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].

Name:
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.

Tuesday 17 March 2015

National Curriculum OR Connecting with Wannabe Heroes


When I worked in public libraries as a librarian, it seemed that children and young people were frequently given homework projects on the subject of war. To confront them with the horrors of war has to be a good thing. However, when they were telling me all about their respective projects, enthusiasm would nearly always stem from getting a buzz from the idea of war rather than being appalled by its consequences…

A parent once complained to me that her son wept while repeating a teacher’s graphic description of how a relative had suffered a lingering death from ‘undignified’ wounds sustained during WW2. “No child should hear such things!” she protested. The ‘child’, though, was 16 years-old and (surely?) deserved to know that war just ain’t like it is in the movies.

I well recall being caught out by a teacher engaging in whispers with a classmate. I was invited to share the subject of our discourse with the whole class. I confessed that we had agreed that the lesson was boring. i expected a severe reprimand at the very least. To my surprise, the teacher merely shrugged. Learning, Taber;' he said, is the key to life. You can take it and use it or leave it and lose it, up to you. Now, where were we ...?'  The incident was more years ago than I care to remember, but  I recall it as if it were yesterday, and glad I am that I do; of course, I didn't have a clue at the time what he meant and was simply relieved to be let off so lightly. 

NATIONAL CURRICULUM or CONNECTING WITH WANNABE HEROES

Today we have History
and World War Two
spills across the classroom,
filling every trench
with a stench of homesickness
and blood, desks dripping
pools of mud, where elbows
nudge each other,
half an eye on the clock
as we get stuck in

Under fire, bayonets fixed,
human clocks ticking;
somewhere, there's birdsong
and sunshine overtaking
rain clouds where Death’s face
pours acid tears
on an atomic bomb package
in texts selected
to temper any gung-ho
perspective

Science, and time to discover
more about ticking clocks

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem  appears in Words of Wisdom, Poetry Today (Forward Press) 2001 and  First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002; alternative title added 2015.]


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Thursday 12 March 2015

Toys in a Window


Today’s poem was written in 1981, but it was not until the 1990’s that I began submitting poems for publication.  At the time, I was mid-recovery from a severe nervous breakdown s few years earlier. Writing helped considerably towards an initial if fragile recovery that eventually saw me looking for (and finding) a job some18 months later. 

I would like to think I am more optimistic and a shade less cynical about life and society now, but…

Well, we all know what thought did…

TOYS IN A WINDOW

At a window on my life I gaze,
close my ears to the weary windings
of clockwork days, try to imagine
how it might be should these stiff-neck
streets ever cease their turning me
to what I am - part of this global sham
of human boast, comprising toy folk
for the most if a few taking  heart still,
tugging at the sleeve as a child will,
ever anxious to leave the plastic places,
and cartoon faces undermining a flair
for freedom on see-saw, swings, among
other things we forget soon enough
while struggling for reasons unknown
to keep some stubborn noon design
intact; part of the same act invariably
put on for each day’s passing us by,
sure to earn a slow clapping in the head
at bedtime from other toys in the hands 
of toymakers aspiring to coax cash mules
to the world’s water holes

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was first published in a Poetry Today (Forward Press) anthology, Looking through the Mirror of Life (2000) and subsequently in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]


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Monday 9 March 2015

Listening Out for Kindness OR The Other Side of Silence


Some days, it can feel as if we are falling apart; everything goes wrong or at least not according to plan and listening or reading to the daily News extends that sense of falling apart to the world itself; it and we, it seems, are in free fall ...

Whatever happened to kindness, we may well wonder? Suddenly, we hear or read about a simple act of kindness that touches the heart, restores our sense of being part of something worthwhile even if that worthwhile-ness is vulnerable to attack from extreme forces that have no place in in a world where love, peace, tolerance and kindness are seen as strengths not weaknesses, and just because these are elements of human nature with which we will almost certainly always have to contend doesn’t mean to say we cannot win our own personal war against them if not every battle. 

A teacher who was well-liked but considered eccentric, once told a noisy class, ‘Shut up, the lot of you! Now, listen to the silence. Yes, listen to the silence. The chances are it’s an angry one, at the very least frustrated. And what’s on the other side, eh? Kindness, that’s what, a whole new world to which the inner ear will lead any one of us who can be bothered to listen out and head for it.’ For a whole minute, you could have heard a pin drop, and then we pressed on with the lesson, about which I recall nothing, 50+ years later, but that silence. 

'Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.' - Henry James

LISTENING OUT FOR KINDNESS or THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE

There is a darkness
that is not night, but an absence
of light
in a space that is no vacuum,
but filled
with all the sound and fury
of an alarm clock
ticking towards a clapping of hands
in applause
for a sorry world’s falling
to pieces

There is a silence
that is not quiet, but an absence
of any sound,
freeing the senses to urge cloth ears
open up
to all the sound and fury
of unspeakable
injustices, prejudices, malpractices,
sure to cause
a sorry world’s falling
to pieces

There is a voice
that has no words, but an absence
of expression
meant to shatter the darkness,
release the silence
to all the sound and fury
of the human heart
raging against powers-that-be
setting agendas
that would see its humanity
in pieces

There is a life force
that births humankind in a stream
of consciousness
and nurtures it in the darkness
of a silence
daring the sound and fury
of human existence
to find a voice, make itself heard
with the resonance
of a kindness sure to piece us
together

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015



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Monday 2 March 2015

Something to be said for Karma


It is only human nature to worry about life's unknown factors, especially when they directly concern us and we have little or no control over either their presence or potential development.  A few years ago, I started worrying about a lesion on my leg as to whether it might be skin cancer or a sign of diabetes or whatever…until I fancied I could hear my mother whispering one of her favourite sayings in my ear, ‘If you worry, you’ll die and if you don’t worry, you’ll still die one day so…why worry?’

My GP referred me to a dermatologist and a shot of liquid nitrogen did the trick. No cancer there.

I wrote this little poem at the time and returned to it when I first discovered I have prostate cancer in February 2011. It’s not a particularly good poem (what is a ‘good’ poem, anyway?) but has proven very therapeutic. I can still hear my mother’s voice in my ear expressing approval. (She died of cancer in 1976)

SOMETHING TO BE SAID FOR KARMA

Worry, worry, worry,
will get us nowhere at all;
worry, worry, worry,
and we’re heading for a fall;
positive thinking
is the only way to go
before worry, worry, worry,
hits an all-time low

Worry, worry, worry,
gets our knickers in a twist;
worry, worry, worry,
(far too many woes to list);
a positive thinker
is the only kind to be
since worry, worry, worry,
won’t ever set us free

Worry, worry, worry,
and life is sure to pass us by,
all the best things in life
between earth, sea and sky;
positive thinking
(easy enough to say)
unites mind, body and spirit,
brings each into play

Worry, worry, worry,
and we’ll surely die one day
(when, who’s to say?)
so come, let’s make hay…
A positive thinker
is the only kind to be
since worry, worry, worry
won’t ever set us free

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011; 2015







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Monday 23 February 2015

The Hurt Garden


Most if not all of us have a hurt garden where we prefer not to go in waking moments. Sleep, though, invariably has other ideas …

Dreams may well leave us confused, but mind, body and spirit have a way of making make more sense of us there than any waking moments.

THE HURT GARDEN

Blades of grass
tossing to and fro in the wind
like restless sleepers
trying to make sense of a kind
where logic and reason
have no place, square up to facts
of human nature
from which its indigenous hosts
would run away
but nature will ever have its say
in dreams, struggling to make sense
of us

Stems of flowers
swaying to and fro in a breeze
like drunken crowds
on losing their heads to whims
where logic and reason
have no place lest they make more 
of human nature
than excuses its indigenous hosts
from home truths
put aside, inclined to have a say
in dreams, struggling to make sense
of us

Dead leaves
drifting here, there, everywhere
like lost children
looking for a place called ‘home’
where logic and reason
concede its predilection for love
of human nature,
lend its indigenous hosts access
to life forces
in denial, ever finding their way 
to us left struggling to make sense
of dreams

Birdsong,
signalling a love of life and nature
to practised ears
in the market (for a guide of sorts)
where logic and reason
have a place, but are never enough
for human nature
whose indigenous hosts ask more
of its humanity
than dream litter left in its garden
on the assumption they will clear up
the mess


Copyright R. N. Taber 2015 

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Sunday 22 February 2015

New Kids on the Block


A slightly different version of today’s poem was published in various anthologies and poetry magazines (1997-2001) before appearing in my first major collection.

I have made numerous revisions to various poems over the years, some minor others major. While most revisions appear on the blogs, I hope (eventually) to publish revised editions of each collection in e-format.

Now, at first glance, nothing seems to have changed much in 20+ years, especially in the sense that a significant proportion of children and young people seem to be having as raw a deal as ever. (Oh, but haven't I said that before once, twice, maybe even a thousand times?) We must encourage our young people to believe in themselves and trust their own judgement a learning curve some young people miss out on altogether ... and whose fault is that ... partly their own, yes, but society needs must accept its fair share of the blame also, and society is you-me-us.

Could it be perhaps that if we all try harder to keep our own little piece of the world clean, safe, and a good place to be, all the other pieces may yet come together in a more bearable, worthwhile  whole…for everyone? 

So many people, rather than act on what their inner self is telling them, prefer to take their cue from the Scarlett O'Hara character in Margaret Mitchell's epic novel, Gone With the Wind. The heroine is always telling herself, 'I'll think about that tomorrow.' It is a common human tragedy that, for some of us tomorrow, never comes...

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK 

Gone shopping,
kids left running wild,
trolley rage mums
all smiles (dad’s at the pub);
dog mess everywhere,
kids busy shooting pool
at late-night venues
when not hanging out
on street corners

On the pavement,
collide with some kid
on a bike (my fault
of course, forgot to look);
knives out
in the playground,
acid in the park,
kids chasing death
for a lark

Cops in their stride
(‘Come on, let’s get even.’);
kids on a joyride
to Heaven, street siren
screaming, ‘Amen’;
Mum’s off her trolley,
Dad’s on the booze,
angel on the sideboard,
yesterday’s news …

Copyright R. N. Taber 1997; 2015

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001.]

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Saturday 14 February 2015

Circumnavigating Homer OR Engaging with James Joyce


At University, in the early 1970’s, I studied James Joyce’s Ulysses. The novel left a deep, lasting impression on me, something of which this poem attempts to convey. Make of it (and 'Ulysses') what you will ...

CIRCUMNAVIGATING HOMER or ENGAGING WITH JAMES JOYCE

Charybdis, blood-sucking history;
myth, reaching out to nourish our fictions
at the breast. Eyes of the navigator...

Burning, like twin saints

Whose lips next to pluck a kiss from me?
I will suck the life from them, spew out the taste
of them - and Pallas won’t care,
my brave Ulysses, (save Mr Joyce put in a plea
for the sheer passion of absurdity)

I'll not be cheated of immortality
or heroes to wrestle the world’s straitjacket
while tin gods debate what’s right...

and what's aesthetic…

Copyright R. N. Taber 1972; 2010

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]

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