A History

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

Many if not most of us have them, moments in time that are surreal, take us out of ourselves and would have us look back at all personal space stripped bare of any well-chosen décor meant to give us a sense of belonging, and we do feel that… for the greater part of us that’s real. 

Only, now and then we treat ourselves to acting out some wannabe persona, lending it a reality, letting it in while, at the same time, acknowledging the need to return it where it (no ‘we’) could well have belonged, but for having to… get real?

A HISTORY

A small child,
playing in the street
outside the house
where I was born, not a care
of the world’s making,
but for its nagging mind-body-spirit
that on my own head be it

Teenage years,
home truths doing battle
with fake news,
faux stereotypes ganging up
on me, redefining
my identity, pressuring that part of me
engaging with my sexuality

A young adult
confused, all but lost
in mixed feelings,
seeking a place to belong.
left dangling 
by a favourite pop song over my head, 
bent on raising the half-dead

Older, wising up
to the ways of a world
that would have us
hang and let hang, devil take
the hindmost,
stiff upper lip, ready cue for surviving;
living and partly living

You-Me-Us, 
body of such thought
across eternity,
as left hanging by art forms
on the inner eye,
looking to make any sense or none at all
of its heart-and-soul

A small child,
playing in the street
outside the house
where he/ she was born, no cares
of the world’s making,
but for ghosts nagging a mind-body-spirit
that on its own head be it

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

L-I-F-E, Management Issues

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2014.

Isuspect Covid-19 s more of a struggle for people living  in big cities than in rural areas, especially for those of us who live alone?

Perhaps it is because I am growing old, but I take far less pleasure from living in London than I used to.  Even so, my life is here.  While I take much pleasure in its wealth of leisure facilities and history as and when I can, I remain acutely aware that I am passively complicit in this mad world of ours going about an everyday business that leaves much to be desired...

London, like so many cities and suburbs is overcrowded and the air quality leaves as much to be desired as the neighbourliness and sense of community that once existed, and now has become yet another endangered species wherever it remains, as it does, even in certain pockets of modern society. (West can learn much from East in this respect.

I suspect we all run a familiar gamut (to one degree or another) in cities and large towns across the world. In recent years, fake news and social media make a significant contribution to personal anxieties and a sense sometimes of being on a treadmill 

Whatever, all we can do is take each day as it comes, nurture a positive-thinking mindset, and make the best of what life offers rather than whinge about the worst ...

L-I-F-E, MANAGEMENT ISSUES

Manic streets, paved with eggshells

(Oh, so politically correct...)

Big Issue drumming up passing glances

(Equal Ops prime suspect.)

Beggar and dog at the supermarket

(On the outside, looking in…)

Tailbacks on the home run, a nightmare

(No respect for Car is King.)

Blind man making his own way home

(Small change for a pickpocket...)

Arthritic bag lady taking up a park bench

(Move along, security alert!)

Hey, I bet that one’s a terrorist, see?

(Looks foreign to me...)

Thin is sexy or so we’re asked to believe

(Gorging on glossy magazines...) 

School kid mugged for a smart phone

(Better not to get involved...)

Teenage lovers sharing well-used needles

(What about HIV-AIDS?)

Shoplifters killing off the High Street

(Business as usual...)

.

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of the poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007. For any overseas readers, who may not know, The Big Issue is a newspaper sold on the streets of the UK and other countries by homeless people; it gives them a regular income, and more importantly helps restore their self-confidence while preserving their self-respect: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Issue ]

Rumour

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

I confess no poetry editors have ever shown an interest in today’s poem, yet it has always been well received at poetry readings and even stimulated lively debate.  So many people seem to have been the victim of rumour at some point in their lives or know of someone else who has fallen foul of gossip. Far too often, seemingly ‘harmless’ gossip has become exaggerated beyond recognition by the time it has run its course.

Now, it can be a sad as well as wonderful feeling when a reader makes contact to say how a poem of mine has affected them deeply because they can relate so intimately to it. A reader got in touch with me in 2005 to say how he had borrowed my collection form his local library and this particular poem brought back vivid memories. It appears that he had been forced to move away from his childhood home after neighbours circulated nasty rumours about him; these resulted in his being physically as well as verbally assaulted in the street and his house was also vandalised.  The rumours were unfounded, but even after a local newspaper printed a true version of events, completely exonerating him, tongues continued to wag and the harassment continued.

I am pleased to say that I have heard from this reader since. He has made a new life for himself and his family and his wife recently gave birth to their third child.

Tragically, not every victim of vicious rumour has a happy ending. I personally know of one who committed suicide.

Oh, but if only some people would think before they start apportioning blame to others for this or that before they have all the facts…!

RUMOUR

Closed, the curtains now,

graffiti on the sill;

no cheery sounds in every room

just gloom and an eerie chill;

no laughing at the budgerigar

or thinking about a new car

but cowering in fear at a banging

on doors, the yelling

of good neighbours

out in force...after rough

justice

Empty, the garden now,

daisies on the lawn;

no kids playing on the old swing

and the satellite dish has gone;

no dog chasing next-door’s cat

or neighbours at the gate

converging like wolves

on fresh meat, working up

a thirst...too late

to make a killing; the law

struck first

Media in on the act,

and prime TV;

parents puffing their points

of view, kids enjoying

the party...

All quiet now. Werewolves

slinking from the scene.

(Can’t get it right every time

and who's to say

what might have been? A job

well done.)

Budgie gets to keep its cage;

history skips a page…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2010

[Note: This poem has been (slightly) revised from the original as it appears in  First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]