Love, a Leading Light

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

I always welcome constructive criticism; more often than not this turns on the fact that I rarely use full stops at the end of stanzas. Regular readers will know that it is a convention I prefer to ignore because, as I see it, they interrupt both the free flow of a poem and reader's thought/s relating to it. 

I recently asked one such critic if  my lack of punctuation had ever spoilt a poem for him. He conceded it had not while protesting that "You expect to find a full stop at the end of stanzas if only to allow the reader breathing space to consider what's gone before." 

"So what if the poet sees no need for a breathing space from start to finish, and beyond?" I asked. It's expected," he insisted again.

I rest my case.

Now, the heart always thinks it knows what is best for us, and often does; most of us invariably take its advice, for better, for worse, regardless of any arguments put forward to the contrary. Whether or not we make the right choice for ourselves, and any other parties concerned, they can be dark days while we try to think it through as reasonable people, well aware that reason cannot always be relied upon (or allowed, as the case may be) to get the upper hand... 

C'est la vie. 

LOVE, A LEADING LIGHT

Love, a guiding light

through life’s misty days,

come the dark of night

Though it takes fright

at humanity’s shifty gaze,

love, a guiding light

Invariably, it's hindsight

alerted to an enemy’s ways,

come the dark of night

Though doves take flight,

would douse sunset’s blaze,

love, a guiding light

Forces of wrong and right,

arguing the error of our ways,

come the dark of night

Head, it would see us right,

but Heart says where it stays;

love, a guiding light,

come the dark of night

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012. 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Love, a Guiding Light' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]

N-A-T-U-R-E, Imaging Eternity aOR Transcending Known Parameters

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

It seems to me that we often overlook the simpler pleasures of life in our enthusiasm for the more exotic or whatever is most likely to impress family, peers and neighbours. A friend once commented, ‘We never know long we’ve got so all the more reason to cram in as much as we can while we can.’ I get that, but not everyone is a crammer; we all want different things from life and just because someone does not appear to have a lot to show for his or her life doesn’t mean they have not live it, in their own wat and time, to the full.

Now, every so often, someone asks me why I often write about death. Well, as a positive thinker, I try to be as positive about the inevitability of death as I do about making the most of each day as it comes, no matter what it may bring. Besides, I have been living with prostate cancer for nearly six years now so shying away from death is not an option. Not that I have any intention of letting the Grim Reaper have his way with me just yet! (Better to be positive, surely?)

It has been suggested by those who do not know me very well that I should ‘find God’ and therefore need have no fear of death. They mean well, of course, but I have never been able to relate to any religion or idea of a personified ‘God’. Nor am I am an atheist, though, but more of an agnostic in as much as I do believe in a sense of spirituality that enhances our customised vision of the world; outwardly and inwardly. However, as regular readers well know, I take that sense of spirituality from nature, not religion.

Oh, and why, too, do I have a particular fondness for robins? Well, not least because they are survivors, known to see out the worst winters if only to sing in another spring, reminding us all that, of all nature’s gifts, hope has to be among the best on offer. (And should hope die in some bleak winter of the heart? Well, as spring follows winter so, too, perhaps might we…?) 

Such is a sense of spirituality as I see it or if you prefer, the Landscape of Imagination from which so much of my poetry takes its inspiration, both mutually inclusive in my view.

N-A-T-U-R-E, IMAGING ETERNITY or TRANSCENDING KNOWN PARAMETERS

No one ever lays flowers,
comes even to rework old times,
but an old tree reads poems
that passes for a fitting eulogy,
and a robin sings

No memorial marks the spot,
none have cause to pause this way,
but shadows make a play
for life at Apollo’s pleasure,
and seeds grow

Each of four winds has a say
in how the tree needs must recite;
leafy branches acting out
rhythm, rhyme, blank verse,
(all weathers)

Mark how seasons play a part,
anticipating nature’s every mood,
overseeing a predilection
for happy-sad shades of green,
amber, red and mould

No let-up by day or night,
the tree passing on its every nuance
of sight and sound to each man,
woman and child with any feeling
for the natural world

Nature may well see us through
time’s ever-changing kaleidoscope,
yet humanity has far more say
than any leaves in what patterns
it may shape us…?

Ah, but such is human nature,
it may yet branch out on leafy whim
to make, break, let rise or fall
such passions of the human heart
as a robin sings
  
Roger N. Taber (2016)

On the Nature of Love

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

I have often heard people say they feel they have missed out on love, and it saddens them because they feel life has left them feeling incomplete.  Perhaps they have never been ‘in love’ or a partner has died young or a lover may have let them down in their eyes…

Whatever, love is neither so easily defined nor confined to the context of being ‘in love’. As I have said before on the blogs (and dare say will say again) love takes many shapes and forms that can be as real, inspiring and life-shaping as a lover.

Me, I haven’t had a steady partner for many years and we only had a short time together, but knowing him was a learning curve in many ways, not least in learning to take nothing for granted, especially love. It is possible, even likely, that platonic love between good friends can be as enriching in its own way as the love shared by lovers. A love of certain places or simply for travelling and experiencing new places can be wonderful nor less so the love of home life and everything it means to us, even if we rarely if ever step out of that particular comfort zone.

Different people want and need different things from life, but so long as we keep our eye on love, and always remain aware of and nurture its presence, the least likely we are to ever look back on our lives and find them wanting.

Few people, in my experience, can say they feel wholly fulfilled, Yes, I envy those that can, of course I do, but we should never let envy of others blind us to our own blessings, even when the latter sometimes seem somewhat thin on the ground; be assured they will pick up, but only if we open up to them, fill our senses with them, see them for what they are through our own eyes, not someone else’s.  Yes, I know it’s pretty obvious, but SO many people fail to see the proverbial wood for trees planted by someone else.

As for sexuality, it embraces love, yes, but love is bigger than that, and anyone who believes in love needs to be big enough to admit it, socio-cultural-religious prejudices notwithstanding, or they are 
hypocrites...to say the least.

‘Where there is love, there is life.’ - Mahatma Gandhi

ON THE NATURE OF LOVE

Hey, listen out…

Hear that lasting beat 

whose remit to feed

the sweetest memories

to a hungry heart.

long after its life force

carried away

on wings of a day set aside

for sorrow

Hey, look there…

Discover cloud shapes

whose remit to relay

best (and worst) times

to an inner eye

long after losing sight

of friendly faces

to hands on a wall clock

stuck fast

Hey, have a smell…

Where grass is greenest

and leaves bring

the scent of summer roses

to the mind

all but closing down

in keeping

with a winter all but gone

to earth

Hey, get the taste…

For honey on the tongue

on what we may

liken to a ‘soul’ having left

its lasting imprint

on such as we may care

to call ‘spirit’

in the lamentable absence

of a poem

Ever get the feeling…?

Earth Mother, nurturing

the beauty

of our seasons going

full cycle,

constructive comment

even on dreams

of each hopeful tomorrow

left unfulfilled

Hey, reach up, touch…

Where the heart beats out

its hopes

for such peace and love

as may or may not

run true, but much the more 

worth the dreaming

for filling all my senses

with you

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Lines on the Extraordinary Nature of Ordinariness

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

‘I’d love to write poetry, but…how do I find something to write about?’ people often ask.

Well, try looking all around and letting your senses loose on sight and/or hearing and/or smell and/or touch and/or taste...

[e.g. See also: 'Puddles' ]

The chances are the inner self will respond, and that response is called inspiration.

As for a choice of genre into which to channel inspiration, whether it is writing, music, art...just go for what appeals to you most and never be afraid of someone trying to put you down for a poor result (there will always be someone) because there is no such thing as a poor result where someone has put their inner self on the line by creating something. Success is relative, and a bonus; it is finding inspiration and learning to use it as a creative tool that counts. 

My personal experience, as someone who has suffered serious bouts of depression since early childhood, is that making this particular journey is also very therapeutic.

LINES ON THE EXTRAORDINARY NATURE OF ORDINARINESS

Clouds, magic carpet rides

away from it all…

Birdsong, calling to mind

bathtime rituals

for potential divas to woo

an audience, willing captives

of imagination  

Grass, littered with daisies,

sunspots of memory…

Trees, leafy arms signing,

telling us off for things

we’ve done, forgotten, never

meant to happen

A broken fence, urging us to

repair old friendships…

An empty chair, in memory

of someone who’ll never

sit there any more, words in

the air left unsaid

Crisp, clean pillowcases, all

to ourselves…

Watching a damp patch on

the ceiling spread,

fill the eye like a weepy sky

passing judgement

Ordinariness, the extraordinary
nature of poetry...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2014

[Note: This poem has been revised (2014) since its first appearance in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Trailing Roses

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

I have written several poems about roses; they were my late mother’s favourite flower, and are mine also.

  

TRAILING ROSES

Dawn, a golden haze

among trailing trellis roses;

trees, dripping rainbows

on grasshoppers signing in

another day

Rooftops, sheets of glass

where birds pause to preen

a feather or two before

taking off to help usher in

another day

Bubble wrap skies, cue

for sleepyheads to wonder

why on earth heaven

is raising the alarm for just

another day

Sun rising, world trailing

after trellis roses like a lover

left for dead…

yet to rediscover fool’s gold

another day

By noon, trellis roses

getting up the noses of those

who know no better

than to repeat their mistakes

another day

At dusk, nature playing

its daily nocturne to anyone

who cares to listen,

dares even show a sad world

another way

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]

Variations On A Theme

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

Hello from London UK.

I am fine, folks, (thanks to many of you for asking) but feeling very tired again after another restless night. [For the benefit on first time readers, I am being treated for prostate cancer and doing okay.] .

Now, my late mother was always singing around the house and there was a time I thought it was because she was happy. In later years, I realized that she sang to think herself into happy mode; singing, for her, was a kind of escapism just as reading was for us both. My mother always wanted us to be a happy family unit, which we never truly were. I mostly blamed my late father, but I dare say he and my brother would put the blame on me.

I stopped playing the blame game years ago and can see now that I was not an easy child to live with. I suffered from depression (no one acknowledged depression in children then) that brought on awful migraines. In addition, I had significant hearing loss that no one ever appreciated, including me, until I was much older. As a teenager, being removed from my childhood friends at 14 years-old and forced to live in a god-awful backwater called Hoo (in Kent) did not help, especially as it coincided with my realizing I am gay; gay relationships would not be decriminalized for a few years yet.

Yes, I was a ‘difficult’ child and youth although no one knew just how troubled I was. [My perception is that family members sit down and talk to each other even less than we did then so heaven help future generations!] The only surprise about my having a severe nervous breakdown in my early 30’s was that it hadn’t occurred years earlier. It was a messy business. By then my mother was dead and neither my father nor brother ever asked me for my side of events that took place during that terrible time. They made assumptions and I was expected to live with them. I recovered sufficiently to find another job nearly three years later, but it took me a good ten years or so to recover fully and get my life back on track. [Even so, my breakdown still haunts me just as those closet years of awakening sexuality always will.]

There was something very wistful about my mother’s singing, yet positive too; it helped her rise above the trials and tribulations of everyday family life just as writing helps me. How many of us, I wonder, find similar outlets for their frustrations? For my own part, as regular readers will know, writing as an art form comes a poor second to its means to a very effective form of self-help therapy.

VARIATIONS ON A THEME

One long-ago spring,

I heard an old flower seller

hum a song my mother

would always sing to me

whenever I felt sad

and lonely, evoking a line

from a poem about

a pretty robin left sobbing

(for all innocence?) as autumn
starts to turn

I was so innocent then,

listening to Mother singing

a song to lift my heart

though I’d often wonder

why it sounded so sad

and lonely, like the flower

in a poem, rejected

for pretty rose tree blooms
begging a poet’s eye find excuses 

for its thorns

One long-ago winter,

I heard another flower seller

hum the song my mother

still sings to me whenever

I miss her, feel so sad

and lonely for no one even

trying to see how it is;

song, mother, child, robin,

rose, poet, poem…but variations

on a common theme

Life forms, art forms, companions

to wishful thinking

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

[Note: References to ‘a poem’ in stanzas 1 and 2 relate to The Blossom and My Petty Rose Tree  found among William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, but whether or not readers are familiar with these should (hopefully) make little or no difference to any appreciation of the poem.]

Time and Tide

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

The genesis for this poem was written in 1976. I have only recently revised it.

Regular reader will be familiar with the sea – in all its moods, and as they reflect my own - as a theme for many later poems.

Sometimes, the sea inspires me; sometimes it comforts me; sometimes it scares me, especially as I grow old(er) and am inclined to see it as a living metaphor for a splendid vastness that will surely (for good or ill, better or worse) one day claim my spirit.

TIME AND TIDE

The lonely sea
laps at my feet, stars in the sky
small comfort;
on a hushed beach,
a huge white moon winks wryly
at me

Sun, sea, sand,
slipping through weepy fingers
like kinder times;
life, death, love,
hovering low above, still waiting
for Godot

Wind grown cold,
I growing old with all the stoicism
of a sand statue;


night-pools, they swirl
around me, surprise, confound me
with home truths

Though I dare
a sleepy shore’s passions reawaken,
I know…
why the lonely sea
laps at my feet,  stars in the sky
small comfort

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]

Bluegrass Buddha

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

Deep thinking, especially perhaps when it takes a wishful or wistful turn, may well take us to the the most wonderful if unexpected places...

BLUEGRASS BUDDHA

Pensive, cross-legged

on the sandbanks of time

wishing the tide away...

watching the flotsam and jetsam

of long, happy hours

swoop and dive like gulls

chasing crumbs thrown

by this child, those watchers,

from a sandcastle’s tower

on a blue glass sea of dreams

Oh, happiness, reminding

like specks in a kaleidoscope

even as it turns, like earth

around the sun, of days gone

forever, never to return...

Good, bad, halcyon days

chasing after crumbs

thrown by this child-watcher

from a castle of half lies

on a bluegrass sea of dreams

Listening to The Man play

and, oh, so wishing the tide away
if only for peace of mind,
entering into a past-present future
working and reworking
mind-body-spirit on behalf of ghosts
that would have us avoid
the errors of their ways, lead us
not into temptation
on a bluegrass sea of dreams

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005

[Note: An earlier version of this poems appears in A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

Logging On To Life

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

Readers ‘Soraya and Magnus’ have asked me to repeat today’s poem as it is their wedding anniversary today and because 'among all the poems in your collection, this is the one we love most.'  It first appeared in a Forward Press (now Forward Poetry) anthology, My Words Are My Voice in 2009 and subsequently on the blog as well as in my collection the following year.

Here’s wishing Soraya and Magnus a very Happy Anniversary, and many thanks for getting in touch. Apart from the fact that I love hearing from readers, this ageing poet is always grateful for any encouragement that comes his way.  [Well, aren’t we all?]

Now, some cruel twist of fate may cause us to lose some of our senses, even most, but never all. For there is one, not mentioned in the poem by name, but will be inferred by the discerning reader, that will always see us through; it is the human spirit whose resilience, sensibility and passion should never be underestimated.  Oh, and yes, it can and often does make a difference.

LOGGING ON TO LIFE

We look, yes, but how to make sense

of a world turning, no matter what or who,

and how to make a difference?

We hear, yes, but how to make sense

of gobbledegook, no matter what or who,

and how to make a difference?

We smell, yes, but how to make sense

of much doctored scents turning the air blue,

and how to make a difference?

We taste, yes, but how to make sense

of the additives and preservatives hullabaloo,

and how to make a difference?

We touch, yes, but how to make sense

of sticky stuff on a knife bent on killing you,

and how to make a difference?

We can but do our best to make sense

of a world turning, no matter what or who,

and try to make a difference

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

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

A Common Garden Snapshot

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

After a great evening yesterday, I just had to come and tell you about it. Now, I am no artist, not least because I don’t think visually, and have the greatest admiration for those who do. So I was thrilled to be invited to a private viewing of 'Authorized’ by artist James Howard. It is his latest solo show, and  a very exciting experience.

The show proved to be very different from anything of his that I have seen before, yet still characteristically sharp, satirical, entertaining and (very) thought provoking.

Regular readers will know that I have enthused about this young man's work before. I have known his parents for years and will continue to watch his creative talents develop and evolve with great interest. His work reflects ways of seeing and feeling that arouse all the observer's senses as if waking them up after a restless sleep. One cannot help but come away from his 'Authorized' with one's own outlook on life and art (and perception of self) under review.

Find more about James Howard at: http://luckyluckydice.com/

Enjoy! [Above all else, any art form best comes into its own once it is not only shared but also enjoyed.]

Meanwhile...

Friends  often comment that I rarely take photographs even when on holiday or passing through new places. My camera is my mind’s eye and it encourages me to write poems.

I get a feeling for places, people too, that I frequently shape into a poem that I can share with others just as they might share their holiday snaps. Such was the case when I visited Scarborough to give a poetry reading there a few years ago. By way of illustration, the second poem is one I wrote about this very pretty and friendly town on the Yorkshire coast.

Welcome to my garden. [Sadly, I don't have my own where I live in London although I do look out over one.]

A COMMON GARDEN SNAPSHOT

Leaves, strewn about in the mud
like underwear torn from a washing line
by a freak wind

Lies, piling up like dead leaves
providing sustenance for the very earth
that nurtured them

Hearts, now joined together,
now ripped apart, like stale bread fought 

over by sparrows

Hopes, tossed like underwear
on a cruel wind over hungry graves ready
to gobble us up

Chase the wind, stumble in mud,
retrieve underwear for a washing machine
or stand by and watch?

Choices, a gathering of sparrows
debating how best to survive a bad winter
through to spring

Graves, wearing hard won badges
of flowers and dead leaves, each sure to be

telling tales on us ...

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