A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

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Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Monday 25 February 2013

O, Cervantes

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

Since the 1970s, pressure of work on the average person has at least doubled; fewer staff and the common misconception by (too many) managers that just about anyone can be replaced by a computer has been a major contributory factor. Only ten years earlier, my teachers at school had been telling us how wonderful the 1980s would be once machines were doing the lion’s share of the work we were paid full-time wages for part-time hours. [Whatever happened to the Golden Age of Leisure we were promised?]

Oh, but show me a windmill!

O, CERVANTES

One commuter rises
at seven, has to run for the train
at eight after ritual peck
on doorstep, and warning the kids
not to be late for school

Arrives for work wearily,
re-sorts any post meticulously,
checks with a secretary
about what’s worth knowing
on the grapevine

Another day done,
breaks for tea well-deserved,
our hero heads home,
packed like a helpless veal calf
on the continental run

Turns a brassy yale
at about half-six most days,
picking at supper
by seven ten, sends screaming kids
to do their homework

Starts to tell the wife
about his own work, and then...
(Damn, the mobile again!)
A smoke, glass of red, some soap TV,
(pity about the ulcer, scary.)

No outstanding bills, and never
a thing about windmills

Copyright R. N. Taber 1999; 2013

[Note: An earlier but only slightly different version of today’s poem was written in 1972; it appeared in Poetry Monthly (1999) that has since closed down and iAll in One Day, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2001 prior to my first major collection,  Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001;]

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Monday 14 May 2012

Going To The Movies

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

My thanks go to several readers have said how much they enjoy the videos and poems that my friend Graham and I upload to my You Tube channel from time to time.

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

Hopefully, as well as enjoyment, both videos and accompanying poems might arouse sleeping senses in some viewers and get them asking questions if only to themselves about life and nature.

Today’s poem consider the subject at a deeper level than Graham and I aspire to on You Tube, but it is not irrelevant all the same.

I watched a film on TV recently about the Vietnam War; it was a fictional but very realistic take on the war and pulled no punches. The next day I overheard a group of local young people in their early teens talking about it and getting very excited about some of its more graphic action shots. A girl felt it was ‘a bit over the top’ while one of the boys pointed out that such things are only to be expected in a war. The other boy asked,’ ‘What’s all the fuss about anyway? It’s only a story. I mean, it’s not real is it? It’s not as if that sort of thing actually happens in real life...’ At this, all three shrugged their shoulders as if in agreement and started talking about football instead.

Don’t happen in real life? Do they imagine the horrors of any war are little more than the products of a vivid imagination?

Hopefully those young people will get around to thinking and asking questions about wars past and present, and what they come up with will give their dozy senses a nasty jolt... for real.

Fictional or documentary, the ability of the camera’s moving eye to draw us into its complex web of genuine sentiment and positive argument can never be underestimated.  All credit to the person behind and directing the camera, of course. 

GOING TO THE MOVIES or 

The moving picture speaks,
and having spoken moves on
to haunt the creative mind,
play with words on the tongue
that may (or may not) paint
pictures of thought others may
(or may not) be invited to see,
interpret as we (or they) intend,
only to subtly, discreetly, let it drop
in a history bin

The moving picture captures
and having captured demands
its captives consider if we’re
but slaves to its fictions or privy
to what goes on in those murky
corners of reality we are all free
to access any time but prefer
someone else take a closer look,
and clean it up without too much ado
about nothing

The moving picture speaks
and having spoken moves in
on the senses if only to see
what (if any) effect on emotions
kept under wraps for fear
we betray aspects of selfhood
that may be misconstrued
as weaknesses where we’d rather
wear our strengths on sleeves frayed
at the edges

Compelled to join forces once
a moving picture has said its piece
and moved on, inner sight 
asking of the inner ear what it has seen,
agreeing they feel uneasy 
for having been given a taste 
of untouchables cast out 
by croc tears and canned laughter...
Oh, but let's just call it entertainment
and forget all about it?
  
Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

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Saturday 7 January 2012

The (Human) Jungle OR The Secret Life of a Nine-to-Fiver


This poem appeared on the blog in 2010 as 'Where The River Bends'. Readers ‘Petra’ and ‘Karl’ have approved the new title and suggested I repeat it to help make returning to work in rain, snow or whatever after the Christmas and New Year breaks just that little bit more bearable. True, and it used to work for me every time before I retired in 2008, and still does, especially when I'm having a bad day with various health issues ...

Oh, but isn't imagination a wonderful thing?!

THE (HUMAN) JUNGLE or THE SECRET LIFE OF A NINE-TO-FIVER

Tracking a path through a forest of pine,
nature music all around, leading me where
feisty river’s twisting here, turning there,
and I pausing at each bend to cock an ear
for a lyric like no other, hidden away
in a mystic mist hugging me as if to keep
me safe from surly giants on the prowl
though (for sure) they mean me no harm

Silver, the river, blending with mist and sun,
covering me so that I am like royalty dressed
for a state occasion, needing only a crown
to let me call this fairy tale kingdom my own
and if a part of me knows (for sure) I dream
I cannot resist but must follow, follow, for all
its twists, turns, glorious music and a lyric
I can barely make out, straining to interpret

Birds and beasts of the forest shadowing me
as if at Earth Mother’s command, she concerned
for me as I track the eternal river through
a forest of pine, alone, ill-prepared for its twists
and turns and a mist cloaking me in silver,
making me into something, someone, I am not
yet I love how it shines me against the dark
enough (for sure) to scare off any malign spirits

Oh, to walk free and safe among Nature’s own,
let my senses run wild yet still retain a keen sense
of proportion, equilibrium, a feeling for fair play
that lets the river run, the trees grow, the birds sing
and beasts live, learn, and teach before dying
about the meaning of it all; no exceptions, even
for the likes of you and I. Stop! Look and see
the concrete jungle we’ve chosen for our reality

No fairy tale ending. Magical forest and silver river
insisting I cross the damn road, get to work on time

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2015

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