Hi, Everyone

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

Hi, Everyone,

Sorry, no poem today, although I am working on one. Unfortunately, a worsening ear infection means that I am not feeling up to doing much at all at the moment, but hopefully it will soon pass.

Several readers have asked how I cope with the prostate cancer. Well, I just try to take each day as it comes and keep my fingers crossed.

I am 75 years-old, have been treated with hormone therapy (zoladex) since I was first diagnosed in 2011 and have injections about every 18 months. Although successful in preventing the cancer from becoming aggressive, the zoladex affects my memory; in the early years, I feared I was a candidate for dementia, but my consultant assured me it was the hormone therapy. I also get scared, even panicky sometimes, and this is not the kind of person I am. However, I’ve learned to live with these side-effects and do my best not to let them send me into free fall.

Diet has helped. I stay clear of dairy and meat products now. Soya milk and other soya related foods seem to help energise my system; it may not work for everyone, but it works for me; if the proof of any the pudding is in the eating, well, here I am, 10 years on, not quite the man I used to be, but still alive to tell the tale.

A reader has emailed to say he lives alone (as I do) and has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.  It is scary, I know, but a positive thinking mindset helps… a LOT. Family and friends are likely to rally round and offer support, so let them and take strength from it; some people bury their heads in the sand and that helps no one.

Scary, too, is the coronavirus pandemic… for everyone. It is ok to be scared, we can but do out best to rise above our fears and not let them get the better of us. Easier said than done, I know, but it’s not as if we have much choice. Some of you will have lost loved-ones, friends and workmates to the coronavirus, and that is always a tragedy, but as I have said many times before, love never dies, buts remains a life-force within us... if we let it.

Take care, everyone, stay safe and keep as well as any of us can expect to be during a pandemic.

Back soon, I hope. Meanwhile, feel free to explore the poetry archives, accessible on the right hand side of any blog page, Oh, and for the reader who had some kind words for my fiction blog... many thanks, much appreciated.

Hugs,

Roger

A Rule of Thumb

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

When I failed to get enough A-levels to take up the place at Library School that I had been offered, I was in despair as to what my next step should be. My English teacher told me “Never lose hope, Taber, or you will lose everything.” It sounded somewhat trite at the time, and I took little comfort from the sentiment, but over the years I have learned the wisdom of it. 

Emigrating to Australia in 1969 was more impromptu desperation than a plan, doomed to failure from the start. Even so, it gave me six weeks to think things over during a voyage on the good ship, Southern Cross. I couldn’t get a job, ran out of cash, and ended up sleeping under Sydney Harbour bridge. Then I met an old Aborigine who not only gave me hope, but also told me how to get back to the UK (without having to get into debt) and make a fresh start … which I did. 

A few years after I returned to the UK found me at university and doing OK.  Seven years later, mother died, the only member of my family who really understood the problems I faced with perceptive deafness and how it had contributed to my not having achieved as much as I’d hoped at the ripe old age of 30. Consequently, three years on found me doing battle with a nervous breakdown. Again, I am ashamed to say my first instinct was to run away and I took an overdose. Life, though, had other plans for me, demanded I get real, let hope back in and make the best rather than the worst of my situation. I started writing again, and that was a GOOD start. With the encouragement of several people in my life (not family) providing an invaluable support network, I eventually got another job as a librarian four years later, and stayed there until I retired in 2008, although I went part-time after 13 years in order to make time for more creative writing,  a life-saver  as depression was starting to take over again. 

I will be 75 in December, not a good age to find oneself in the midst of a pandemic, but I continue to seize the day, give depression the old heave-ho, and let hope take its course if only because there is no workable alternative. After my nervous breakdown, I had promised myself that I would never again wake up wishing that I hadn’t. So far, so good...

A RULE OF THUMB

Dour mist lifting,
late morning sun, a smile on its face,
rescuing us from doldrums,
whisking us to a better, kinder place,
encouraging divisions 
to reconcile, religions to come together
in the same love and peace
whose rhetoric its peoples would have us
engage with its principles 

Birds singing,
as if telling us not to despair of winter,
but remember best summers,
look to spring, when the chances are
Earth Mother will bring
new leaves for our trees, new flowers
to cheer home and planet,
a burst of incomparable colour
having us engage closer with Earth Mother
and also with one another

Humanity, waking up,
resolving to put aside any cares of the day
long enough to listen
to what mind-body-spirit has to say
about how best to rise
above dark scenarios closing in
on the Spirit of Morning,
re-engage with a sense of hope-faith-charity
that characterises humanity

True, we well may argue “Easier said than done …”
but that’s a rule of thumb for everyone 

 Copyright R. N. Taber, 2020

 

 

Enemy at the Door

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

[Update: 19th July 2020]: The Covid-19 coronavirus is putting people under various degrees of  stress affecting their mental health - among all ages - around the world. We all need to be mindful of this and support each other long after the pandemic has run its course which is unlikely to be any time soon. Mental illness, to whatever degree, can wreck lives if left unchecked and untreated. Sadly, there remains a stigma attached to mental health and many people are reluctant to come forward and seek help; if you sense a loved one, friend or workmate is suffering, don't wait to be asked, but find a tactful way to offer help  and don't take 'no thanks, I'm fine' for an answer. It's never easy, especially as people with mental health problems invariably suffer mood swings and can be rude, even aggressive sometimes. I've been there, still got the tee shirt, and only survived with the support of some wonderful people who believed in me when I had all but stopped believing in myself.] RNT

Mental health is something that is finally coming out of the closet here in the UK, but here and the world over, still has a long way to go before everyone feels at ease with the subject. From time to time, I get emails from men, women and young people struggling to recover from what is referred to as a nervous breakdown, but doesn’t even come close to describing the sheer intensity of a roller coaster of emotions as likely as not ending in a nasty crash.

Sadly, more often than not when we try to explain bad, even criminal behaviour, it is seen as making excuses rather than a genuine attempt to understand; not only for the benefit of others but also, possibly primarily, ourselves.

I will be 75 later this year. Regular readers will know that I had a bad nervous breakdown some 40 years ago; although it continues to haunt me, I feel I’ve come to terms with its multiple causes which, in turn, has helped me achieve (in part, at least) a sense of atonement for its effects on others.

‘Work out your own Salvation. Do not depend on others’. – Buddha

While I agree with the Buddha that we need to work out our own salvation, accepting help should not be seen as a form of dependency, rather as a learning tool necessary to see us back on terra firma after going into free fall. It was nearly 4 years before I was able to start looking for and eventually got a job in which I would stay for the next 25 years. I could not have achieved this without the help and support of certain people to whom I am more grateful than words can begin to express.

My Good Samaritans did not include any family members, I suspect because they saw my need to discuss my behaviour at the time as an attempt to excuse it, and had neither the patience, empathy nor inclination to listen. Fair enough, but fortunately, not everyone turned a deaf ear, and in trying to explain, I, too, began, slowly but surely, to understand. Once there, I had foundations upon which to rebuild my life, and proceeded to work through what I saw as a form of salvation; in my case, through writing, for others as much as for myself, trying to share something of the lessons I had learned. (Coming to terms with being gay was a part of a learning curve I still see myself on some 40 years later.)

A thousand rights cannot compensate for a single wrong, but a sense of atonement, even if no one else sees it as such, does wonders in restoring a shattered self-confidence and faith in oneself. How far I have been successful has to be for others to assess, but I am more at ease with myself now than I ever thought to be again, hopefully deservedly so.

I once commented to an actor friend at the end of a play's successful run how well he and his fellow actors had performed, and how wonderful it must feel to be part of a close-knit team. He laughed. "You wouldn't say that if you had the faintest idea what goes on backstage!" he said with such feeling that I found myself reflecting how true of life in so far as it is too often the case that what we see is but part of a whole; the more important latter lies in what we don't see. I found that out the hard way while recovering from a mental breakdown some 40 years ago. Most friends and colleagues assumed I was perfectly well again years before that was true.

‘Mental illness is a very powerful thing. If it is with you it is probably going to be there until the day you die. I am trying so hard to break mine, but it is not easy. It is my toughest fight ever.’ - Frank Bruno [Former British professional boxer.]

Few if any of us have the moral courage to freely acknowledge our worst fears, but until we do, we risk their getting the better of us; we need to share them with someone, give it a voice (even a poem) and the chances are it it will be our turn to have the last laugh. Mental illness is made all the worse for the stigma (still) attached to it, but all enemies have their own worst fears, of which by far the greatest is the power of the human spirit to overcome...whatever.

'Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.' - Socrates

This poem is a kenning.

ENEMY AT THE DOOR

I crawl passages
of mind-body-spirit,
less frightened
of the dark than daylight
where pain
lies in wait, ready to strip
and humiliate me
in its contempt for the vagaries
of human nature

I pause now and then
to read writing on walls
over centuries
sure to keep the likes of me
well out of sight
of any too close for comfort
to such cause-effect
likely to point fingers of blame
at human nature

They beckon me on.
the disembodied victims
of a vulnerability
considered (even by those
in the know)
best left to their own devices
as if life were a game
of Consequences, and the Devil
take the hindmost

I am Fear, common enemy
of the human spirit


Copyright R. N. Taber 2018

Mind-Body-Spirit, Work in Progress OR Where the (Missing) Keyword is Support

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

A reader asks if the novels on my 'Fiction in the Subject Field' blog are gay-interest fiction. Most are, and there are only a few anyway, but Mamelon, for example is a fantasy novel:

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html

Meanwhile...

One of my childhood friends had always wanted to become  an engineer.  Both her parents, though, and older brothers were teachers and it was assumed she would follow the family tradition and any idea of a female engineer was a considered passing fancy, an absurd one at that.

The family moved away and years later we met by chance, and she related over several pints of Guinness how she had been persuaded to enter the teaching profession, after finally giving way to 'emotional blackmail' on the part of her family. After a few years of teaching, she realised "...it just wasn't me. I neither enjoyed nor hated it, and I think I was fairly good, but I knew I would be a far better engineer." So she gave up teaching for engineering, always more than capable of turning any sexism on its head. She and her scientist husband, had three lovely children, and the rest is history...  We lost touch, but I would get news of her from time to time. Apparently, the parents never quite forgave her for breaking with family tradition, but came to terms with it in time; such is the power of love over most of its nemeses.

We all need family and friends to give us the time and space to be ourselves, free of any pressure, however well-meaning, to follow whatever path in life they may well believe is right for us (or for them?) but the chances are self-awareness tells a different story.

Being true to ourselves, and giving self-awareness credit where credit is due, may not always be easy, but necessary if we seek peace of mind. Not all 'devil's are malicious, although it has to be said that most if not all can be very persuasive. I was very close to my mother and loved her dearly, but she did her best to dissuade me from going to university as a mature student (I was 25) because I had not done well at school and she thought I was overreaching myself. Even so, I went ahead and managed a BA Hons, class 2/1 in English & American Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury which consequently enabled me to do a postgraduate course in librarianship and be the librarian I'd always wanted to be; it also gave me the confidence to come out to the world as a gay man, but that's another story altogether...

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, WORK IN PROGRESS or WHERE THE (MISSING) KEYWOD IS SUPPORT

Falling part at the seams,
trying to put myself back together
but only pipe dreams
to work with, though not the best
of working materials,
especially when the only tools
to hand are high hopes, vulnerable
at the best of times

Getting nowhere fast, need
to look at alternatives to a chorus
of "I'm doing fine, thanks,"
to anyone who cares enough to ask;
surely, we owe it to ourselves
and each other to get real, allow
give selfie genes a fighting chance
to fulfil their potential

If the devil takes the hindmost,
don't let that devil be me, in growing
more bitter every day,
blaming the world's falling apart
on its creating a blueprint
for an humanity unfit for purpose,
shaped by fake news, devils in details
and social media trolls

Let common sense, get the better
of faux stereotypes, common principles
and voices for Human Rights
truly make themselves felt, endorsing
a diverse human nature,
while shaming any native prejudice
rushing to judgement for the culprit it is
without fear or favour?

It was never in the lap of any gods
that humankind has proven itself better
by far than its worst,
for it's in human nature to resist
the push and shove
of its devils by standing up for itself
and all it believes in, not least a freedom
of choice to be or not to be

Last heard of picking up the pieces
of you-me-us found on any urban street
or country lane, cast aside
for fear of causing offence, upsetting
nearest and dearest,
needing to be put together,
prevent our humanity going into free fall,
and taking Earth Mother with us

Copyright R. N. Taber 2019

Alice Maud Taber OR Remembering My Mother

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

[Update: 22nd March 2020] Today is Mothers' Day, and likely to prove very upsetting for many people. The COVID 19 coronavirus pandemic continues to spread and take its toll on the vulnerable and elderly in societies worldwide. While social distancing is necessary to help slow the spread of the virus sufficiently to help medical and emergency services teams to cope, not visiting Mum today of all days won't be easy.]RT 

My mother was one of the least judgemental people I have ever known and would have applauded transgender men and women for finding the moral courage to be true to themselves and look the world in the eye. (Far too many people worldwide rush to judgement without giving a second thought to how it must feel to live in a body that cannot truly relate to the gender assigned to it.

It is some years since my mother died on June 2nd 1976. [She was born 100+ years ago on July 16 1916; a hundred years to the day, a friend came to lunch and we toasted her over a glass of Baileys Irish Cream Liqueur.]

She was a remarkable woman, my Mum. She would talk to anyone and anyone would talk to her regardless of any artificial class barriers. Above all, she was a very understanding and forgiving person, traits of human nature that - in my experience - rarely go hand in hand in people and which, sadly, are anything but common in my own family. (I like to think I am a very understanding person, but struggle with forgiveness although I usually get there in the end.)

Throughout my childhood, my mother would often tell me story poems instead of a traditional story at bedtime. (She could recite 'The Highwayman' (Noyes) and 'The Ancient Mariner  ' (Coleridge) by heart!) Even as a young man, I used to love to hear her reciting poetry.

We cannot celebrate death, but celebrating a person much loved and a life well lived is always a privilege.

   

My mother at 21 (1937)

My mother at the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, 1971

ALICE MAUD TABER or REMEMBERING MY MOTHER

         (1916-1976)

Always there for me, believing in me

more than I believed in myself, knowing me

better than I knew myself,

loving me more than I loved myself

although I could never  give you

what you wanted, be what you wanted,

live or love how you wanted...

subscribe to your fantasy of family unity;

we did our best by each other, assisting

one another through life’s maze of emotional

twists, turns, and dead-ends; me, unable

to grasp for years how conflicting loyalties

were tearing you apart...

Yours, a divided heart never truly made whole;

we whose demands you loved to meet

always failing it. Yet, even now, years on

since a tumour took its toll, you are (still)

one to whom this poet turns, always striving

for some peace of mind, heart, and soul

(imagination’s impossible goal) - learning 

to read between lines to which you gave

life and meaning. Only, then I wasn’t listening

(youth thinks it knows everything.)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2011

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from the original version that appears as the dedication poem in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

Friends

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

Today’s poem - another villanelle - was first written in 2002 and published in an anthology the following year before I included it in my collection.

Why do I make revisions at all?  During the process of preparing my collection for publication to Google Play in e-format, I find myself dissatisfied with some poems for reasons not always obvious, even to me; most, it has to do with how a poems ‘flows’ – or doesn’t, as the case may be.

Given that I’ve never really got along with most members of either my immediate or extended family, good friends have always been especially important to me. (Yes, even those of the ‘fair weather’ variety.) As I grow old (71 now and live alone) I am, oh, so thankful to and for good friends. and value our friendship even more.  

FRIENDS

Come some dark, lonely night

or saddest sunny day,

find friends, making it all right

At one with moon and starlight

kept at bay,

come some dark, lonely, night

Wherever a so-weepy half-light

gone charcoal grey,

find friends, making it all right

Find home fires burning bright

(shaping our clay)

come some dark, lonely night

Losing out (again) taking fright

of facing another day;

find friends, making it all right

Oh, but no kinder end or respite

from worldly rites of way;
come some darkest, longest night,

find friends, making it all right

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Among Friends, Music to the Ears' in an anthology, Where the Words take You, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2003 and subsequently in The Third Eye (2004) by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

S-E-L-F, Opening Up (After Closing Down)

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

As regular readers know only too well, I have suffered with depression all my life and still take 25mg of a (fairly) mild anti-depressant. Prozac helped me through a very bad time once, but (like another strong anti-depressant I tried) left me feeling exhausted all the time so I switched to the (far milder) one I take now.

It is important to find an anti-depressant that suits you and always read the information leaflet for possible side-effects. Even so, never rely on anti-depressants to see you through. A positive attitude and any form of creative therapy you enjoy remain a must-have and must-do. (Creative therapy can be anything from gardening, walking, writing, pottery... anything in which success is measured by the enjoyment achieved by simply doing it, not results.) Creative therapy is no quick fix and requires a huge effort if always an effort worth making. Always easier said than done, never try and do it all on your own. 

I suffered from depression even as a child although depression in children was not recognized in those days. For years, I would be prescribed antidepressants until I started to feel better, and then come off them. This, I now realize was a mistake. I was scared of becoming dependent on them so it was music to my ears when a GP suggested that patients prone to depression should stay on an appropriate antidepressant and dosage all the time. I suspect my life would have taken a hugely significant turn for the better had I been given this advice a long, long, time ago. 

A friend who suffers from depression has paid a lot to visit counsellors but they don’t help everyone and it all depends who you see and how good (or bad) they are. I think it is important to get feedback from a counsellor; too many just sit back and let you talk, which is not a bad thing, but I personally would need positive feedback to feel it was worth parting with my money.

My friend says she hasn’t the self-confidence to do anything new whether it's meeting new people, studying a subject in which she is genuinely interested etc. She says she 'cannot' do anything new until she gets her self-confidence back. I sympathize, but take the opposite view. I believe we only get our self-confidence back by doing things, setting ourselves realistic targets etc. These need not be too ambitious to start with, and if they don’t work out quite as we hoped we should not see it as a failure but give ourselves a pat on the back for giving it a go…and try something else.

Many people think I am a strong person because (most of the time) I manage to beat depression. Believe me, though, when I say I am not strong. It is (very) heavy going. I make the effort because the alternative is even worse to contemplate. 

True, it isn’t always easy to find someone to listen; certain family members and friends won’t recognize the danger signs and will fail to appreciate a depressed person’s depths of personal crisis, handing out well-meaning platitudes like a plate of biscuits to make matters (much) worse. Even so, never give up; there is invariably someone who can help if we let them and are honest with them about how we feel. Talking to a pet can help, too, if only because the worst seems so much less bad once we give it a voice.

There is no shame in feeling less able to cope. Putting on a brave face is never a good idea. (No one can read minds.) For example, if  I had only opened up to someone - a teacher or counsellor perhaps - about my sexuality (among other things) much earlier, I may well have been spared years of anguish, culminating in a bad nervous breakdown and suicide attempt in my early 30's.

S-E-L-F, OPENING UP (AFTER CLOSING DOWN) 

Envelopes unopened;

scared to look, acknowledge even;

feelings like flowers left

at a grave if only to give the dead

a raison d’être

Profiles of the Great

interrogating me wherever I go

about my response to the cost

of living, voices chanting dark spells

at every checkout

Fear, clammy hands

on matchstick arms, humanity

strutting its hour on stage

(art of least resistance) chalking up

mock victories

Words, like mandarins

in white coats supervising a trainee

working from a manual

on staying bottom of the class without

really trying 

Envelopes, daring me…

Fingertips fumbling with terror

(Can I really do this?)

No stigma in old wounds ruling out

perfection

N-O-W, opening up...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem – under the title ‘Prozac Nation’ - appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

Notes on the Dark Side of Imagination

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

Regular readers will know that I suffer from regular bouts of depression although I usually manage to avoid plunging into The Abyss if only just...

When depression strikes, I am inclined to wallow in misery and self-pity until a natural optimism and love for life (in spite of its erratic ups and downs) brings me to my senses, and once again I feel free to embrace the world as I invariably see it from the shimmering summit of Mount Parnassus.

Inspiration comes from all aspects of nature, including human nature, fickle though these can be until (eventually) I start to make sense of  who I am; my social, sexual, cultural and spiritual identity...all the parts that comprise a person's whole. It is, after all, the whole that counts, with which all of us need to come to terms, each in our own way, and take pride.

Oh, and, yes, I find the task of hitting on an appropriate title to a poem as challenging an art form as the poem itself; yet another positive step in the survival business.

NOTES ON THE DARK SIDE OF IMAGINATION

Now among friends, now left alone,
wandering a gloomy, scary by-way,
thorns like vampires in fields of stone
under a jaundiced sky turning grey

No one in sight, man, woman or child;
gargoyles on Heaven’s outer walls
perpetuating horror, while as beguiled
by such arts for leaving me appalled

Tearing at cloth ears, misery and pain
for the end of a world still enduring
Man’s rape for the sake of Power’s gain,
now at Earth Mother’s final reckoning

How many poets, I dare wonder aloud,
have permitted demons to spawn here,
this fine company of gargoyles, allowed
but a grimace, neither a voice nor tear?

Oh for just one kiss of sun on the face,
or garden smells after downpours,
to empathize with a lark’s winged grace,
speak out against the world’s eyesores

Suddenly, the ghastly mirage is gone,
I am back on track, among friends
whose loyalty and love I shall lean upon
where it’s said the track (finally?) ends


Copyright R. N. Taber 2007


[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from an earlier version that appears in first editions of Accomplice to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

O-N-E, Potential for Multiplication

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

Regular readers will be aware that I have a history of depression since early childhood. (In those days, depression in children was barely recognized and usually looked upon as a predilection for tantrums.) 

Today’s little poem was written while I was still recovering from a serious nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago. I recently discovered and (slightly) revised it after struggling to decipher a page of scribble in an old exercise book. It may not be one of my better poems, but served me well at a time when my self-esteem was at rock bottom and I needed to find a way back into the general swim of everyday life. 

At the time, I felt very isolated, not least because I recognized that I was not mentally fit for purpose and there was little real help to be had, especially from the medical profession. At the same time, two former work colleagues were very supportive, and for that I will always be very grateful, while writing as a form of creative therapy helped me worth through the worst of my external anxieties. In time, I was able to take on a new job, rebuild my life and look forward in hope instead of back in distress.  

Family members and some friends chose to ignore the act that I was mentally ill, as many people do because it embarrasses them and/or they haven't a clue how to proceed. Yet, we all need a support network at times, especially when we are ill.

I once worked with a colleague who could not bear to discuss anything relating to illness, and there are many who feel the same way. Human nature? Perhaps, or perhaps sheer selfishness at not wanting to get involved and expected to go the distance with someone when we would much rather stay in our comfort zone.

Whatever, I owe my support network more than I could ever hope to express in words. Thanks to them I got my life back. Isn't that worth going the distance with someone for ... ?

O-N-E, POTENTIAL FOR MULTIPLICATION

Where one is in a minority,

one deserves a voice

for its colour, creed, sex 

or sexuality

Where one is in a minority

one deserves a choice

for its colour, creed, sex

or sexuality

Where one is in a majority,

one needs to listen 

to minority voices if only

for its sanity

Where one is in a majority,

one needs to respect

issues of colour, creed, sex 

and sexuality

In a minority or majority,

one plays its part

in whatever we have to say

for ourselves

In a minority or majority,

one deserves better

than being shouted down

by anyone else

Copyright R. N. Taber 1982; 2014

Riposte to the Darker Side of Nature

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

While only some of my poems are semi-autobiographical, all are personal to some degree or another while I try to leave space enough for the reader to move about within them. 

Today’s poem is a particularly personal poem, given my non-aggressive (so far) prostate cancer, it is also an explanation (of sorts) to those well-meaning, religious minded people who have expressed genuine disbelief ,if not horror, that it hasn’t compelled me to seek out the God of Holy Books.

For a start, I have every confidence in the hospital team responsible for my (hormone therapy) treatment.  Moreover, only as a very young child did I ever enter into any conception of a personified God. My mother did, and I believed her until I was old enough to make up my own mind, convinced at an early age that we make our own Heaven or Hell here on Earth.

As regular readers know, I turned to nature for spiritual reassurance many years ago. Nor do I honestly think it had anything to do with feelings of alienation as I proceeded to confront my sexuality. Possibly, what some call 'God' is nature although I dare say they would argue that He (or She?) created nature for human beings to enjoy. (Yes, enjoy, not attack and destroy.)

Who knows? Each to his or her own, I say. Oh, and isn’t it high time we all started respecting each other’s beliefs, life choices, natural instincts (like sexuality) and stopped fighting amongst ourselves over who may be right and who may be wrong?  Too many people so love to take the moral high ground, they lose sight of morality in the process. It has to be one of life’s greater ironies that sickness and disease provide a common humanity with the one common denominator likely to bring all sides together…if only until it has run its course.

My mother used to tell me that whenever the going gets rough, the only way to think is positive. It was GOOD advice, especially for a young gay lad growing up in a predominantly gay-unfriendly society. (I never make an issue of being gay, but neither do I see any reason to hide the fact, hence a gay-interest as well as general poetry blog because a poem is a poem is a poem just as a person is a person is a person ... regardless.)

RIPOSTE TO THE DARKER SIDE OF NATURE

Gripped by fear,

I could but direct it elsewhere,

yet it keeps returning,

this awful cancer stalking me

like a predator

Away, dark fear,

and let me get on with my life.

Go, feed elsewhere.

I’m only human, but no easy

prey for a predator

Seized by doubt,

I can but trust positive thinking

will yet prevent

this awful cancer turning me

inside out 

Away, negativity,

always the first to undermine me

wherever I lend an ear  

to voices arguing the wisdom

of my choices

Let me not resist a need

for comfort food and fiercer hugs

than ever before

to restore poor self-confidence,

give love its head

Come, Earth Mother,

and never let go of my free hand

as with the other I’ll sign

to mind-body-spirit and the world

we’re not done

Yes, I will survive

whatever this cancer throws at me,

instincts insisting I embrace

all a feisty spirituality has to give

in its place

Let nature have its way;

together, we will no more concede

any disease its V-Day

than see human beings put down

just for being gay

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Caliban's Song, 21st Century

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

The multiple stresses and strains of everyday life in the 20^th century have carried over into the 21^st and if anything are far greater. We all want to rise above them and enjoy who else life has to offer us, but for a growing number of people it is easier said than done.

Regular readers will know I suffered a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago. One of many causes lay in growing up in a gay-unfriendly society. Basically, my psyche was on a hair trigger and it didn’t take much to have it explode in my face. The consequences included years of struggling to escape from a very dark place indeed, from which I only managed to escape  in the end thanks to a few good friends and my eventually rediscovering a passion for creative writing, especially poetry; for me, at least, it has proven the best therapy. Meanwhile, the struggle continued long after I was well enough to get a job and start rebuilding my life. It was an ugly time and I felt very ugly.

Sadly, attitudes towards mental ill-health have not changed much. People suffering varying degrees of mental illness continue to be stigmatised by the less enlightened in society. Many people still think of depression as being little more than very fed-up; few appreciate the depths to which a depressed person sinks, unable to swim and badly needing someone to throw them a lifeline.

I met an old friend recently who told me he is beginning to feel he is over the worst of a nervous breakdown that struck him several years ago. ‘I can function again,’ he told me, but I still feel so ugly and that everyone is looking at me, judging me, despising me...’

Mental illness is an ugly condition, but uglier still is that common enough attitude towards mentally ill people that persists in putting them in stereotypical boxes and slamming down the lid.

The last person to realise that he or she is slipping into a depression of one form or another is the person themselves. So if someone you know seems to be acting out of character, please look out for and try to help them rather than shrug it off with good or less good intentions as a ‘C’est la vie.’ Situation

This poem appeared in a Poetry Now (Forward Press) anthology, /Poetry) anthology Words That Live On (2004) just prior to its inclusion in my collection. My email address is easy to find on the Internet and a number of people have been in touch since then to say how closely they can identify with the poem and my comments have encouraged them to take back control of their lives. If my poems and comments about depression can help just one person do just that, I feel privileged to have played a small part in their recovery.

There is no quick fix for depression, no Prospero to free us from its slavery. Yet, as Prospero finally demonstrated by freeing Caliban, we have but to be put back in touch with our kinder feelings and better selves to make a start at transcending wishful thinking into a positive, workable reality.

Did I say it was easy ...?

CALIBAN’S SONG, 21st CENTURY

A suspect integrity, deprived of dignity,

hung on a washing line to dry
until time to put us through the wringer
until (hopefully) made to or at least
appearing to conform to the expectations
of mandarins of power wherever ...

Mind, a mist, its damp heat soaks my sleep,

brings a welcome wetness though eyes

stay dry, no matter how I long to weep…

for that daytime nightmare, made to share

with a world inclined to turn and stare at me
as if I were a dog cocking a leg up a tree

No place to turn, words that can even begin

to explain the loneliness, desperation

of a horror situation, its awful, nagging pain

ever an object of gross misconception,

sentenced to life (far worse than any felon)

no answers to the same universal question

Lost in hell’s maze, no seeing ways forward

for back. Panic sets in, takes cover
in a corner of madness (mistaking insanity
for safety in the grip of a sick anxiety
to escape asylum’s cutting edge, complex
enough even for a poet’s tearful imagination

Years on, still counting the cost of dignity lost,

integrity stolen from me, trying (impotently?)

to hold my own. Battles lost, war - won?

A hollow victory when left but to get through 

another day till that sleep unbroken may yet

free us from a genetically modified inhumanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2017

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

Care In the Community (Where Actions Speak Louder than Words)

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

Here in the UK, it is no exaggeration to suggest the social care system is in crisis. At the same time, the coalition government is pressing ahead with its Health and Social Care Bill that threatens the very fabric of a National Health Service that is the envy of the world.  [Many Americans, especially Republicans, may despise its principle of Health Care for All, but many more come here every year for some of the best medical treatment in the world because they can’t afford the same in their own country.]

Despite the obvious fact that people are living longer with illness and disability, our care system here is  chronically underfunded according to informed reports. Social Care budgets in England, for example, fell by an estimated £1 billion according to the Association of Directors of Adult Services.

It looks like it’s up to all of us to keep an eye on the vulnerable in our neighbourhood. The awful tragedy is, and always has been, that in large towns and cities, that is less likely to be the reality than wishful thinking.

Not everyone can rely on family support. (I certainly can’t.) I am only 66 and have a relatively small but close network of friends to keep an eye on me. Many people who live alone don’t have that, and living alone can get very scary for anyone as they grow older and increasingly vulnerable.

This poem was written ten years ago.  As I look around me, I don’t get the feeling much has changed.

CARE IN THE COMMUNITY (WHERE ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS)

Knocked at an old house
in the Square

"Is anybody there?"

At its grubby letterbox, 

bending to peer

"Is anybody there?"

Catching a nauseous whiff
of mouldy air

"Is anybody there?"

A squeaking, (sobs, mice
on the stair?)

"Is anybody there?"

No one replying, but prying
curtains everywhere

"Is anybody there?"

Moving on, plenty more

with time to spare ...

"Is anybody there?"

Asking the very question
no one wants to hear

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005, 2019

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