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.

Sunday 21 December 2014

Christmas Revisited


Now, every year, for many years, I have written a Poem for Christmas that I send to friends instead of a Christmas card.  They are rarely if even conventional Christmas poems, not least because I am not religious person, just like to keep in touch with people and cards are so commercial at a time when this should be the least of our concerns, and many people can’t really afford them anyway. I used to send cards just to keep in touch and let people know I was thinking of them, but nowadays we have e-mail…

Why do I write a Poem for Christmas at all? Well, regular readers will know that, although I am not religious, I like to think I have a strong sense of spirituality. Only, I find it in nature rather than any religion, especially as religions are so divisive. (We should respect different points of view, not attack them.) Born on the winter solstice, I dare say there is an element of pagan in me too.

For many people, their religion is a club, ‘Members Only’; it takes the spirit of religion to reach out to non-members too. Don't get me wrong. I respect religious points of view, simply cannot enter into them.

So here is my Poem for Christmas, 2014. Whoever and wherever you are, and whatever your Belief or non-Belief, it comes to you in the spirit of Love and Peace.

CHRISTMAS REVISITED

Clouds, like baggage
on a tramp’s back trudging the sky;
doom-gloom of winter
threatening to extinguish flames
at a roaring hearth,
humanity's way of creating shades 
of kindness

Ghosts, wistfully engaging
in a pillow fight in remembrance
of a Santa Claus
that betrayed every trust created
to reassure us
with mockery of the cruellest blasts
of winter

Snow, like white feathers
heaping accusations on doorsteps
and at windows
where humankind flirts with blame
long enough be acquitted
by cosy fantasies fuelling conscience
in home fires

Tramp in the sky falters
under a load growing heavier, Apollo
pondering whether or not
to join the pillow fighters, kill off
the best snowmen,
leave Christmas to the complacency
of religion  

Frost on the glass
creating a kaleidoscope of life’s pain
and pleasures, urging us
to dwell on the latter, believe
in happiness in spite
of a sorry world’s worst misgivings
about Christmas

Doom-gloom of winter
ever threatened by the fiercer flames
of a roaring hearth,
humanity's way of creating shades
of kindness to pass on
to the next generation in the spirit
of Christmas

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014





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Friday 7 November 2014

Christmas, Glossing Over Missed Opportunities


At this time of year, people often tell me they are so looking forward to Christmas because they see it as a reason for celebration and renewal, usually more in a temporal than religious sense, as if Christmas will make everything bad in their lives so much better, keeping up the momentum until New Year, and then…?

Too often, the bubble of make-believe is burst soon enough as January arrives with all the indifference to human potential of a Grim Reaper.

We may not be altogether masters of our own fate, but life is what we make it. Mind and body may well be subject to external influences, sometimes of the worst kind, but the human spirit is better than that, and deserves to be given its head. The inner self knows us better than we think we know ourselves, and more of us need to listen rather than turn a deaf ear in favour of false (if attractive) promises the world often makes but has no intention of keeping.

Christmas, like all religious festivals is too often seen as signposting a sanctuary or at least some respite or escape from the harsher elements of life threatening to overwhelm us. Rarely, in my experience, will religion remove the threat for long; we need to build on the spirit and spirituality of peace and love (religion may have its share of both, but no monopoly), not be afraid to ask for help, and make a better life for ourselves on terms we will not flinch from meeting, no matter whether they are unacceptable to those who think they know us better than we know ourselves.

CHRISTMAS, GLOSSING OVER MISSED OPPORTUNITIES

Rain soaking the shirt, jeans;
body responding freely
to Earth Mother’s call to live,
let live, and get real

Face upturned, glad to be out
getting wet, mind distracted;
domestic crises, work targets
and assessments wreaking
havoc (with the best intentions)
stifling that very inspiration
meant to persuade, encourage,
leaves us feeling like flies
feeding on garbage left out
for the bin men, fodder for stray
cats, dogs, homeless folks, waiting
for Christmas

Oh, we may have a job, home,
mortgage etcetera - but a life
to call our own…?

Some may beg to differ, thinking
through yet another staff rota
at supper or marking homework
once guests (finally) gone home
to snug beds, 1001 nights and more
besides of cramming heads,
misting-up eyes, asking questions,
stirring up more lies and half lies
meant to persuade, encourage, only
to leave us feeling like flies
on garbage left for the bin men
to dispose

Christmas comes, Christmas goes;
it’s the inner self knows best
how to make the most of a potential
too precious to waste

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Waiting for Christmas' in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time, Assembly Books, 2005; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

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Saturday 25 October 2014

Past-Present-Future, a Collective Responsibility

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

A reader asks why I often write past-present-future as one word rather than separating past, present and future.  The interconnection is so great that I see them as a whole; just as time is a continuum so all we say and do at any one time will like as not affect and reflect not only ourselves, but others too - one way or another, to a greater or lesser extent, but significantly all the same  (whether we or they choose to  acknowledge it or not) in any near or distant moment in time.

As for the world in which we human beings persistently express a penchant for destruction and division ... is it not high time we focused more on pulling together, accepting and respecting each other's differences instead of playing socio-cultural religious-political football with them?

Any tears in the ozone layer will not mend themselves unless we all become more pollution conscious and stop arguing among ourselves long enough to take an honest look as how we are inflicting all but irretrievable damage to the planet.

Those leading politicians, with fingers in various Big Business pies, may well choose to play down the long-term effects of polluting the planet, but need to cut the rhetoric and act NOW or risk plunging future generations into an Armageddon scenario…

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, A COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY 

In the rain, an acid rain, you’re there
sharing the burden of my despair

Let the world roll out its history
consigning us to memory,
clouds forbid the sun, heavens weep;
in my dark, your light I’ll keep,
till this mere flesh no more can stand
and Death lends us a hand
as through a graveyard in a gentle rain
we ghosts will walk and talk again

In the rain, an acid rain, you’re there,
sharing the burden of my despair

Though our world blast into infinity,
consigning us to the galaxy,
yet seedlings shall survive, endure
in Mother Nature's loving care
till songbirds, in time, return
to the killing fields of Everyman,
redeem a so-sorry history of acid rain
till humankind ghost us yet again

In the rain, an acid rain, we’re here
sharing the burden of all despair

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2014
  
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title ‘Easing the Burden’ in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]


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Friday 24 October 2014

Potential for Inspiration


A colleague once remarked, not a little facetiously, that poets think they have the answer to everything.

Oh, but I wish!

At school, some 50+ years ago, my English teacher, Mr Rankin, (a Scotsman) once commented to the effect that life is all about discovery, and that is all about asking questions. 'Stop asking questions,' he told us, 'and you might as well be dead.'

Oh, but YES.

So what is life all about? Why are we here?  Different people, different answers, but it’s asking the question that counts, and makes us who we are.

POTENTIAL FOR INSPIRATION

What is life, but to have lived at all?
What is death, but all we‘ve not missed?
What is love, but to have loved at all?
What is beauty, but its flowers in a mist?
What is desire but to know desire at all?
(What is loss but by its light never kissed?)
What are dreams, but a life unfulfilled?
What are regrets, but art’s timelines?
What are hopes, but the inner eye’s take
on seasonal colours?

What is life, but to have lived it all?
What is death, but refuting all we missed?
What is love, but to have loved it all,
the beauty of its flowers in a spring mist?
What is desire, but to have desired it all,
loss but shadows where its light has passed
in a dream, the stuff a common humanity
lets pass for peace where its regrets run
with its hopes along timelines recording
art’s penchant for copycat?

In being moved to ask just one question
lies the potential for inspiration


Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

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Wednesday 22 October 2014

As Time Goes By OR Love, a (Personal) History

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

Time passes; we change, grow older, yet a loved one’s image remains much the same, ageless and timeless in our eyes … 

If we take an hourglass as a metaphor for life, time passing should never be thought of as its  gradually emptying but as its constantly in need of topping up ... with all the emotional resources available to us, especially love.

This poem is a villanelle.

AS TIME GOES BY

Brown hair, shades of grey,
whatever path I pursue;
time, ever slipping away…

Fun childhood days at play,
youth’s wild ways too;
brown hair, shades of grey

“Let’s laugh, not cry!” I say
(some wishes come true)
time, ever slipping away…

For every weepy Blues day,
golden moments too;
brown hair, shades of grey

Late, love, it came my way,
gave my heart to you;
time, ever slipping away…

Forever, love vowed to stay,
life’s tangled strands undo;
brown hair, shades of grey,
time, ever slipping away…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]

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Monday 20 October 2014

The Scream OR Potential for Self-destruct


I was born on the winter solstice, 1945 so, yes, that means I will be 65 years young in December. I suspect most if not all of us have our share of disappointments and frustrations in life, sadness and tragedy too, upon which demons pounce and often never (quite) disappear. [Demons from long-ago closet years as a teenager and young man when gay relationships were illegal here in the UK haunt me still, but less so as time goes by.]

Looking back at my life and looking inwards at my inner self, I can track the scream just so far …then either it stops or I stop looking, I am never sure which. I know I will hear it again, but in the meantime, there is life to be lived and its pleasures to be enjoyed. As for the scream, it may well haunt me, but as I discovered long ago, it can’t hurt me … unless I let it.

Do you, too, hear a scream? It is silent, yet sometimes I think it is the loudest sound we will ever hear, shaking the whole body now and then as if it were no more than a leaf in a storm.  I guess the trick is to ride out the storm and find comfort in anticipation of its passing and the sun coming out again …as it will, and does … as inevitably as human nature calling upon its greater strengths and making the best rather than the worst of ... whatever. 

'The Scream' by Edvard Munch (1893); image from Wikipedia. One of several versions of the painting "The Scream" (title: Der Schrei der Natur, 'The Scream of Nature') at The National Gallery, Oslo, Norway.


THE SCREAM or POTENTIAL FOR SELF-DESTRUCT

Five years-old and waiting for a scream
that I knew had to be there, but never came
so I put it down to imagination,
too young to articulate on the surrealism
of self-destruction

Fifteen years of looking for the scream
(an awakening sexuality trying to find a voice)
but I put it down to imagination,
not quite ready to do battle with the prejudices
of convention

Twenty-one years of imagining a scream
much like a poorly read poem in a bad dream,
kept putting it down to imagination
fired by stresses of home-school-work situation
and birth sign

Thirty-five years of living with a scream,
mind in freefall, body soaked in its own sperm
for venturing beyond imagination,
homing in on an impotent rage to get even,
(self-destruct button)

Fifty-five years of looking for the scream,
first heard in the womb, always hurting my ears,
for being put down to imagination
by a socio-cultural, one-upmanship dogma
some like to call religion

Sixty-five years, of harbouring a scream
arguing for a sense of spirituality with sexuality
and nature second to none
in a configuration of common humanity
left to the imagination

In millions of screams across the world,
the same message to mind-body-spirit as in art
that we stop, look and listen
to this human forest of deciduous trees
pleading preservation

No killing it, but ever running the scream
to earth in life-love-death if only to find an ally
in the human condition, sword
of freedom in the grip of a human spirit
demanding regeneration

[London, June 2010]

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010 (Rev. 2018)

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Sunday 19 October 2014

It's Never too Late for Love Poetry


[Update 3rd Oct 2018: A reader has asked about the videos on my You Tube channel. To fully enjoy, you need to keep the sound on to hear the poem/s I read over the video/s. Oh, and if you would like to comment on any of the blogs, feel free to post in the Comments box. I never publish comments (too many ignorant trolls) but always read them; include your email address if you would like a reply.]

Now, sometimes we so wish we could put the clock back and let life and love return to the way they once were. Oh, but especially love!

It is never easy to let go of love. Even when the mind-body-spirit is close to admitting defeat, two hearts bonding as one may well have other ideas …

It's never too late even for the poetry of love which, as many of us have discovered, can often be revived once regret and a sense of loss pause long enough kick-start the heartfelt renewal of a forward looking mind-body-spirit; even death cannot kill the poetry of love, as any of us who have lost loved ones well know.

IT'S NEVER TOO LATE FOR LOVE POETRY

As I lay on a pillow thinking about us,
you opened the door and came in,
crossed to the bed, lay down beside me,
cradled my head, swore you loved me,
despite having chosen to see me in agony
(knowing you’d cheated on me again)
begging to share a bed left sad and lonely
as my tears for our love left to die

I resisted your embrace, closed my eyes
to care lines telling far too many sorry tales
on you-me-us

You let fly with a passion to stay a part
of a gloriously light-dark history
that had seen us feeding off our need
for one another, making believe we were
in love and nothing else mattered
but flames of mad desire, devouring us,
little left once over and done, but ghosts
having braved a fire no phoenix dare...

Unless (a familiar murmuring in the ears)
we quit this soap opera of ours and give love 
a fighting chance...

A tempting offer, love almost persuaded
by our tears, but suddenly sees through
its disguise, tells us straight, "Enough lies";
Ah but restless libidos had other ideas
and chose for us (as we knew they would)
the bitter-sweet prose of fallen heroes,
nor was it some God punishing us for hadn’t we  
already seen to that ourselves?

May the 'live' mind-body-spirit we share
stay with us as even we journey through eternity;
forever, love poetry

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2019

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Too Late for Poetry' in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; like many of my poems, I revised it in line with Time's insisting life teach me new lessons.] 





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Monday 13 October 2014

Monday, Monday...


Readers are always asking for the link to my informal poetry reading on the 4th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square in 2010 by way of being my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s One and Other ‘live sculpture’ project. Be warned, though; the whole thing lasts an hour:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT


Now, this tongue-in-cheek poem has been slightly revised since appearing in my collection and on the blog in 2007. I wrote it in 2003. Since then I have retired but…I still hate Mondays!

MONDAY, MONDAY...

Monday morning,
one eye on a glorious dawning
through paper thin curtains
covering us much like a shroud;
hearts stopping, a relentless
ticking of bedside clocks arousing it
to a semblance of beating, 
like a bored child tapping fingers
on whatsoever happens along
to distract from the business in hand
of having it knuckle down
to what’s expected, without so much
as any reward or time off
for good behavior from acting
the epitome of perfection,
if only to impress those who need
(or demand) to be impressed,
best impressions leaving the rest
struggling to keep up…

Oh, but that won’t do, have to show
who’s who, stand tall, be counted
as well worth our salt among so-called
‘betters’ - prove our daily stars
not so far out after all, even if night
skies are more likely to shoot us
in the back, leave us gibbering wrecks
after playing at sex, losing the game,
and waking up with a killer hangover,
contemplating going to work in terror,
more than likely to be gobbled up
by some mad 'n' mean gossip machine
playing you-can-tell-me-I-won’t-tell
that just may have something going for it,
beats an unholy devotion to overtime
no one gets paid or even a thank you so
by immaculate, swivel chairing gods
on six figure salaries and getting a kick
out of fiddling expenses…  

Oh, yes, and all for what? Get laid, 
(so drunk we forget anyway…)

Monday, Monday, GO AWAY

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]


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Sunday 12 October 2014

Friends Reunited


True friends care about each other and show it, through thick and thin. It is a rare thing, these days, friendship. Too often we think we have a good friend, and then he or she not only stays away when we need them most but also manages to put the blame on us for the fractured friendship.

Friendship works both ways. Too many people are so wrapped up in themselves they only see it as a one-way trip.

Sometimes a friend may be depressed or feeling so low they have no room in head or heart for anyone else while the condition lasts. As good friends, we need to be there for them no matter what…or how can we expect them to be there for us?

The selfish view some people take, that if a friend has not been in touch they won’t contact them either, is not what friendship is all about.

I count myself so lucky to have some good (real) friends.

FRIENDS REUNITED

I knocked at the door,
again, again, and yet again;
no one came

Eventually, I turned away,
drifted lonely as a cloud - and
then returned

I banged on the door
again, again, and yet again;
no one came

Angrily, I turned away,
ran until exhausted - and
then returned

I yelled at the door
again, again, and yet again;
no one came

Sadly, I sat down
on a step wondering - why
no one listening?

I called at the door
again, again, and yet again
till someone came

[From: A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]


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Saturday 11 October 2014

(Another) Poem in the Making OR Postscript to a Love Affair


Update (August 2016): A number of readers have asked if I plan to publish a separate collection of my love poems. Since no publishers have shown any interest, I guess the answer has to be ‘no’. However, most are on the blogs even if they have been excluded from collections for one reason or another.

I have also been asked to repeat the link to an interview I gave a postgraduate student of multimedia journalism: https://r224e31251.racontr.com/index.html

Meanwhile…

A friend once commented that all his greatest regrets had one thing in common...love. How many of us, I wonder, might well say the same?

(ANOTHER) POEM IN THE MAKING or POSTSCRIPT TO A LOVE AFFAIR

When you are lying very close to me
and my fingers are playing with your hair,
I could stay like this through eternity,
so full, this poet’s heart, of love and care

The warmth of your body inspiring me
to write sonnets on the walls of my heart,
my spirit rising to such ecstasy…
it can never contemplate we should part

Alas, part we must, and this spirit weep,
though these eyes stay dry or you may discern
how I dream of us, awake and asleep,
for some lessons some lovers never learn

Yet, missing you keeps you a part of me,
and our lives, though separate, poetry

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2014

[An earlier version of this poem (slightly revised here) appears in 1st eds. of A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; revised edition in e-format in preparation.]


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Tuesday 7 October 2014

The Rose OR Answering to Autumn


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.]





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Friday 3 October 2014

World Cinema


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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Wednesday 1 October 2014

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


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.]


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Sunday 28 September 2014

Disaffected Youth, Wasted Lives


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.]







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Thursday 25 September 2014

A Job Half Done OR Planet of the Apes


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.]


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Tuesday 23 September 2014

Urban Safari


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.]

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Sunday 21 September 2014

Sword and Shield, a Fight to the Better End


[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




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