The Rose OR Answering to Autumn

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I recall writing today’s little poem in 2003 after pausing to admire a rose in someone’s garden.

My mother loved roses, as did my late partner. Both died many years ago. They never met, yet here I was bringing them together in my thoughts, years on. How strange and sometimes incredibly moving that memories can be triggered, as if my magic, by the slightest thing, past and present fitting perfectly into each other like pieces of a jigsaw.

Will I ever be a perfect fit into someone’s jigsaw, I wondered…? And what will the complete jigsaw look like, mine or anyone else’s …?

It is no coincidence, I suspect, that the trigger for such thoughts, and indeed a poem, should embrace such visions of the heart as beauty, peace, and love.

THE ROSE or ANSWER ING TO AUTUMN

See them, one by one, 

petals falling away,

discarded by autumn, 
remains of our day

We helped it to grow,

nurtured its blooms

at time's open window

on ageless dreams

While winter keeps

no flower in view,

the rose, it but sleeps

in my love for you

Dreams, one by one.
petals falling away,
answering to autumn,
remains of our day.

Copyright R N Taber 2004, 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004, rev.. 2014.]

World Cinema

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

Today’s poem was first published in CC&dD magazine, Scars Publications (US) 2,000 and subsequently in my collection.

I love world cinema. I watch it in clouds every day. Like all good cinema, as well as entertaining us, a cloudy sky is inclined to make us thoughtful...

An acquaintance had recently intended to marry a young woman from a devoutly religious family and different ethnicity who disapproved of the match.  Tragically, she was the victim of a so-called 'honour' killing.

The clouds insist this has to change, and two people in love are entitled to stay true to that love without fear of being either made to choose between lover and family or, for that matter, lover and religion. People are as entitled to their opinions as they are to get on with their own lives in their own way.

Life is a learning curve from cradle to grave, Hopefully, future generations will have effected a change for the better, and such tragedies will become a thing of the past, although, the greater tragedy may well lie in the fact that human nature is not best known for its agreeing to differ ...

WORLD CINEMA

Spread on a coat,

hands on hips,

watching grey clouds

like movie clips;

a coming together

of shadows,

words unfamiliar,

world cinema

Two fingers touch,

making a twin

celebration, cautious

anticipation;

main feature, re-make

of a classic,

risks a hammering

by public opinion

Love, calling shots,

directing players

to give of their best;

a script worthy

of an award, as likely

as not passed over

by its critics, mindful

of public feedback

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000, 2002 (Rev. 2014)

[From: A earlier version of this poem appears in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002, rev.2014.]


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V-A-N-I-T-Y, Conversations with a Mirror

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

How many of us, I wonder, and how often, dare look to our shortcomings and confront home truths...?

How many more of us, I wonder, act upon what we discover?

This poem is a villanelle.

 V-A-N-I-T-Y, CONVERSATIONS WITH A MIRROR

Mirror, mirror on the wall
all you see I'd share;

talk me true, walk me tall

Mind-Body-Spirit in freefall,

racing heart laid bare;

mirror, mirror on the wall

Pride, answering Ego's call

to pose with flair,

talk me true, walk me tall

Inclined to pose as the Jekyll

in Hyde’s lair;

mirror, mirror on the wall

To the toll of any warning bell,

I'll turn a deaf ear;

talk me true, walk me tall

Home truths haunting me still,

(lies, lies, I swear...);

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

talk me true, walk me tall

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; revised edition in e-format in preparation.]

Disaffected Youth, Wasted Lives

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The majority of young people are decent, honest, and hardworking, but there is also high unemployment among young people and that leaves some disaffected with society so they join gangs or become targets for radicalization; violence and/ or drug abuse and / or criminal behaviour becomes a way of life until something (or someone) happens that helps them back into mainstream life and a more positive, fulfilling sense of personal identity.

While there is no excuse for violence, it is high time politicians, religious and community leaders among others (parents, too) looked more closely at its roots and took responsibility where society is failing so many of its young people. Some do, but rhetoric is not enough; actions really do speak louder than words. 

This poem is a villanelle, written in 2014 so its content is nothing new; what is new are successive cutbacks in spending (here in the UK at least, since the financial crisis of 2008)) on such related national and local Government budgets as make provision for policing, extra curricular activities in schools, youth centres, apprenticeships, grants for professional and vocational training places etc. I rest my case ...

DISAFFECTED YOUTH, WASTED LIVES

Got my hands on a knife, a gun,

spread the word,

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

Shouting at just about everyone,

no one heard;

got my hands on a knife, a gun

Needed to prove I was someone,

earn street cred;

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

At first it gave me a buzz, was fun,

but all that disappeared;

got my hands on a knife, a gun

A gangster movie set let me down,

(mustn't show I'm scared)

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

Macho mates weep to see my crown

dripping blood ...

Got my hands on a knife, a gun,

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: This poem is a villanelle, written in 2010 so its content is nothing new; what is new are successive cutbacks in spending (here in the UK at least since the financial crisis of 2008) on such related national and local Government budgets as make provision for policing, extra curricular activities in schools, youth centres, apprenticeships, grants for professional and vocational training places etc.]

A Job Half Done OR Planet of the Apes

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Have you ever began working on something you don’t really believe in, but felt you had no choice... so  puting any finishing touches to the task in hand was never really on the cards?  You may well have fought against it, given that many if not most of us are inclined to do whatever for a quiet life especially if it means being nagged to get on with it. Yet, at the end of the day, it is not certain people who persist in nagging at us but the lack of those very finishing touches itself; it leaves us feeling not only dissatisfied with our work, but also questioning our resistance to properly completing the job in the first place...so much so sometimes that we find ourselves, if not coming round to that to same point of view with which we found ourselves at loggerheads, at least able to enter into it, grasp something of where it was coming from - to the extent, more often than not, that we cannot leave the job unfinished if only because our hearts tell us it's the right thing to do, even if we are never quite sure why.

Oh, we may choose to put it all down to pride in a job well done, but at heart we may well suspect it is more than that; whether or not we choose to look any further, though, that is down to a sense of conscience we may or may not prefer to own; it is in the latter wherein lies a job but half done, and likely to nag us for the best part of a lifetime...although if it means we never stop asking questions - of ourselves and humanity in general - it may not be such a bad thing after all...

‘What an ugly beast the ape, and how like us.’ – Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

A JOB HALF DONE or PLANET OF THE APES

Builder, pondering

a job half done, frowning

under a baseball cap...

(So , what he’s looking at?)

Eco-warriors, armed

with principles in defence 
of treasured open spaces
being eroded by developers
reaping the rewards
of feeding bricks and mortar
to human apes homing in

on concrete jungles, parodies
of natural worlds

Builder, pondering

a job half done, distant grin

under a baseball cap…

(So what's he’s looking at?)

Not scaffolding  

for brand new offices meant

to keep fat cats happy

once staff won over to the view

that a bird in the hand

is worth two in any hedgerow,

and he should know

with a wife, three kids, behind

with the mortgage

Builder at work

on a job half done, furrows

under a baseball cap…

(Now what’s he looking at?)

Towers, like trees, in skies

where birds fly like toy airplanes
and drop like skydivers

on the backs of eco-warriors

guarding nature’s own

from fat cats on the make

that don’t care, can walk away.

a job well done. time to move on 
to the next land grab

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2014

[Note: revised (2014) from an earlier version that appears under the title A Job Half Done in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

Urban Safari

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I well recall walking home one night across a shabby part of London (doesn't every city have its shabby parts the tourists are steered away from?) and being captivated by a sense of  Gothic; poetry, romance, and a curious sense of fatalism....

URBAN SAFARI 

None but shuddering stones haunting

dead lawns…

Stretching from mossy rails

to graffiti trails

on silent factory walls

hear the Traveller

call for aid to ease

the burden Time has laid

on back and breast

No thought of rest, not here,

where occasional dock leaves conspire

a gentler ground

than makes this gravel sound

like another massacre…

On, on, playful night! Shedding favours

left and right,

teasing the Traveller’s jaded sight.

Glimpse, a tiger’s smile

where a pile of flowery wire flickers

like a far forest fire; city lights

beyond mass graves of missing people

plucked from welfare queues

and left to fend  without a friend

for years, their ghosts not far behind

as panic rears

Neon daubs, for stars and a generation

of paper tigers

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2014

[Note: Revised (2013) from an earlier version that first appeared in an anthology, Shadows in a Mist, Anchor Books (Forward Press) 1999 and subsequently in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001.]

Sword and Shield, a Fight to the Better End

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

[Update (Oct 18 2016): It is more than two years now since my fall that resulted in a badly fractured ankle. The warned me tt the hospital that, given my age, I might never walk again, but I was having none of that, kept religiously to a daily schedule of physiotherapy and can now walk quite well with the aid of a walking stick. Yes, walking is sometimes painful still, but it is a great feeling to be out and about. The prostate cancer, too, remains under control with hormone therapy. So...no worries that I cannot overcome by reflecting on my late mother's words, 'If you worry, you'll die and if you don't worry you'll still die one day so...why worry?' I guess we just have to keep a sense of proportion.]

Since my fall, five weeks ago, I have had to exercise a degree of patience I did not know I possessed. I am always out and about, but have been housebound as the front steps are too many and steep for me to negotiate with crutches. Unable to put any weight on my left foot, a Zimmer frame gives me greater mobility around my flat. It has taken until last week for a CT scan to reveal a fracture in the heel so now I have a cast and must continue hopping around on the Zimmer for at least another five weeks. The heel may mend or it may not. I must wait and see…

I live alone, but friends and my lovely neighbours in the flat below have been a godsend, helping with shopping and everyday tasks around the flat that I cannot do myself. Their support means everything. Even so, there have been moments when I have felt very low; it was at just such a time that I had a spirited debate with Pain and wrote the poem, a kenning.

SWORD AND SHIELD,  A FIGHT TO THE BETTER END

True, I am no friend

but do not mean you harm,

will arrive uninvited

(and most unwelcome)

yet do my best

to make my stay as bearable

as possible,

coaxing mind, body and spirit

to comfort, find peace

I may bring clouds

and wintry days, but always

call on spring flowers

and scents of halcyon days

to brighten dark corners

where you may well cower

from everyday hardship,

and a growing sense of bleaker

times yet to come

True, I am no friend,

but I have the power to make

stronger person of you

if you will only rise above

the worst and make

the best of our time together,

let mind, body and spirit

make peace with even a wretch

the likes of me

As Pain its makeshift sword wields,
so peace and love, lasting shields

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014