I, Temptation

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

″You are young,’ replied Athos [to d’Artagnan] and your bitter recollections have time to be changed into sweet remembrances.” – Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers)

“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.” - Henry David Thoreau 

Poetry might be defined as the clear expression of mixed feelings. – W. H. Auden.

“All art forms are in the service of the greatest of all art forms: the art of living.” - Bertholt Brecht 

“You can’t really move forward until you look back.” - Cornel West

I was an avid reader from an early age. I first read Dumas’ swashbuckler novel when I was about 10 years old. For all its swash and buckle, it was the quotation above that aught my eye and struck a nerve. I had bitter recollections even then and doubted whether, even in the course of time, they would eve become ‘sweet remembrances.’ 

Time would prove me both right and wrong. While I continue to be haunted by ‘bitter recollections’ from time to time, these have, indeed, been mostly eclipsed by ‘sweet remembrances. ’Sadly, ten years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer has deprived me of many instances of the latter; some, I can recall vaguely, of others I have no memory at all. 

The same, it is true to say, can also be said for any ‘bitter recollections’ with which even a failing memory would continue to disturb me but for a creative spirit that is quick to dismiss them, replacing them, if not with ‘sweet remembrances’ in any detail, at least with the spirit of them on which I continue to thrive by courtesy of a creative imagination. 

Now, poetry may well be a form of creative therapy, but it is also an art form. I feel privileged to access each, even as my growing old and accompanying health issues threaten daily, but in vain, to deprive me of both..

I, TEMPTATION

I can make you feel good
or I can make you feel so bad
like you’ve been had,
taken in by so strong a feeling
that’s swept you away
on winds of such desire there’s no escaping,
come willpower’s unresisting

You need to let me pass
let mind-body-spirit be a friend,
and listen well to all
it has to say about staying loyal
to its kith-and-kin,
for knowing a heart-and-soul will be grieving
the company you’re keeping

No battle compares with one
set to undermine better instincts,
give a persuasive alter ego 
pride of place, albeit under cover
of lies and deceit
in such a hellish darkness as defies confession
to make way for absolution

Yet, I will have my wicked way
with you, pour scorn on hindsight’s
attempt to wipe your tears,
haunt any positive-thinking mindset
throughout whatever time
would have mind-body-spirit live with its shame,
a posy of thorns by any other name

Now, however long it may take
to make reparation for any mistake
that’s a sacrilege, surely
against all one purports to hold dear?
Such lessons to be learned,
though they weep us on repentance’s tough rack,
as teach the art of moving on, not back 

Whoever considers walking out
with me needs must give due thought
to tackling the task
of repairing any likely damage done
a fairer, kinder, truer self,
last spotted shadowing an existential imagination
by way of addressing potential salvation

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

The Leaf

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“In every change, in every falling leaf there is some pain, some beauty. And that's the way new leaves grow. - Amit Ray

“Storms make the oak grow deeper roots” – George Herbert

“Birth, life, and death - each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.” - Toni Morrison

Not a day passes when I am left wondering if I have another poem in me.  Yet, only a few days ago, I found myself observing a an oak tree leaf, left discoloured by a sustained heatwave, resisting a sudden breeze until finally in full flight from its host tree, dancing freely above my head. Moments later, a heavy shower brought it down and left it fluttering on a bed of dry grass but a few feet away. 

"A metaphor for us all there?" I wondered, as my thought processes began the task of assembling a poem...

THE LEAF

Sad leaf, shades of green,
yellow and brown,
grown weary of resisting
a fun, lively breeze,
employing summer’s wiles
to have it break free 
of host tree and season,
birdsong, a plea  to Earth Mother
to see it true to its nature

Oak, hungry for nurture,
no less thirsting
for rainfall than generations
of kith and kin,
budding flowers and fauna, 
keeping it company
in (far) better times and worse,
trusting Earth Mother to listen well,
as deserves heart-and-soul

Sad leaf, making its bid
for freedom,
persuaded by the breeze
to explore its time
and space within minutes
of welcome shower's
waking flowers and fauna
to a finer well-being, a light rainfall 
reworking heart-and-soul

Leaf’s delight in sailing
on the breeze
sadly, but only short-lived,
wind easing, raindrops 
forcing it to face home truths,
all kith and kin 
left weeping as it lay dying, 
regretting its having finally caved in
to the thrill of temptation?

Dead leaf, oft recalled by kith and kin
to any who care to listen...

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

[Note: If you enjoy dipping into the blog from time to time, do tell  any others whom you think may also  enjoy some of my poems.  Thanks for dropping by today, much appreciated.] RT

Picking Up The Tab

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I have often been called a dinosaur because I steer well clear of so-called 'designer' drugs. Well, for a start, you never know what you’re getting or how well (or badly) your body will cope.

Take ‘ecstasy’ for example. Few people have suffered much by way of harmful effects from taking it. Yet, I recall Leah Betts, a schoolgirl from Latchingdon in Essex (UK) whose death on November 19th 1995, shortly after her 18th birthday, resulted in extensive media coverage of and panic about those same so-called ‘designer’ drugs. (Sadly, neither of these lasted long and complacency - especially among young people -  very soon set in again.) 

Photo: A November 1995 photo of Leah Betts in a coma that was widely circulated in the press at the time; copied from Wikipedia.

On November 11th 1995, Leah took an MDMA (‘ecstasy’) tablet, and then drank approximately 7 litres of water in a 90 minute period. Four hours later, she collapsed into a coma, from which she did not recover.

I never knew or met Leah Betts, but perhaps you will think of her when you are tempted to try this drug or that on the grounds that ‘everyone else does’ therefore  ‘it can’t possibly do me any harm.’ (Oh, no? Who says…?)

Apart from the fact that there is a lot of rubbish being pushed on the streets these days (this dinosaur keeps his ear to the ground) there has not been time for sufficient research into the long term effects of even seemingly harmless drugs.

Now, everyone loves to party and (too often) drugs are part of the party scene. Now, if you want to play Russian roulette with drugs, go ahead. Just remember, though, that it could well be your family and friends picking up the tab for it for the rest of their lives. 

Have fun, YES, but play safe and say ‘NO’ to drugs. 

Oh, it’s been said before, of course, but countless funerals and ruined lives suggest a lot of people didn’t listen…and are still not listening. But me, I’m just a dinosaur. Why should I care? Well, for a start, one of those funerals and ruined lives was that of someone I loved.  

Love never dies, but lives on in us, a positive life force to be carried over from generation to generation in the form of a posthumous consciousness. But, let's face it, there can be no real compensation for the loss of a loved one unless it is helping to prevent the tragic waste of another human life and all its potential.

PICKING UP THE TAB

Bitter-sweet, a dark place

where I dream of you; 

harsher than a gull’s cry, 

its silence

Treading a swell 

of despair,

and it’s a rare angel 

who’ll care much 

(if at all) for the fool 

sleeping off 

the hangover of a lifetime

bargained for 

with ecstasy, paid for

oh, so dearly! 

Fine feathers, shot down 

in glorious flight,

a fall harsher on the ear

for its silence...

And who’s to blame?

Copyright R. N. Taber, 1999; 2012

[Note: A slightly different  version of this poem first appeared in an anthology Reach for the Truth, Poetry Today (Forward Press)1999 and subsequently in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, 2000.]