Something to be said for Karma

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

It is only human nature to worry about life's unknown factors, especially when they directly concern us and we have little or no control over either their presence or potential development.  A few years ago, I started worrying about a lesion on my leg as to whether it might be skin cancer or a sign of diabetes or whatever…until I fancied I could hear my mother whispering one of her favourite sayings in my ear, ‘If you worry, you’ll die and if you don’t worry, you’ll still die one day so…why worry?’

My GP referred me to a dermatologist and a shot of liquid nitrogen did the trick. No cancer there.

I wrote this little poem at the time and returned to it when I first discovered I have prostate cancer in February 2011. It’s not a particularly good poem (what is a ‘good’ poem, anyway?) but has proven very therapeutic. I can still hear my mother’s voice in my ear expressing approval. (She died of cancer in 1976)

SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR KARMA

Worry, worry, worry,

will get us nowhere at all;

worry, worry, worry,

and we’re heading for a fall;

positive thinking

is the only way to go

before worry, worry, worry,

hits an all-time low

Worry, worry, worry,

gets our knickers in a twist;

worry, worry, worry,

(far too many woes to list);

a positive thinker

is the only kind to be

since worry, worry, worry,

won’t ever set us free

Worry, worry, worry,

and life is sure to pass us by,

all the best things in life

between earth, sea and sky;

positive thinking

(easy enough to say)

unites mind, body and spirit,

brings each into play

Worry, worry, worry,

and we’ll surely die one day

(when, who’s to say?)

so come, let’s make hay…

A positive thinker

is the only kind to be

since worry, worry, worry

won’t ever set us free

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011; 2015

Ego in Denial

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

A loud, talkative if successful businessman attached himself to me during an overnight stay at a hotel years ago, and offered me this advice over countless pints of lager: ‘In business, you have to aim high, be a real go-getter, stay focused on what you want and go for it, no matter what…or who. And shall I tell you what’s so great about life at the top, young man? It’s that you don’t need anyone, but everyone needs you, depends on you, for whatever reason. There's no feeling like it because you don't need anyone, you're top dog.'

Regarding the latter point, I could see he had all but convinced himself it was true. Even so, methinks he did protest just that little too much, and needless to say I was no more impressed with him or his 'advice' than than I would be now, some 30+ years on.

As for sexuality, it has been my experience that gay-friendly straight men are 100% confident in their own sexuality so have no problem with anyone else's while the average homophobe nowhere near shares that same self-confidence, resorting to discriminatory bluster to cover their own backs, so to speak....

Thank goodness for alter ego forever nudging us towards home truths, ego would prefer to ignore.

This poem is a villanelle.

EGO IN DENIAL

Don’t need anyone telling me

the best way to get by.

(Loneliness feeding on me.)

Voices cruelly, mockingly,

demanding, why…?

Don’t need anyone telling me

Choices, always goading me

to expose a white lie.

(Loneliness feeding on me.)

Who's to stop me running free,

though a sandman try?

Don’t need anyone telling me

Scathing home truths would see

I get real, brave up, deny

loneliness feeding on me…

Love, it’s a life-and-death poetry

milking rhyme and reason dry;

(Don’t need anyone telling me;

loneliness, feeding on me...)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2014

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

Tell-Tale Mind

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

How many of us, I wonder, show ourselves to others as we really are rather than whom we would like them to think we are? Many people seem to think I am a strong person and very self-confident. Yet, nothing could be further than the truth. I portray a fictionalized version of myself in which I believe, because I have never quite managed to work out what it is about my real self that I can believe in.

Sometimes, when we are discussing mutual friends or colleagues with other friends and colleagues, even members of our own family with other members of the family, we are not infrequently surprised by what we hear and may even wonder if we are talking about the same person. I guess we present a different persona to different people. Yet, those personae are all the same person. So are we, I wonder, all caught up in our own fictions?

I have kept faith with my sexuality since I came out as an openly gay person many years ago, and am certainly not ashamed of being gay. At the same time, all those formative years of having to lie because being gay was a criminal offence have left their mark. In those days, I had to create an alternative persona in order to survive. On the one hand, there was the conscientious if not very bright schoolboy; on the other, there was the shy, scared teenager struggling to come to terms with an awakening sexuality and finding ways of satisfying it that would have shocked just about everyone I knew. I’d cruise for sex and love-hate every minute of it. I was like a good-bad character in a novel. My life, for years was a split reality. Even now, years on, no one knows or will ever know how much so or just how much of that split personality remains.

Oh, I am no Jekyll and Hyde, but if someone were to ask, ‘Will the real Roger Taber stand up please,’ it would be a motley collection of characters that step out of the storybook that is my life.

This poem is a villanelle.

TELL-TALE MIND 

I’d show the world what I would be

(as if make-believe pays)

but the mind, it tells tales on me

Terrified, as I confront adversity,

a sailor on angry waves,

I’d show the world what I would be

‘Be brave, go free,’ love told me,

quick to learn its ways,

but the mind, it tells tales on me

From nature, I take my humanity

(lost in a temporal maze);

I’d show the world what I would be

I have kept faith with my sexuality,

(mastering its ways)

but the mind, it tells tales on me

The heart, it seeks refuge in poetry

(from its nightmares);

I’d show the world what I would be,

but the mind, it tells tales on me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2011

[Note: Yes, I know I’ve been oversimplifying in my preamble and not saying anything original, but readers often ask what lies behind a poem, what prompted me to write it in the first place. Besides, I am writing a blog, not an essay on the human psyche.]

Notes on the Art of Self-Deception

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

We have all met them, people who are too stubborn to admit they even might be wrong or mistaken; who won’t compromise because they see even meeting someone halfway as a sign of weakness.

Mind you, even stubbornness has its place in the human psyche; it can be a virtuy or a vice.. For example, it is helping me through my treatment for prostate cancer; a stubborn streak in me refuses to consider (most of the time) what could yet happen.

Oh, but life is too short to dwell for long on its what-ifs and maybes. Carpe Diem, I say!

This poem is a kenning, sometimes referred to as a 'Who am I?' poem.

NOTES ON THE ART OF SELF-DECEPTION

Few acknowledge

my presence from beginning to end

of their time,

insinuating my way with expertise

worthy of a spy

intent on political obstruction,

slithering in and out

among corridors of a nation’s

central powerhouse

To anyone aware

of my existence, it suits them best

to deny I have any influence

over their affairs, but will insist

they will proceed

with the fairness and diplomacy

(not political expediency)

choosing to ignore my capacity

for sabotage

Though the heart

stay true to all intents and purposes,

I will wreak havoc

among dark corridors of the mind,

slithering in and out

where conscience would tread,

ensuring a degree

of impotence for its slipping up

on a trail of lies

 I pass for a pale imitation of integrity

 in the footlights of human vanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013