking and despair
(for better, for worse)
imposed by various conventions,
underwritten by dogma

No blank sheet, the haunting enigma
we call mortality, our feeling for its poetry
bequeathed one and all
to make of it whatever as needs must
give mind-body-spirit
a fighting chance to rise above the worst
of negative thinking,
reinstate hope, give peace a fighting chance
to rise above our fears,
no tears left to stain the canvas
we leave behind

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2019

Humanity, Greater than the Sum of its Stereotypes

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

We live in a troubled world. Even so, for most of us, our faith in the essential goodness of human nature remains unshaken if somewhat battered; on balance, good, kind people in the world far outnumber their opposites, and hopefully always will.

Like many gay people, I have been physically as well as verbally abused for being gay. Homophobia, racist, religious intolerance...once, these made me angry, bitter and resentful. Now, at 70+ years-old, they just makes me sad, very sad.

We are a common humanity. As I have said many times and will say again, we need to respect each other for our differences not fight over them; try to support each other as and when we can even as we are (sometimes) struggling to get to grips with life  ourselves.

Is that really too much to ask?

When push comes to shove, what does anyone's colour, creed, sex or sexuality have to do with their humanity anyway?

Now, inhumanity, that's another story...

Yes, we all know it makes common sense…so what holier-than-thou fool threw that out of what window on the world centuries ago, I wonder?

HUMANITY, GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS STEREOTYPES 

There is a place in this life

for everyone,

space enough in this world

for everyone,

love’s flowers enough to share

with everyone,

happy hours enough to care

for everyone

There is a place in this life

for everyone,

pain enough in this world

for everyone,

inhumanity enough laid bare

to everyone,

healing ways enough to care

for everyone

There is a place in this life

for everyone,

(gay or straight) in a world

for everyone,

individuality enough to share

with everyone,

humanity enough (surely?)

in everyone

Though hard choices imposed

on everyone,

divided voices superimposed

on everyone,

let humanity make time enough

for everyone,

happy hours enough to care

for everyone

So come on, world, out with it;

what’s your problem with that?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

Seeing Red OR Human Nature, Parts found Wanting

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

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

Flesh And Blood

http://aspectsofagaymanslifeinverse.blogspot.com/

Today’s poem has been inspired by tales told me by young people whose Coming Out experience was no way as tough an experience as they expected. Me, I did not feel I could confide in my family and only told my mother a few years before she died.  I was in and out of the damn closet for years, trusting relatively few people with the knowledge that I am gay, before I finally came out to stay in the early 1980s. [Gay relationships ‘between consenting adults’ were decriminalised in the UK in 1967.]

The poem last appeared on the blog in 2010 and is repeated today for all those gay boys and girls, men and women who have found coming out to family and friends something of a traumatic experience. As my blogs are read worldwide, hopefully gay people whose socio-cultural-religious origins will not allow them to be openly gay, might take heart in the fact that no civilised person sees sexual identity as unnatural, criminal or sinful; it is simply part of our whole identity, albeit an integral part, but it is the whole that really counts. Picking on someone for their sexuality is like claiming to have completed a jigsaw puzzle with much of it still missing, and only a very foolish person does that...

It is easier to be openly gay if you are growing up in a gay-friendly environment, but many of us don’t so it is can be really tough on everyone concerned. Even so, it is well worth it if only for personal peace of mind. If it means having to move away from family and friends and getting a life while they mull things over, so be it.

Sadly, it can take some people a long time to shake off the worst of the outdated, misleading and often offensive stereotypes that continue to attach themselves to gay people in the minds of the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority. But if any family members or so-called ‘friends’ really can’t see that we’re still the same person for coming out of the damn closet they put us in ...well, maybe we are better off without them. 

Believe me. It gets easier for most people...family, friends, and us too! I guess it goes with the territory, learning to fit in to our sexuality like a hand to a glove, and then, before we know it, as a hand to the body with which nature has blessed us.

Oh, but if only those blinkered leaders in countries where gay relationships remain a criminal offence would accept that sexuality is as natural as each breath we take and we can make a valuable contribution to our native society, especially failing societies; invariably, these are hosted by repressive regimes and/or have the ear of religious fundamentalists. [So-called ‘Christian’ evangelical pastors around the world, especially those still relentlessly inciting hate crime across much of Africa, take note!]

Yes, I know I have said it all before. But as my dear late mother used to say, if something is worth saying, it is always worth repeating. Mind you, the old adage is so true; there are none so deaf as will not hear or so blind that will not see. I guess we just have to try and make them...

Did I say it would be easy?

FLESH AND BLOOD

When we told my parents

we are gay and in love,

the looks they flung us said it all

their words fraught

with anger, pain and distress,

urging us to think again

about just what it would mean

to fly in the face of religion,

insult God - and for what?

Desires of the flesh

overriding all human decency

(unnatural at that)

When we told your parents

we are gay and in love,

the looks they flung us said it all,

tumbling over words

conveying their happiness,

hopes that we will

know the same joys of love

that had been theirs

for years - and for what?

Desires of the flesh

mindful of all human decency

playing its part

When my parents met yours

over dinner one night,

the looks they flung each other

did not augur well

for an entertaining evening

but yours won mine over

with their no-nonsense talking

about living, loving,

sharing - and for what?

Desires of the flesh

with all that’s good and decent

at its heart

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: This poem appears in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]