Perspectives

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

Hello, everyone, from London UK

“The more important thing is not the object of love, but the emotion itself”. – Gore Vidal

“There will always be enemies. Time to stop being your own.” – Larry Kramer

“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.” – James Baldwin

“I’d rather burn in hell than worship an anti-gay God.” – Desmond Tutu

Now, although some readers have objected to any gay-interest poems that I post here now and then as well as on my other poetry blog, I could not refuse a reader who simply signs his email as ‘a caring dad’. He says he has good reason to suspect that one of his sons may be gay, and doesn’t want him to live ‘in some lonely closet’. Having read a selection of poems on my gay blog, he asks that I post another here as the son in question is a regular visitor, since which he “...has come close to acknowledging his sexuality to himself and everyone else...”  

Well, good luck, dad, and if, indeed, your son is gay, I wish you both a far closer relationship that I was ever able to share with my own father.

As I keep telling readers who chance upon my gay blog (more often than not by accident than design) most of my gay-specific poems are in the blog archives, so do, take a look sometime. I will be 77 years old this year and, not unsurprisingly, no longer sexually active, especially after living with prostate cancer for a good ten years now; hence, a failing inspiration with regard to poetry that embraces LGBT matters.😉

Having said that, though, my main interest in writing any poem is that poetry like any art form, excludes no one. Besides, I may be growing old, but I still have the mind-body-spirit of a gay man; nor does being of any LGBT persuasion, exclude us from such universal thought processes and opinions as reflected in this and that ethos throughout history.

Now, as I have said on previous posts, over the years, I 've met a significant number of people - from all walks of life and religion - who have been made to feel they must choose between communing with a native sense of spirituality and engaging with desires of the flesh. To anyone from any community, this would have taken them into a state of crisis during the 1950’s when I was growing up; a post-war society that saw same sex relationships as a crime against God and nature. Prejudice against LGBT folks in those days was so intense that we lived in fear of being 'outed' and subsequently getting beaten up or worse...

As any regular reader of either or both of my poetry blogs will know, it was not until my early 30’s that I finally saw my way clear to face the world as a gay man. I have openly supported LGBT rights ever since; hopefully, the ranks of heterosexual men and women who feel able to do likewise  will continue to grow... 

God, I had been told, time and again, is a God of Love. Love, of course, comes in many shapes and forms and I came to believe that love between two people of the same sex would not - contrary to the religious dogma in which I had been all but brainwashed for years - be considered a blasphemy likely to send me to Hell.  By then, too, I had discovered for myself how we can so easily be misled into creating our own Heaven and Hell here on Earth, in such ways as are anything but metaphorical...!

Prejudice of any description, towards anyone, is as much of an affront to human dignity as it has always been. Now, though, relatively slowly but surely, common sense, fairness and an equality deserving of a common humanity are filtering through to the more enlightened societies and communities worldwide; that many, if not most of these are among the more secularly inclined, does not and should not be seen as attitudes toward a native spirituality being in the decline.   

No religion has a monopoly on a person’s sense of spirituality nor the right to dictate this or that theological agenda, whatever certain Holy Books have to say on the matter.

As I have said many times on the blogs, I have every respect for anyone’s sincerely held religious faith just as I would ask them to respect my right to find my own way in life, love, and spiritual well-being.

PERSPECTIVES

As age takes its toll of me,
I look back in anger
at schooldays long, long ago,
when I’d dread anyone
should know my secret shame,
as nurtured by societies,
within such as I, a taboo as few
(then) dared call by name, fearing abuse,
left with but Hobson’s choice

Secrets, though will fester,
drive mind-body-spirit
all but mad for suppressing
such love as flowered
within such as I, to which denial
from heart and soul
but falls on deaf ears, until a time
natural instinct insists it no longer ignore
a roar, growing ever louder

The first time I ventured
into the landscape
some religions would condemn
as a unpardonable,
I was trembling for the sheer dread
my God would strike me
dead where I stood,
waiting on a stranger to come, set me free,
if only temporarily, to be ME

We exchanged few words,
that stranger and I,
as we shared a mind-body-spirit
risen to the occasion,
on wings that would be clipped
by certain powers that be
who fear, above all, an individuality
asserting itself, no whim, but once and for all
over the human heart and soul

Time passed, as time will do,
ageing mind-body-spirit
grown weary of showing masks
to a world feeding
on stereotypes, passing off its vanity
as concerns for a humanity
driven by such sure historical agendas
as would see it sign up
to God-fearing behaviour, dogma and faiths
outlawing same sex relationships

Mind-body-spirit, though, asks
more of any society
or religion, increasingly less content
to go free but now and then,
seeking out such resources of its own
as would have it go
mask-free into the world, show its face,
defy any powers that be
hell bent on taking all prejudice and hypocrisy
into yet another deaf-blind century

As generations come and go,
so, too, young people
with minds of their own, less inclined
to be browbeaten,
even during their formative years,
by agenda and/or dogma
as would capture a free mind-body-spirit
with such ideas as may suppress a natural empathy
with a sense of common humanity...

Each to their own sense of right
and wrong, no matter
from where, how or even whom it comes,
entitled not to budge,
but not so as to judge others by standards
adapted to suit themselves,
however well-intentioned they may be
to save humanity from such plots by persons unknown
as likely as not to deny it salvation

To each, though, our own perspective on personal space,
defining its You-Me-Us, by God’s grace

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

 

Tracks

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

OVERHEARD: “They’re always right so everyone else has to be wrong. How vain or self-centred can a person be, for heaven’s sake?” 

Possibly the person in question is neither vain or self-centred in the sense their accuser implies. Sometimes people need to address their inner selves so often, in order to avoid a personal abyss, that they develop tunnel vision; not in every respect, though, only as and when they need to make some cliff-hanger of a personal decision. 

Whatever, everyone’s cliff-hangers are different; what may help one person may not help another. 

Since the person under discussion here was clearly asked for advice, or at least an opinion, with which the speaker plainly disagreed... don’t they deserve some credit for at least trying to answer, in the light of what they may well have discovered for themselves, rather than sitting on the proverbial fence? 

Now, the speaker may well be right, but doesn’t the accused deserve the benefit of doubt rather than be given a stereotypical label that may well do the rounds and prove to be unfounded in different circumstances...? 

Why did I earwig and subsequently write the poem? Well, possibly because one of my favourite recordings from the 1960’s is Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood by The Animals. Sadly, it happens to some of us all the time... 

TRACKS 

Everywhere I look,
I’ll invariably fail to see what lies
beyond certain perimeters,
narrow, though, they well may be
for reasons best accounted for
by formative years left least aware
of a mind-body-spirit
failing to master such arts of interaction
as effect true communication 

Unable to break free
of such hauntings and compelled
to follow, though they lead
into such dark, complex landscapes
of emotion and imagination
as more likely to effect tunnel vision
than lend me a key
to better understanding the finer mysteries
of human history over centuries 

From time to time,
personal space allows me glimpses
of a kinder past-present-future
than the human engine in me running
on lines meant to leave me
missing out on such key destinations
as Love and Peace,
only for me to miss my destination yet again
on such tracks as are but human 

Call me Self-centredness, that human faculty
often mistaken for vanity 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

 

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.]

Profile of a Hotshot

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

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]

Braveheart

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blogs in 2011

Some parents are bullies, even those who genuinely think they have their child’s best interests at heart. Young people should be allowed to follow their own paths in life, not those mapped out for them by parents who see a chance of their own frustrated aspirations being realised in their children. 

‘Bullies’ is no exaggeration. Until children reach an age when they are credited with a mind of their own by certain adults, they are pawns in what is sometimes a very nasty game, unable to establish their own rules of play. (It is not only LGBT boys and girls, men and women who need to break free of certain stereotypes nurtured during formative years.)

Thankfully, many of these young people rebel and assert themselves for the better in later years although it can be tough , and not all parents 'get it'. I’ve heard many a parent complaining about an ‘ungrateful’ child. (Perhaps they should have asked us what we want from life?)

My father was a psychological bully. I was less embarrassed about coming out as gay in my teens as  scared the atmosphere at home whenever he was around would get a lot worse. Consequently, I hide  in the proverbial closet, lonely and scared for much of the time.

I don't believe you should have children so they can be ‘grateful’ to you, but for the pleasure of nurturing them and seeing them grow into their own person, not a carbon copy of a disillusioned or misguided parent.

We don’t ask to be born on the back of our parents' sexual satisfaction and shared ego trip. So why should we be grateful and feel guilty when we resist the kind of emotional blackmail from parents who cry crocodile tears if we don’t fall in with their plans for us?

Good parents don’t have to ask or connive; we willingly give what we can because we love them. Sadly, a significant number only want children because their religion does not take over-population into account and/or  by way of  reserving an ‘insurance’ policy to cushion their old age.

Good parents everywhere - and there are many - deserve a BIG HUG, and more.

BRAVEHEART 

I'd cower in corners of the mind
like a child besieged
by gremlins in an encroaching dark;
captive of human nature,
dragging on chains of well-meant
parental expectations,
sum of their worst felt failures,
haunting limitations

Confronting limitations, I'd call on
the strength of Samson,
if only to risk locks cut to the quick
by a well-meaning ambition
that’s not mine so (can no one see?)
unfit for purpose, better suited
to someone of a different mindset,
anyone else but me

Finally, breaking free! May those
thinking they 'know'
and only ever meant what's 'best'
for me, pause long enough
to reason why (and how) I fought
to be the person I am now,
for needing to make my own (adult)
choices (no one else's)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2011

[Note: The genesis of this poem appears under the same title  in Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, (January) 2001]