Keeping-Up-Appearances

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

Not so long ago, I spent an evening with a couple about my own age (68) who are so obsessed with looks that they have resorted to cosmetic surgery on more than one occasion. Ironically, the results are none too flattering. Besides, its's personality that counts more than looks, and don't let anyone tell you different. 

Respect comes into it to, doesn't it? Personally, I have more respect for the person who lets nature take its course and stays young in at heart than for the man or woman who prefers to kid themselves they have discovered the secret of eternal youth. The body may be a slave to time, but that doesn't have to be true of the spirit. The mind may well be vulnerable, but a strong dose of positive thinking and avoiding daytime TV has to be a good start. Couch potatoes do not age well in my experience.

Now, I ask you. Gay or straight, let;s stay young at heart by all means, but what’s wrong with growing old naturally?

Surely, it's enough that so many celebrities love to make fools of themselves by trying to turn back nature's clock without we ordinary men and women playing the same silly game?

On my opinion, cosmetic surgery is only ever justifiable in cases when people may have some kind of visible disfigurement that causes them distress. [It would probably cause them less distress if other people were less obsessed with outward appearances and more concerned with the person behind them.]

This poem is a kenning.

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES

I’ll make a hunchback of you,

both feet arguing with waistline,

whitened teeth making tongue

abort any truer word in the offing

as if you have no real affinity

with the fix you’re in, only dimly

aware of any discomfort, unable

(or unwilling) to follow it through,

and carrying on regardless

I’ll make a fine fool of you,

object of scorn (though tempered

with compassion among family,

friends who may well stay silent,

fearing you confuse concern

with interference, pity, jealousy,

for preferring home truths

stay backward in coming forward

in case anyone notices

I’ll make a poor loser of you,

unless you choose to take me on;

recognize the enemy within

for what I am or else go as a lamb

to slaughter at the altar of vanity,

always seeking shelter from life’s

worst storms in love’s harbours,

but as a guest, no sense of belonging,

only a hungry yearning

I am foolish pride, oblivious to the fact

that my folly is perceived a poor act

Copyright, R. N. Taber 2007; 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title Obsession in Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; this rev. version, 2019.]

Time, a Run-Around Life

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I love nature, and as a child never understood one of my mother’s favourite sayings about people unable to see the wood for the trees.

It took a while, but I finally grew up and found out…the hard way.

TIME, A RUN-AROUND LIFE

Once

we played chase games   

in a dead-end street,

happy enough, but wishing

kid’s stuff over, time for a go

at living for real

Once

we chased each other

for career success,

happy enough, but wishing

we had more time to make a go

at living for real

Once

we played a chase game

with someone else,

happy enough, but sensing

we were somehow falling short

of living for real

Once

we chanced to meet up  

in a busy street,

happy enough, but sensing

others were making a better go

of living for real

Time

to take stock of dead-ends,

let imagination

run free, take a chance

on each other, start having a go

at living for real

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

The Last Long Hauler Out Of E-Bay

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Some people like to hedge their bets regarding what if anything they might face once they have ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’. (That’s straight out of Hamlet, of course. Good ole Shakespeare. Sounds so much better better than just being dead, doesn’t it?)

Me? Well, I was never much of a gambler so I guess I’ll just have to take my chances with nature…

THE LAST LONG HAULER OUT OF E-BAY

Bid for a ticket,

now halfway to (Heaven?)

angels rushing by - no

less anxious than I to see

the end of the line

Looking down, I see

people on hands and knees

in poverty and pain - far

more anxious than I to see

if God’s at home

Looking out, I feel

a devil’s breath on my face,

smell incense burning

like a pot-pourri of roses

and grow anxious

Bid for a ticket,

now halfway to (Heaven?);

angels rushing past - no

less anxious than I to make up

for lost time

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

Beyond Belief

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An earlier version of today’s poem first appeared in an anthology, Echoes of War, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2003 and subsequently in my collection the following year.

Now, regular readers will be aware that have revised some poems since they first appeared in my collections and on my blogs. Some readers say they prefer the original version, but most prefer the revised version. All ask why I posted/published the original version if it was likely to be revised later. Well, at the time I wrote it, I saw it as a complete poem not the genesis for another. Years on, I read some of my earlier poems and can see where they fail, to one degree or another, either because they don’t say quite sat what I meant to say or don’t say it at all.

Once I get back inside a poem, I can see where the cracks need filling, not merely papered over. Writing a poem from the outside working inwards is very different to writing from the inside and working outwards.  Yes, the original is written from within the poet, but he or she only created the poem head and heart have shaped; the poem itself, as a developing organism,  needs to have say in that development.

Creating a poem is one thing and, yes, sometimes it is enough, but not always; any further development will comes late so long as the writer leaves room in the poem for that, and I always do. Moreover, I have always had a sense of this with my poems so always kept in mind that I would need to publish new editions of my collections at some point to allow for and include revisions/developments in some poems.  [Revisions that appear on my blogs will appear in new editions after 2015.]

From time to time, someone gets in touch to say he or she enjoyed both an original and revised revision of a poem, but especially enjoyed comparing the two.  One reader wrote to say they found it ‘intriguing’ to look inside my head and see how an original version of a poem led into the later version.  

While I dare say critics will see some of my poems as failures (they may well be right) I see them as relating to the person/poet I was at the time I wrote them. Hopefully, I have changed with passing time (hopefully for the better); similarly, my poetry. Readers are welcome to form their own opinion. Whatever, having written something, it make sense to share it, surely? So I have published my collections since 2001 and feedback, plus the changing nature of my own personal space. will result in new editions after the publication of a final collection - Diary of a Time Traveller in 2015 - when I hit 70.

Now, there is more than one take on aspiration, and somewhere along the line we have to make choices; sometimes it may seem as if the choice is whether or not we are prepared to let someone else make that choice for us. But isn’t that just passing the buck?

Whatever, few things on this earth are anywhere near as simple as we try to make them appear, certainly not that complex network of communications, missed communications,  mixed messages and calls for commitment that comprise the human mind.

BEYOND BELIEF

Some say he sought freedom,

preferring martyrdom to repression;

others point to sentiments

expressed pertaining to the zeal

of a fundamentalist

waging war against the world

armed with Holy Word

Some say he followed a star,

near blinded by its glorious light;

others call him a Messiah

come in peace with a fire in his belly

no one could extinguish,

a measure of anguish fuelling

growing desperation

Some say, he was brainwashed

as a child, taught how the finest ends

justify appalling means,

suicide as a political statement

absolving conscience

from the agony heaped on body bags

at a roadside

Some call him a Dark Angel

that did not know him as well as she

who knew his fears,

saw tears fall, final choices made,

sent alone, small and scared

to brave The Word, bomb the world,

no one spared

Ashes, poor apology for a sorry world

and its every word

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2004.]

Profile of a Hotshot

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For a minority of young people, being in a gang is exciting, even glamorous; a life of crime, even violence, brings them local street cred. For some, too, it provides a sense of belonging that, for various reasons, may be lacking at home; invariably, they discover soon enough how seriously flawed this simplistic perspective can be, paying for their mistakes with prison or worse...

There is no excuse for gang crime. A prevailing irony and tragedy lies in the fact that, given an opportunity, most gang members have a positive contribution to make in the very society that condemns them.

There are two sides to every divide and both need to find a way to be reconciled. Society needs to ask itself where it is failing some young people to drive them into a gang culture; what does a gang offer them that it cannot, and why can’t it?

For their part, gang members need to ask themselves what they really want from life and make a bigger effort to find it; they certainly won’t find it by using weapons, shooting drugs or compensating for their own fears by terrorising others. The chances are the false security of being part of a gang, and the price they must pay for exercising their contempt for society's better values, will come back to haunt them in its prisons, those universities of crime that major in the art of self-delusion.

Meanwhile, the majority of decent young people remain under threat of being stereotyped by a mindless minority.

  

PROFILE OF A HOTSHOT

We called ourselves the Hotshots,

my gang and me

Upholding the right to use a gun,

in our constitution

We’d pick fights on street corners

and raid stores

If some little old lady or a war vet

in the way…too bad

We were the Hotshots, graduated

from school to streets

No one could touch us because we

had youth on our side

Looks, girls, designer gear and guns

made us invincible

We even hit prime time News once

(fame at last)

Then a hotshot turned good citizen

and grassed us up

Disbanded now, gone to this prison

or that graveyard

Me, once Mr Fox, now chickenfeed

among old lags

We were the Hotshots, thought guns

were cool

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

Lonely Road

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A few readers have asked why my visitor count appears to have gone down for my gay-interest blog and up for the general blog. The reason is I have removed the previous counter and inserted the widget for blog page viewing statistics; these only date from May 2010 and will give me a clearer idea of how well I am doing (or not, as the case may be) on a regular basis.

Meanwhile...

I saw my consultant the other day about my prostate cancer. She was very understanding and we have agreed a compromise. I will continue with hormone therapy for another nine months, and then stop for a while. If my PSA level does not shoot up, I will continue the hormone therapy, but if it does I will need to have radiotherapy. Even so, should the latter scenario arise, we can take into account my weak bladder next time so maybe it won’t be so stressful! Fingers crossed that the hormone therapy will keep the cancer at bay.
Meanwhile...

I am delighted that some readers who enjoy my YouTube channel have emailed o say how much they enjoyed my latest attempts at voice-over poems. My close friend Graham and I plan to use the same technique from time to time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pT-qqOje4vY

[NB If the link doesn’t work, go to my YouTube channel, click on ‘see all’ and look for ‘Engaging with History’ (You may have to register with YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber


Meanwhile...

The road through life can be a lonely one. Yet, if so, it’s only what we choose to make of it.

We all have choices. Yes, we may hit bad times through no fault of our own. Even so, whether or not and how far we recover from these is down to us. We can play the blame game as much as we like but, yes, we all have choices.

LONELY ROAD

Cats’ eyes…
penetrating the darkness;
Darkness…
penetrating the soul;
Soul…
penetrating layers of time;
Time…
penetrating all identity;
Identity…
penetrating all pretence;
Pretence…
penetrating our dreams;
Dreams…
penetrating home truths

Home truths, like cat's eyes
on mind-body-spirit ...

[From: A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, 2005]