Journey of a Lifetime

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog several years ago; it has been slightly revised as I am using the necessity for social distancing during the pandemic to look at and (sometimes) revise or rework old poems. I miss being with friends, of course, but I like to think of my poems and you, my readers, are friends  too; it helps me feel less isolated as I live alone and would almost certainly be feeling very lonely otherwise.

As regular readers will know, I migrated to Australia.in the late 1960's.  In many respects, the whole episode was a disaster, my dream of creating a new life proving just that - a dream. True, I had been told a pack of half-truths at Australia House that misled me into thinking I was making the right decision. True also, that I was in such a panic about getting my life on track that I could not even begin to see any wood (real or proverbial) for its trees.

At the time, my deafness still had not been identified as being 'perceptive' deafness. Self-esteem was not high, since I constantly seemed to be misconstruing (for mishearing) people and facts. I knew I wasn’t stupid so covered for my mistakes with a sense of humour that got me out of scrape after scrape, but with which I was fast losing patience.  Having acknowledged - to myself at least - at the age of 14 (1959) that I am gay hadn’t exactly boosted my flagging self-confidence since same sex relationships were a criminal offence at the time. In short, I was a mess and if I’d had anyone to confide in who would have listened to me instead of judging me, they would certainly have advised me to face facts and get on with my life. Instead, I ran away from it all. Ironically, this cleared my head and proved to be my salvation.

If returning to the UK was seen by family and friends as an admission of failure, it was one I found able to take on board without feeling a failure.  I had discovered a new self-confidence which, along with a bent for positive thinking would see me through the rest of my life. Oh, it would be no easy ride (whose life is?)  but I was now equipped with an emotional capacity for looking on the bright side of life, no matter what; this would come to my aid in physical and emotional crisis after crisis, not least the death of loved ones, a severe nervous breakdown and more recently a bad fall during which I sustained a badly fractured ankle which left me housebound for months.

It may sound trite but is true nevertheless that sometimes we have to run away from ourselves to come full circle and find ourselves again, presenting to the world an invented self that was, in fact, there all the time but needing to be coaxed out of its customised shell, not led by the nose through various hoops provided by our so-called ‘betters’ to illustrate invention’s nemesis - convention. For the first time, I began to believe in myself.  The year I was 25, I became a student teacher, fell at the first hurdle (teaching practice) on account of my hearing…and compensated by getting a university education instead. Later, I would do a postgraduate course at Library School and spend the rest of my working life as a professional librarian. Oh, life has been no less a roller coaster for all that, but if I haven’t always enjoyed the ride, at least I live to tell the tale. 

At 74, I have been living with prostate cancer (treated with hormone therapy) for nine years, and despite mobility problems since an accident in 2011, remain a Happy Bunny…well, most of the time. Many people see my going to Australia all those years ago as a huge mistake, but I know better for it gave me time to take a good look at myself and learn from what I found there. Oh, I would go on to make mistakes and turn a blind eye to some things; it would still be another ten years or so before I would finally be able to look the world in the eye as a gay man. But ... one giant leap at a time, yeah?

Now, I will probably never return to Australia, but it will always occupy a special place in my heart, Australia and Australians gave me what I had lacked since early childhood…faith in myself as I am, not as certain others would have me be. (Yes, I learned the hard way, but is there an easy one…?)

JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME

I sailed away to a place

in a dream,

only it wasn’t a dream

but a get-away,

running (scared) from a reality

I couldn’t bear

Water, water, everywhere,

co-conspirator

of a loneliness closing in

on me, secret fears

demanding open confrontation,

no hiding place

Sea, sky, and wind

(day after day)

expressing an affinity

with the chaos

of mind-body-spirit seeking

a reconciliation

Cloud faces wherever

I look, masks

that have intimidated me

all my life, needing

to be ripped away, exposing

secrets and lies

Each landfall, a thought

for the day;

revisiting native hosts,

naming them,

raging so at some for having

led me on

I try befriending people,

failing miserably,

probably down to having less

to say for myself

than a child’s comic book hero

making pillow talk

Ah, but isn’t that exactly

how it had been,

an inarticulate desperation

to do something other

than dance some light fandango

at a masque haunt?

A dawning discernment,

landfall of a kind

likely to grow on us for integrating

with ‘live’ art forms

not incompatible with the science

of human evolution

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017; 2020

[Note: Much of this poem was written in 2017, the year it first appeared on the blog (under a different title) and is reflected in lines I scribbled aboard the ship that took me to Australia in 1969 (The Southern Cross) which I recently discovered folded between the pages of a novel I hadn’t read for years.]

Enemy at the Door

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

[Update: 19th July 2020]: The Covid-19 coronavirus is putting people under various degrees of  stress affecting their mental health - among all ages - around the world. We all need to be mindful of this and support each other long after the pandemic has run its course which is unlikely to be any time soon. Mental illness, to whatever degree, can wreck lives if left unchecked and untreated. Sadly, there remains a stigma attached to mental health and many people are reluctant to come forward and seek help; if you sense a loved one, friend or workmate is suffering, don't wait to be asked, but find a tactful way to offer help  and don't take 'no thanks, I'm fine' for an answer. It's never easy, especially as people with mental health problems invariably suffer mood swings and can be rude, even aggressive sometimes. I've been there, still got the tee shirt, and only survived with the support of some wonderful people who believed in me when I had all but stopped believing in myself.] RNT

Mental health is something that is finally coming out of the closet here in the UK, but here and the world over, still has a long way to go before everyone feels at ease with the subject. From time to time, I get emails from men, women and young people struggling to recover from what is referred to as a nervous breakdown, but doesn’t even come close to describing the sheer intensity of a roller coaster of emotions as likely as not ending in a nasty crash.

Sadly, more often than not when we try to explain bad, even criminal behaviour, it is seen as making excuses rather than a genuine attempt to understand; not only for the benefit of others but also, possibly primarily, ourselves.

I will be 75 later this year. Regular readers will know that I had a bad nervous breakdown some 40 years ago; although it continues to haunt me, I feel I’ve come to terms with its multiple causes which, in turn, has helped me achieve (in part, at least) a sense of atonement for its effects on others.

‘Work out your own Salvation. Do not depend on others’. – Buddha

While I agree with the Buddha that we need to work out our own salvation, accepting help should not be seen as a form of dependency, rather as a learning tool necessary to see us back on terra firma after going into free fall. It was nearly 4 years before I was able to start looking for and eventually got a job in which I would stay for the next 25 years. I could not have achieved this without the help and support of certain people to whom I am more grateful than words can begin to express.

My Good Samaritans did not include any family members, I suspect because they saw my need to discuss my behaviour at the time as an attempt to excuse it, and had neither the patience, empathy nor inclination to listen. Fair enough, but fortunately, not everyone turned a deaf ear, and in trying to explain, I, too, began, slowly but surely, to understand. Once there, I had foundations upon which to rebuild my life, and proceeded to work through what I saw as a form of salvation; in my case, through writing, for others as much as for myself, trying to share something of the lessons I had learned. (Coming to terms with being gay was a part of a learning curve I still see myself on some 40 years later.)

A thousand rights cannot compensate for a single wrong, but a sense of atonement, even if no one else sees it as such, does wonders in restoring a shattered self-confidence and faith in oneself. How far I have been successful has to be for others to assess, but I am more at ease with myself now than I ever thought to be again, hopefully deservedly so.

I once commented to an actor friend at the end of a play's successful run how well he and his fellow actors had performed, and how wonderful it must feel to be part of a close-knit team. He laughed. "You wouldn't say that if you had the faintest idea what goes on backstage!" he said with such feeling that I found myself reflecting how true of life in so far as it is too often the case that what we see is but part of a whole; the more important latter lies in what we don't see. I found that out the hard way while recovering from a mental breakdown some 40 years ago. Most friends and colleagues assumed I was perfectly well again years before that was true.

‘Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest fight ever.’ - Frank Bruno [Former British professional boxer.]

Few if any of us have the moral courage to freely acknowledge our worst fears, but until we do, we risk their getting the better of us; we need to share them with someone, give it a voice (even a poem) and the chances are it it will be our turn to have the last laugh. Mental illness is made all the worse for the stigma (still) attached to it, but all enemies have their own worst fears, of which by far the greatest is the power of the human spirit to overcome...whatever.

'Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.' - Socrates

This poem is a kenning.

ENEMY AT THE DOOR

I crawl passages
of mind-body-spirit,
less frightened
of the dark than daylight
where pain
lies in wait, ready to strip
and humiliate me
in its contempt for the vagaries
of human nature

I pause now and then
to read writing on walls
over centuries
sure to keep the likes of me
well out of sight
of any too close for comfort
to such cause-effect
likely to point fingers of blame
at human nature

They beckon me on.
the disembodied victims
of a vulnerability
considered (even by those
in the know)
best left to their own devices
as if life were a game
of Consequences, and the Devil
take the hindmost

I am Fear, common enemy
of the human spirit


Copyright R. N. Taber 2018

Nothing to Prove

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

This entry is from my gay-interest poetry blog archives for July 2012. I will publish two new poems here one New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, and then only now and again during 2020 while I concentrate on compiling revised editions of my poetry collections - and a brand new collection - for publishing online. Meanwhile, feel free to rediscover poems among the archives for either or even both blogs...

“The only problem I have with being gay,” a much younger Roger Taber once confided to a friend, is that you always feel you have something to prove.

“Bollocks!” retorted my friend with feeling, “Love, affection, friendship...these things have nothing to prove, they just are... What does being gay having anything to do with it?”

Now, is that naive or wise? I know which answer I go for...

This poem is a villanelle.

NOTHING TO PROVE

What is it about love,

breaking our every fall?

Nothing to prove

In dark skies above,

listen for its mating call;

(What is it about love?)

Like hand to glove,

poetry to nature’s spell,

nothing to prove

Songbirds above,

taking us where we will;

(What is it about love?)

Where hunters have

well-honed eyes for a kill,

nothing to prove?

Take hand from glove,

watch it wither, as it will;

What is it about love?

Nothing to prove ...

[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

Getting Under the Skin

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

We all need something or someone at some time in our lives, but asking for help is not always easy; sometimes, pride gets in the way or we may well be at such a low ebb that we cannot get the words out.

There is no shame in asking for help; the first step is acknowledging to ourselves that we need it while the next (sometimes the hardest) is finding someone we know well and can trust to listen without judging us or simply telling us what they would do in our situation. I, for on, always avoid giving advice but will always offer various options and alternatives tailored to my knowledge of the person. Where the listener can offer practical help that is always, of course, as good a place to start as any.

Failing at the second step is invariably down to the inability of many if not most people to use their knowledge of a person to be able to offer constructive advice. We are individuals, all different; telling someone what we would do in their situation is rarely much help.

The listener is the greater source of inspiration because any advice forthcoming will be based on what he or she has heard; heard us out, encouraging us now and then by all means, but not interrupting or prompting along lines we think the other person is trying to say,

Need is not always obvious; too often, it is left to fester simply because there are none so deaf as will not hear. Where the listeners of this world are a rare breed, the friend who listens is a friend indeed.

This poem is a kenning.

GETTING UNDER THE SKIN 

I haunt the human spirit

as an alley cat might its territory,

fight off every challenge

until grown weary with battles,

ready to admit defeat,

yet without (quite) conceding

surrender of the kind

that sheds dignity like a second skin

for caving in to despair

I worry the human mind

as a dog might a flock of sheep

that knows no better,

simply goes with basic instinct,

chancing life and limb

to the farmer that will shoot

on sight, worth the risk,

beats gnawing away at an old bone

just because it’s there

I taunt the human heart

where expectation often misled

by parental satisfaction,

peer-led competition, egged on

by target-centred education…

chalices passed from generation

to generation, mistakes

coursing its veins like a slow poison

too often left untreated

Call me poor, inarticulate Need;

on life’s leftovers, I feed …

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

L-I-F-E, and all that Jazz...

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

Once, years ago, when feeling low, I overheard a conversation in a bar:

MAN (despairingly and a little drunk) I don’t know where I’m going any more or who the hell I am even…

WOMAN (wearily) Oh, sure, and all that jazz…

MAN: Huh, I don’t even like jazz…

WOMAN: You don’t like jazz? Then you don’t have much of a liking for life, man, and it sure as hell won’t take much of a liking to you either….

After a sober pause, both burst out laughing and joined several other couples swinging to a lively number on the dance floor like saplings in a summer breeze. I went home feeling more upbeat than I had in ages although not sure why…and that feeling has lasted - through thick and thin - ever since. Maybe it has something to do with especially enjoying jazz among all kinds of music (and vocal) that do their genre justice.... 

L-I-F-E, AND ALL THAT JAZZ…

Looking back
at angry shadows waving 

madly at me,

but not in a friendly fashion,

clearly blaming me

for doing what I should not

have done,

being where I should not

have been,

saying what I should never

have said

Looking ahead

at more shadows waving

madly at me,

and can’t even tell if friends

or enemies

urging I do what I want

to do,

be where I feel meant

to be,

say what (too long) needs

to be said

Swinging round

like a scarecrow in the wind

at what’s behind

making my heart skip beats

out of fear

for all the mistakes I’ve made

and half made,

put right and half put right,

left uncertain,

no idea which way

to turn

Standing quite still,

listening out for something

(or Someone?)

to point me in the direction

I need to go;

right fork, left, fork, or give up

and turn back…

till sounds of bright music

pointing me at trees

making the kind of mad  jazz

that’s a life force 

Turning my back 

on fear, galvanised by nature

to chase after life

as a child might a butterfly

if only because

it, oh, so beats doing nothing,

going nowhere,

being no one, feeling sorry

for the child self

that never caught a butterfly

or listened to jazz

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015

Dressing Table Wars

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

I suspect that aspects of the human self are as often at war with each other as suing for peace it is a confusing, even distressing scenario of which mind, body and spirit not unsurprisingly or infrequently grow weary, sometimes all at once, and we sink into depression.

Sadly, there is still a stigma attached to any form of mental illness, not least because few people understand it unless they have been depressed through it themselves or close to someone who has. It was much the same when I experienced a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago. Few people understood what I was going through, and it was only after a long, lonely battle over several years that I began to feel well again. I even managed to find and hold down a job although it would be a few more years yet before the sense of fighting a losing battle would leave me once and for all. Well, not quite once and for all, but I can honestly say that my quality of life and resistance to despair improved beyond measure as the years passed. I still take a m low dose (25mg) of antidepressant nightly and – as regular readers well know – writing has been more a creative therapy for me than an art form even as a child. (I will be 70 this year.)

Being depressed is nothing like being fed-up; it is a soul-destroying nightmare from which the depressed person can take a very long time to awaken, if ever.  An invisible illness, it is easily misunderstood. Sadly, one of the last people to recognize depression is the depressed person him/herself. Uncharacteristic mood swings, aggression, rudeness, bouts of crying for no obvious reason, over-reacting and getting things out of proportion…all these can be signs of depression, likely to culminate over a period of time in a firm of mental breakdown unless professional help and support is made available.

While the best help and support can be provided by family and friends, not everyone has family on hand while some friends feel so let down by a depressed person’s attitude towards them that they drift away; they SEE the same person, but have no idea of the emotional turmoil that person is going through and which, if left unchecked, may well permanently damage his or her whole personality.

To be fair, none of us are mind readers. Even so, the more sensitive and discerning family member or close friend will suspect something is wrong. Suggesting to someone they may be depressed will almost certainly meet with a hot denial in the first instance. Please don’t give up, but stick with it, no matter how tough it gets; and it will get tough, almost as much for the person who is trying to help as for the person who is mentally ill.

There are degrees of mental illness, of course. Whatever, there is no shame in it, especially in the kind of stressful, even dangerous world we live in with stress often coming at us from all sides to such an extent and at such a rate that even the strongest body, mind and spirit feels under siege.

Depression is not a battle that can be easily won, and certainly not alone. If you are depressed, don’t wait, as I did, for depression to get the better of you. Strike first. Ask for help or at least try and express something of how you feel to someone you sense will understand and help you to help yourself. Easily said than done, as I know only too well… 

DRESSING TABLE WARS 

Wall, shining like a mirror,

shadows dripping drops of light

like sweat on a battlefield

Words, pitting foe against foe;

a roaring in the head like sounds

of battle in a silent movie

Wall, a white board left blank

to any suggestions from the floor

on the subject of peace talks

Words, advancing like armies
on an invisible enemy, worn down
by stomach pains and tears

Wall, questioning the nature

of the beast, philosophy left to run

a lonely gamut of home truths

Words, starting to make sense

of sensibilities modernity so loves

to camouflage in Rat Race gear

Wall, a collage of human selves

reflecting vulnerability to life forces

and potential for common sense

Words, moving lips in a mirror,

rehearsing a plea for help in repairing

any cracks in mind-body-spirit 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015

Toys in a Window

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

Today’s poem was written in 1981, but it was not until the 1990’s that I began submitting poems for publication.  At the time, I was mid-recovery from a severe nervous breakdown s few years earlier. Writing helped considerably towards an initial if fragile recovery that eventually saw me looking for (and finding) a job some18 months later. 

I would like to think I am more optimistic and a shade less cynical about life and society now, but…

Well, we all know what thought did…

TOYS IN A WINDOW

At a window on my life I gaze,

close my ears to the weary windings

of clockwork days, try to imagine

how it might be should these stiff-neck

streets ever cease their turning me

to what I am - part of this global sham

of human boast, comprising toy folk

for the most if a few taking  heart still,

tugging at the sleeve as a child will,

ever anxious to leave the plastic places,

and cartoon faces undermining a flair

for freedom on see-saw, swings, among

other things we forget soon enough

while struggling for reasons unknown

to keep some stubborn noon design

intact; part of the same act invariably

put on for each day’s passing us by,

sure to earn a slow clapping in the head

at bedtime from other toys in the hands 

of toymakers aspiring to coax cash mules

to the world’s water holes

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was first published in a Poetry Today (Forward Press) anthology, Looking through the Mirror of Life (2000) and subsequently in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

Manipulator

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

There is nothing wrong with ambition, but sometimes motivation is less clear sighted than we like to think., and we lose sight of our priorities if only temporarily; worse, we risk losing sight of who we are in our anxiety to prove we are more than a match for someone else…

Comparing ourselves with others is rarely a good idea as we will almost certainly go through life feeding an inferiority complex. Everyone is different, with different strengths and weaknesses. We need to lose any self-consciousness and develop the self-confidence to focus on ourselves and those people and issues that matter most to us. Otherwise, in attempting to prove we are as good as or better than someone else, we risk losing everything that really matters.

MANIPULATOR

You hardly notice

I am here, and should you care

to look over your shoulder

the chances are you’ll not see me;

if the light is right I’ll fade

from sight, or (better still) no light

at all where I have taken

what I can of your mind and soul,

made them my own

You don’t fear me,

though you should, for am surely

your worst enemy;

you carry on with this and that,

making your way

in life, believing it’s your own

while all the time it’s mine;

my ambitions you aspire to fulfil,

rarely your own

Oh, but I am clever,

and would never lead you so astray

that you become lost

in a maze of conflicting emotions

and cannot find your way back

to where I intend you should be,

feeding you (now and then)

a hollow victory, its celebration

mine, all mine

You, my puppet, I, your puppeteer;

One upmanship, the Manipulator

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2011; 2014

Dawn Prelude

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

They say we dream the more intensely just before we wake up.

Many if not most people love to dream of waking in a loved one’s arms.

Some such dreams do come true, of course, but not for everyone. and not without our having to first 'get real' by fighting off off any self-consciousness, getting out there to try and meet that special someone instead of sitting back and waiting for him or her to simply come our way. In the meantime, we get to meet some interesting people, make some good friends, broaden our horizons and generally acquire a social identity more likely to make us an altogether more interesting person to know, maybe even to love…

Positive thinking can defeat even the worst nightmares, especially when it becomes a habit likely to surface from even murkiest depths of the human subconscious.

Me, I only discovered the passionate side of love but once, in someone who was killed in a road accident abroad not long after we had found each other, but such is life sometimes, and it was well  worth every heartbeat just to have been in love and have it reciprocated even for a short time. Love, of course, is a many-sided creature, and we need to remember that; love for family, friends, pets and places too, all have their place in the heart that remains open to them even after certain doors slam shut.

DAWN PRELUDE

Seconds before dawn,

taste and smell of silence

invading the senses,
listening out for love, 
Poetry of Life, inspiring
dreamers worldwide

Seconds before dawn,

laughing among old gods

before responding
to their wake-up call,
reflecting on getting real 

with our dreams

Seconds before dawn
gets to strike its first blow
to send us reeling
from those home truths 
alerted to a centuries-old

war on dreams

Seconds before dawn
trust fear to give the heart
cause to miss a beat,
allow breathing space
to reassert its disputed role
as a lead player

Seconds before dawn,
we rediscover in ourselves
whatever raison d’être
asks we but keep in view,
if only to see us on our way
into another day

Seconds before dawn,

caressed by its shadows,

seduced by its charms,

comes you-me-us, where
hope springs eternal, the stuff
of all our dreams

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007, 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]

Making sense of Numbers

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

Before I retired, I was a librarian working in public libraries here in the UK. It has been a source of great concern to me in recent years that a growing of children and young people asking for help in finding material for homework projects had such poor literacy and numeracy skills. For some adults too, of course, that may not have had the benefit of much formal education, these skills same remain underdeveloped.

It has always seemed to me that numeracy is somehow seen as the poor relation to literacy even though a grasp of number is every bit as important as a grasp of letters.

 ‘Karl’ and ‘Brett’ once wrote in to tell me how getting help to improve their numeracy skills ‘by leaps and bounds’ had considerably boosted their self-confidence. Karl says ‘Numbers were like a foreign language. I could not make any sense of them.  I was made to feel I was in a minority and was too ashamed to ask for help. I got paranoid and it felt like there was some sort of conspiracy against people like me. I didn’t realise so many people have the same problem. Now I can even work out rail and bus timetables. Before finding a really good (home) teacher I was clueless about the 2400 hours clock.’

Believe me Karl, 2400 hours timetables confuse a LOT of people.

This poem is a villanelle.

MAKING SENSE OF NUMBERS

It can feel like a conspiracy,

(the world an enemy)

this nightmare, innumeracy

Out shopping, and invariably

spending too much money;

it can feel like a conspiracy

Debts spiraling relentlessly

(affront to integrity)

this nightmare, innumeracy

I look at my friends and envy

their budgeting effortlessly;

it can feel like a conspiracy

I once confessed ashamedly

to life turning sour on me,

this nightmare, innumeracy

I found support and sympathy

and help for others like me;

it can feel like a conspiracy,

this nightmare, innumeracy

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

Caliban's Song, 21st Century

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

The multiple stresses and strains of everyday life in the 20^th century have carried over into the 21^st and if anything are far greater. We all want to rise above them and enjoy who else life has to offer us, but for a growing number of people it is easier said than done.

Regular readers will know I suffered a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago. One of many causes lay in growing up in a gay-unfriendly society. Basically, my psyche was on a hair trigger and it didn’t take much to have it explode in my face. The consequences included years of struggling to escape from a very dark place indeed, from which I only managed to escape  in the end thanks to a few good friends and my eventually rediscovering a passion for creative writing, especially poetry; for me, at least, it has proven the best therapy. Meanwhile, the struggle continued long after I was well enough to get a job and start rebuilding my life. It was an ugly time and I felt very ugly.

Sadly, attitudes towards mental ill-health have not changed much. People suffering varying degrees of mental illness continue to be stigmatised by the less enlightened in society. Many people still think of depression as being little more than very fed-up; few appreciate the depths to which a depressed person sinks, unable to swim and badly needing someone to throw them a lifeline.

I met an old friend recently who told me he is beginning to feel he is over the worst of a nervous breakdown that struck him several years ago. ‘I can function again,’ he told me, but I still feel so ugly and that everyone is looking at me, judging me, despising me...’

Mental illness is an ugly condition, but uglier still is that common enough attitude towards mentally ill people that persists in putting them in stereotypical boxes and slamming down the lid.

The last person to realise that he or she is slipping into a depression of one form or another is the person themselves. So if someone you know seems to be acting out of character, please look out for and try to help them rather than shrug it off with good or less good intentions as a ‘C’est la vie.’ Situation

This poem appeared in a Poetry Now (Forward Press) anthology, /Poetry) anthology Words That Live On (2004) just prior to its inclusion in my collection. My email address is easy to find on the Internet and a number of people have been in touch since then to say how closely they can identify with the poem and my comments have encouraged them to take back control of their lives. If my poems and comments about depression can help just one person do just that, I feel privileged to have played a small part in their recovery.

There is no quick fix for depression, no Prospero to free us from its slavery. Yet, as Prospero finally demonstrated by freeing Caliban, we have but to be put back in touch with our kinder feelings and better selves to make a start at transcending wishful thinking into a positive, workable reality.

Did I say it was easy ...?

CALIBAN’S SONG, 21st CENTURY

A suspect integrity, deprived of dignity,

hung on a washing line to dry
until time to put us through the wringer
until (hopefully) made to or at least
appearing to conform to the expectations
of mandarins of power wherever ...

Mind, a mist, its damp heat soaks my sleep,

brings a welcome wetness though eyes

stay dry, no matter how I long to weep…

for that daytime nightmare, made to share

with a world inclined to turn and stare at me
as if I were a dog cocking a leg up a tree

No place to turn, words that can even begin

to explain the loneliness, desperation

of a horror situation, its awful, nagging pain

ever an object of gross misconception,

sentenced to life (far worse than any felon)

no answers to the same universal question

Lost in hell’s maze, no seeing ways forward

for back. Panic sets in, takes cover
in a corner of madness (mistaking insanity
for safety in the grip of a sick anxiety
to escape asylum’s cutting edge, complex
enough even for a poet’s tearful imagination

Years on, still counting the cost of dignity lost,

integrity stolen from me, trying (impotently?)

to hold my own. Battles lost, war - won?

A hollow victory when left but to get through 

another day till that sleep unbroken may yet

free us from a genetically modified inhumanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]