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.

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Wisdom is a Tree

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

Given that I often post Gay Awareness poems on both blogs, a reader ‘Marc’ has asked if I would post another here '‘because my mother suffers with depression and reads your general blog, but would never dream of reading a gay blog. My brother is gay and she wants nothing to do with him.’

Oh, but how sad for the whole family!

I feel very disappointed that this man’s mother has not felt able to be more understanding of her gay son. Feedback suggests that a growing number of readers have started dipping into both blogs during the past year or so and several parents of gay men and women have said my gay-interest poems have helped them come to terms with their sexuality. Others, of course, condemn me for "leading decent people astray" as one angry parent put it recently. I can only hope Marc's mother may eventually join the former and feel able to be no less openly loving and understanding towards her gay son than towards her other children.

Now, I have been feeling very low lately and struggling to keep a deeper depression at bay. (An old enemy since childhood, but that's another story for another post/poem.) As regular readers will know, creative writing always helps me; if I can just begin to write a poem, working on it over a period of hours, days even, gives me a sense of achievement.

It doesn’t matter if a poem or novel turns out to be good or poor; what matters is that sense of achievement, keeping my head above water in a hostile sea.  

Any creative work can help keep the pitch black depression at bay; there are many shades of grey to pass through first and a sense of creating something can restore colour to a seemingly colourless life. 

It doesn’t matter what we try; it can be writing, music, gardening, catching up with the decorating or making a paper aeroplane...Nor does it matter if we don’t finish whatever creative task we’ve set ourselves, so long as we find the motivation to try; if things don’t work out for one reason or another, we just have to dig deeper, and try something else.

Never contemplate the notion of failure. Failure is losing the will to have a go at this or that through no fault of our own but an inability to cope. Failure is not even being able to feel that we want to try, which usually means we have put ourselves through all those murky shades of grey and are well stuck in that pitch black pit we call depression; the only way out of it is to heave any sense of failure as far away as we can, give ourselves a well-deserved pat on the back for that, and then look long and hard within ourselves for the will to try something, anything that will help put our lives back on an even keel.

We shouldn’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help either; being able to find the words to ask for help means we are half-way towards making a full recovery already.

Sadly some people don’t begin to understand depression and think we can be jollied out of it. In the end, though, it is down to us whether we sink or swim.

Did I say it was easy?

It has rained a lot lately. A tree outside my front window is a vivid leafy green and daily plays host to songbirds of all kinds. One day, it reached out to me with a life-line, and a GOOD feeling I had been looking for but hadn’t experienced for a while made me grab it with both hands...

Consequently, today’s poem...

WISDOM IS A TREE

An old tree outside my window
assures me all year round
Earth Mother’s looking out for me
because in me she’s found
someone who cares, always hears,
is always there for her
as she’s always here for me
(so speaks the tree)

An old tree outside my window
assures me every day
Earth Mother’s always here for me
and doesn’t give a damn
about sex, sexuality, creed, colour
or what age we are
if we’ll be here for her always
(as She for us)

An old tree outside my window
has many tales to tell
how Earth Mother has shed tears
for the likes of me
who sought refuge in religion,
but found no sanctuary
only a self-centred expectation
(no salvation)

An old tree outside my window
took me to its heart;
Earth Mother would not have me
thrash at life in pain
but as sun and rain nurturing
the natural world,
seeks to inspire the likes of me
(wisdom is a tree)

An old tree outside my window
has wiped my tears,
falling much like autumn leaves,
leaving my branches bare
through a bleak winter of despair
till love songs, like spring rain,
would have us rework our history
(so speaks the tree)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

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Saturday 19 May 2012

Covenant with Love

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

World AIDS day may be on Dec 1st, but the HIV-AIDS virus is among us all the time and those affected need our love and support every day.

Now, this villanelle has not appeared on the blogs since 2010 and a number of readers have asked me to repeat it during the past six months or so.  I am happy to oblige, not least because I am one of the lucky ones. I don't have the virus if only there but for good fortune...and common sense; I always used a condom in the days when I was  sexually active, and was tested regularly.

Since being tested positive for prostate cancer in 2011, mind and spirit remain active, but my body doesn't want to know any more. No worries there, though, as I enjoy falling back on memories and  letting a poet's imagination, its wonders to perform...

COVENANT WITH LOVE 

Though saddened hearts would break
and HIV-AIDS a rising toll,
love, with loss, its peace shall make

See ripples spread for humanity's sake
come sun, moon, heart and soul
though saddened hearts would break

Where disease, fate, or age lives take,
anger, grief, like burning coal,
love, with loss, its peace shall make

See a light from dark, its prison break,
let better times roll…
though saddened hearts would break

Though we live for living’s own sake,
no matter affairs of the soul,
love, with loss, its peace shall make

Let the world’s worst its own forsake
and healing be our goal;
though saddened hearts would break,
love, with loss, its peace shall make

Copyright R . N. Taber 2007

[Note: This poem has been revised since first appearing in Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]



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Friday 18 May 2012

The Last Donkey Ride

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

Nature may be fickle, but so is human nature; the chances are whoever takes the last donkey ride will look around and see a coastline that’s nowhere near as sound or green as we see now or may have done centuries ago; even the sea is losing its wildlife to a polluted modernity. 

Humankind may we rail against nature where it wreaks havoc and tragedy, the greater irony being that, in our desperation to harness and make it serve our own ends, there is really little to choose between the two.

Most if not all we human beings are vain enough to think we deserve priority over the natural world. Could it be, though, that Earth Mother has other ideas?

THE LAST DONKEY RIDE

Time and again you have passed me by,
turned a cloth ear to cries from a heart
begging its release or at least some relief
from such pain as only they know
who roam  the shores of life asking Why?"
In spite of those willing to lend a hand
where the need is greatest, you  deny
ignore, the rhetoric of discretion being
much the better part of valour

So weary am I of being taken for a ride,
on wings of a prayer or bored donkeys
at the seaside reassuring children
how sand shells tell tales of a golden age
not yet spent … where the sea is as safe
as the sky is blue, grass is green and corn
grows high, hopes for world peace
alive and well if but sailing on driftwood 
among time’s uneasy swell

How long can it last, me doing my best
for kith and kin, you abandoning us
to empty words, promises of better days,
world left railing against humankind’s
inhumanity, sure to get the better of me
without even a native dignity to cover
my blushes as they strip me bare, caring
little more in their naivety for my decline
than our mutual salvation?

Hear me, your Earth Mother in distress,
ye who engineer the Politics of Progress 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]


This collection is still in print, but only on sale in the UK.  All readers, including any outside the UK, can obtain (signed) copies direct from me at a generous blogger discount on [retail price + shipping]. Enquiries to: rogertab@aol.com with ‘Poetry collection’ or ‘Blog reader’ in the subject field.


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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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Friday 11 May 2012

Suggestions

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

There is much wrong with the world, and the planet itself is screaming a warning.

So what are we going to do about it?

Dare I suggest that we need a least one leader with real vision and a commitment to it that others might follow? Whatever, we all have a responsibility to future generations to act NOW before it is too late.

SUGGESTIONS

They suggest we try and save garden creatures
and ocean whales before it’s too late

They suggest our luxury choices are sure to leave
the generation of 3000 with none

They suggest parents are scared of their children
and raising monsters

They suggest religious leaders pay more attention
to compassion than division

They suggest politicians aren’t listening to those
who put them there

They suggest our multicultural societies are failing
themselves and each other

They suggest we start learning the lessons wars
should have taught us

They suggest we’re but living will and testament
of a dying planet

So who are they, daring to suggest humankind look
to its shortcomings?

Among leafy choirs, anxious waves, nature’s children
rehearse this world’s passing
  
[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Book 2007]


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Thursday 10 May 2012

Listening Out for Nature

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


Observing nature is always an experience worth making time for, especially if we let it into our hearts, learn from it, find ways to harness its kinder side to body, mind and spirit, enjoy an intrinsic peace and tranquillity...

The video below concludes my friend Graham’s visit to the Cheddar Gorge along with a poem I wrote especially to accompany it; you will hear me read the poem over the video.

Some readers tell me they cannot access You Tube for one reason or another, but those that can may prefer to click on the direct link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v82obNd8N5k

For more videos/poems on my channel:

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

LISTENING OUT FOR NATURE

Birdsong in the wind
making promises it cannot keep
to every flower, tree
and blade of grass, each hair
on the head of creatures great
and small

Tears in the wind
but acid rain, humankind’s gift 
to every flower, tree
and blade of grass, each hair
on the head of creatures great
great and small

Joy, too, in the wind
same birdsong busy serenading
every flower, tree
and blade of grass, each hair
on the heads of creatures great
and small

Love songs in the wind, 
composed for every flower, tree, 
and lade of grass, each hair
on the heads of creatures great
and small to take heart, 
know it will flourish in the light
of Apollo’s smile;
ageless, the tell-tale wind, 
like our pride in every flower, tree, 
and blade of grass, each hair 
on the heads of creatures great
and small exhorting us
to answer its call to keep this world 
colourful, peaceful

Birdsong in the wind, 
let fly to reassure every flower,
tree and blade of grass,
lift the heads of creatures
great and small threatened daily
with extinction

Tears in the wind,
at the passing of each season
for every flower, tree, 
and blade of grass, each hair 
on the heads of creatures great
and small

Joy, too, in the wind,
at each springtime’s returning
to nurture every flower,
tree, blade of grass, creatures
great and small counting on nature,
nature on us
  
Copyright R. N. Taber 2012





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Wednesday 9 May 2012

Chain Gang OR Doing a Runner

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

I am happily, openly gay. But it wasn’t always that way. As regular readers will know, I am still haunted now and then by dark, cold, closet years when I was afraid to tell anyone. Throughout my youth and in the early years of young manhood, gay relationships were illegal here in the UK. Yet, after these were decriminalised, I was still more in that damn closet than out of it.

Part of the reason I hesitated to be openly gay was that I had such trouble shrugging off all the offensive stereotypes with which I had been burdened for years. Another reason was that I could rely on no support from family or friends for much the same reason. In many areas there are support groups available now; there is also a LOT of support available on the Internet that includes access to gay forums. [Always keep your wits about you when chatting to people on the web, though, as not everyone is as genuine as they may seem.]

Much has changed for the better since those dark days some 30+ years ago. Many of the stereotypes still exist but are countered these days by supportive (rather than just defensive) arguments, and in some parts of the world gay men and woman can turn to Equal Rights legislation.; in other parts of the world, though, there is none of this and gay people, especially young gay people, are suffering much as I did all those years ago.

It has to stop. Societies whose leaders support anti-gay legislation must be made to see sense by more enlightened societies; political pressure must be brought to bear and seen to be brought to bear.

All the blame for the continuing suffering of all LGBT people, often struggling with their sexual identity and in need of support and reassurance, does not always lie at society’s door. Support and understanding starts in the home. Even in the so-called liberal West, many gay boys and girls, men and women, are (still) living in a gay-unfriendly environment.

Wherever you look, and closer to home than you may think, various socio-cultural-religious anti-gay pressures are being brought to bear on gay people. Bad in the southern hemisphere, yes, but no better in some parts of the northern hemisphere either.

As I keep saying and will keep saying, the key to supporting gay people in home, school and workplace lies in educating, family, friends and work colleagues into just what it means to be gay; dismantle all those same stereotypes and arguments that kept me in the closet once and for all. Parents and teachers worldwide must start taking responsibility for this and societies’ less enlightened leaders must start taking responsibility for taking a lead.

Those readers who get in touch to tell me I am being a dinosaur, things have changed and gays have never had it so good should take a closer look at what is happening in Uganda and many other African countries, for example, also in Russia where gay people amongst others must be aghast at Putin’s re-election as president.

CHAIN GANG or DOING A RUNNER

Shovelling lies, bundles at a time,
though wore my hair long and sang,
making out I didn’t give a damn,
breaking my back on a chain gang

Yes, thought about breaking loose,
though rarely let it tease me for long;
couldn’t face ever having to choose
between alter ego and the chain gang

For long hours, days, weeks, years,
I slogged on, never putt a foot wrong;
no one ever saw me shed any tears
for making a career of the chain gang

I knew the politics, chapter and verse,
yet still kept singing the same old song,
ringing changes, for better for worse,
and more new faces on the chain gang

One face lingered in my mind’s eye,
wry grins sure to catch me responding,
couldn’t ignore, even though I’d try
‘cause it just ain’t done on a chain gang

Too scared to come clean and get real,
told gay love ungodly so must be wrong,
but how could I argue with a smile
that lets heaven shine on a chain gang?

We got to know each other better daily,
mindsets more than merely getting along,
office gossip machine churning madly
(for our not doing right by the  chain gang)

We did a runner one day, my love and I,
got a life, determined to do our own thing,
happier at work (even happier at play)
just two gay people getting on with living

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007

[Note: Any LGBT or LGBT-friendly readers may like to visit my other blog 'G-A-Y in the subject field'. Why do I write both ( fiction blog too)?  Well, a poem is a poem is a poem just as a person is a person is a person; there is more to all of us than out sex or sexuality.]

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Sunday 6 May 2012

Home Grown

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

[Update 20/4/17: Yet again our hearts go out to the people of France after a police officer was killed and colleagues wounded in a terrorist attack on the Champs Elysees in Paris; our thoughts are with their families and friends as well as other colleagues who, of course, risk their lives every day during these dark times. On Sunday the French people will elect a new president. He or she will face a tough task ahead, not least - along with security forces worldwide - in thwarting the growth of home grown terrorism. Open borders are a wonderful sentiment, but impractical given the times in which we live; border checks are a necessary evil and anyone who cannot see that is well and truly blinkered. It would appear that prisons, too, are a breeding ground for home grown terrorism so security forces worldwide need to monitor anyone released who may be suspected of being radicalised; this is not an infringement of civil liberties, but plain common sense.]

Terrorism remains a global threat from fundamentalists and fanatics who think they are right so everyone else must be wrong. Tragically, their message is one of warped idealism, but idealism all the same to which young people especially are vulnerable; few have sufficient experience of life to appreciate that there are more subtle (f no less effective) ways to help initiate change for the better in what, after all, is a much flawed world for all its focus on progress.

Most if not all of us, too, have our own private terrors within our own personal space; many of these are spirited away into the rose coloured mists of time by kinder forces to which we become more sensitive we grow up, but ... rarely if ever completely.

Before we can hope to defeat global terrorists perhaps we (and they) need to address and rise above our own private terrors?

HOME GROWN

A cry in the night, could be
human or beast,
sneaking past the Old Man
like a snake

A stalking star, fallen upon
its victim?

Feet dead, thought paralysed
by indecision...
Someone badly needs help,
but in what direction?

Probably a cat, trapped in that 
dark alley’s jaws

Quiet. Blood rediscovering its
everyday route...
Mind functioning sufficiently
to agree inaction

Body heading for home, as if
never disturbed

A cry in the night, marking us
for human or beast;
heart beating madly, madness
everywhere

Of global terrors, none greater
than home grown

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]


Note: The original cover design for this collection is by my dear friend Graham Collett who has designed  covers for (many) other books besides mine in the course of his full-time job as a graphic designer. He also finds time to shoot the videos for my You Tube channel:  


I am fortunate indeed to call him my best friend. 


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Friday 4 May 2012

Adrenaline Rush

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

Nothing provides a rush of adrenaline quite like love...


ADRENALINE RUSH

Words of love tumble like Niagara
from heavenly heights, a thunderous roar
of metaphor, simile, rhythm and rhyme,
a wondrous sight, vision to behold…
only to be carried along some eternal river
of the soul about which tales are told
but no one ever goes for fear the unknown
prove too much, poetry alone no match
for a frantic tide of mixed emotion, devotion
to themes of love, desire, need, drawing
crocodiles to feed, swallow us whole who dare
take a chance on our dreams; instead, we act
the sightseeing tourist snapping for the album,
keeping a diary of nature’s unsubtle cut
and thrust, mocking the foibles of humanity
with such sheer profanity that we hear old gods
laugh, call out names (meant to provoke us
to take action?) as we but watch in awe, give
Imagination its due, soaked in the spray
of an elixir of youth, testament to the truth
of our inhibitions if we but care to admit,
rise above, meet the death defying challenges
of life and (most of all) love’s finer glory,
the, oh, but never ending story of a waterfall
bringing our senses into full play

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2010

[Note:This poem has been slightly revised since it last appeared on the blog under the title 'Adrenaline' and in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]


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Thursday 3 May 2012

Masterpiece

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

Say what you like, even art at its greatest will only ever be a poor copy of the original  masterpiece that is nature.

Ah, but it is what the artist puts into his or her creation that matters, and what we get out of it. Put the inner eye to work and you may well be surprised at the results; that goes for nature and art of course. Some people look at clouds and all they see is...clouds. Others may admire Van Gogh’s sunflowers and all they see is...sunflowers. It takes the inner eye to encourage us to turn what we see into a felt experience that, in turn, brings any creation into a whole new focus.

MASTERPIECE

Streaks of gold on a sheet
of charcoal grey;
patches of green glistening
like wet paint

Bear-like figures emerging
from hibernation;
birds calling our landscape
into question

Children unafraid of giants
resembling trees;
reflections in an artist’s eye
on post-storminess

A joy, seeing Earth Mother
at work and play;
a privilege, feeling her brush
stroking us in

Masterpiece, left unfinished
to challenge critics
on imagination, watch them
arguing the signature

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R, N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012]


Enjoy!

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Tuesday 1 May 2012

The Greatest Show On Earth

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

I love it when people ask me to repeat a villanelle; regular readers will know I have a passion for them. I have written some 200+ over the years. Today’s villanelle last appeared on the blog in 2010 and is especially for ‘Damon and Louise’ who are getting married shortly and plan to spend their honeymoon on a walking tour of the Lake District. They say they are looking forward to ‘beautiful scenery by day and intimate at night.’ Well, enjoy, and congratulations to you both.

Interestingly, it appears that Louise has a gay brother who is also Damon’s best friend. Nice one, folks!

THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH

Earth Mother, a faith in us will show,
each and every one of us;
eternal confidant, always in the know

If ever we’re driven to an all-time low,
no one answering our cries,
Earthy Mother, a faith in us will show

Starry heavens come, starry heavens go
for each and every one of us;
eternal confidante, always in the know

Should we be losers at love’s last throw
of its ages-old, universal dice,
Earth Mother, a faith in us will show,

Seek Apollo where darkness binds us so
(will always find time for us);
eternal confidante, always in the know

Where a bigot’s rant rings loud if hollow
and universal truths give way to lies,
Earth Mother, a faith in us will show;
eternal confidante, always in the know

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

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