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 29 April 2014

The Zen of Yellow Roses


When a loved one dies, a part of us dies also. Yet, my experience of death has been that, even as time passes, the worst of grief fades, and memory may even start to play tricks on us, love sees us continuing to share in the experience of loving and being loved, the quality of our inner life is all the better for that.  

In the language of flowers the yellow rose is for remembrance. What better icon then for the mind to click on at birthdays, anniversaries, whenever loss makes itself especially felt, than a yellow rose, and let flower the bitter-sweet joy of a happy memory risen above its thorns?

This poem is a kenning.

THE ZEN OF YELLOW ROSES or 

I bring truth
where imagination would feed
on fear and speculation,
engage with those seeking comfort
and reassurance
in far darker places than even
Orpheus searching
for his lost love in the bowels
of the Earth

I combat the terrors
of sleepless nights spent tossing
and turning
in early hours with no respect
for human dignity
or a desperation feeding
on such crumbs of hope
as left out for birds in winter
at its worst

I bring a lasting sense
of peace to mind, body and spirit,
where shadows
gather like key conspirators
with intent to kill,
yet kept at bay by a natural
instinct for survival,
struggle though it may against
hellish odds

As a rose its thorns, to pain I rise above,
who am Remembrance-Peace-Love

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012



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Sunday 27 April 2014

Riders of the Watch


Today's poem has not appeared on the blog since 2007, and I have since revised it; the original version also appeared in a Drifting Thoughts, Poetry Today (Forward Press), 2000.

I recall once walking along the water’s edge in the moonlight. I was very unhappy. I saw no point in continuing the battle of wits between head and heart. Yet, the feisty beauty of a summer night touched whatever it is in us we like to call ‘soul’ and instead of lamenting an ending, I began to anticipate a new beginning...

(Photo taken from the Internet)

RIDERS OF THE WATCH

Moon shadows,
riding white horses across a vast rippling plain
of dark despair;
a dashing of hooves,
indelible imprint on what passes
for the soul

Ghost riders, all deceit and lies,
shivering, shimmering, desperately willing us
to run...

Oh, but where?

Stripped bare, a lifetime's audacity;
time to cast off the trappings and pretty wrappings
of integrity;
Waves, a crashing ovation
for giving reason its marching orders, joining
the heart’s accomplices

Ghost riders, all deceit and lies,
shivering, shimmering, desperately willing us
to run...

Regeneration

Moon shadows, a force for salvation
among the flotsam and jetsam of human frailty
left for us beachcombers
to spot and salvage
what dreams we can (if at nature’s caprice)
without losing face

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2011

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

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Wednesday 23 April 2014

On with the Motley OR Nature and Human Nature, in the Round

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

The closest I come to any religious sense of spirituality is in considering myself a Pantheist. While the idea of a personified God is an anathema to me, I can envisage God as nature or even Earth Mother; for a start, a mixed gender God is more likely to have our spiritual survival at heart.

As a gay man, I resent various socio-cultural-religious groups arguing that I cannot possibly nurture and treasure the sense of spirituality I hold dear. For my part, I would argue that no religion has a monopoly on spirituality since the human spirit generates its own, regardless. Moreover, a bond with nature, for as long as I can remember, both confirms and nurtures this sense of spirituality in me that I once sought but never found in religion. Besides, I cannot envisage any God that would reject anyone on the grounds of their sexuality, not because I am gay, but because God has to be bigger than human ... well, doesn't He or She, whom I once read or heard  somewhere referred to as "The Torchbearer."

As each day closes for a night of preparing for dawn - and vice versa - we hopefully anticipate the next performance; and so it goes on with life, death, love and nature tracking The Torchbearer across time and space ...

ON WITH THE MOTLEY or NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE, IN THE ROUND

See late evening clouds billowing
bulbous folds of a Big Top

Leafy shapes performing in trees;
trapeze artistes in sequins

Spring breeze rippling through it all;
old gods and new, laughing…

Sun’s last blushes on a white dove;
paint on the face of a clown

Lovers in best complimentary seats
enjoying candy floss kisses

Faces shutting down (show's over),
parading back into their cages

Nature poetry, playing ring master
to the greatest show on earth

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012; 2018


[Note: This poem has been slightly revised (several times) since first appearing under the title 'On with the Motley' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]

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Wednesday 16 April 2014

Marking time, Sapling, Waiting On Its Seasons


Today’s poem has not appeared on the blog since 2008 so I guess now is as good a time as any to give it a airing albeit a slightly revised version. 

I am in my late 60s now. Now and then I consider the discrepancy between what I have achieved and what I’d once hoped to achieve, and my heart sinks...until I consider various off-shoots of that ‘unfulfilled potential’ and then the tree doesn’t look half so bad after all.

MARKING TIME, SAPLING, WAITING ON ITS SEASONS

Youth, with dreamy eyes
and wind in the hair,
soaking up heaven’s store
of tears for cares
like leaves untimely fallen
on slim shoulders

Like a sapling in a breeze,
see it bend, never break;
watch leaves bud and grow;
now green, now red,
now gold for each mortal
breath it takes

Nor shall its season cease,
grown older, stronger,
a bold heart harbouring 
the finer seeds
of Creation for nature’s  
nurturing

Spirited tree, proud and free,
a living part of earth’s
finer tapestry, sheltering all
(no one’s enemy)
though they carve initials
on your body

Forever, tall and beautiful
in the mind’s eye;
where lashed to dark skies,
a freedom won
by egg cries sure to archive
its leafy passions

Potential in its prime, marking
time
  
Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem  appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2004; 2nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.] 

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Monday 14 April 2014

Shadow Play, Companions for Life


Now, some of us find that special someone to share our lives and others never do, while some of us find him or her only to lose them again. Death is a part of life, and loss is hard to bear, ye loved ones live on in our mind-body-spirit, always there to comfort, advise and reassure if only we care to listen.

Whatever, most of us have dreams that are more than shadow play but life companions.

This poem is a villanelle.

SHADOW PLAY, COMPANIONS FOR LIFE

Always with me, life companion
(true love so far, so near);
a tall shadow dancing on its own

Left half-awake in my bed alone,
it whispers poems in my ear;
always with me, life companion

Above, a jet plane’s sleepy drone
promises nothing to fear;
a tall shadow dancing on its own

No tears for a lonely half-person
whose way ahead unclear;
always with me, life companion

Come day, night, sun and moon,
its presence strong and dear,
a tall shadow dancing on its own

Asleep, lovers on a plane flown
where summer lasts forever;
always with me, life companion,
a tall shadow dancing on its own

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012 



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Sunday 13 April 2014

The Tracker or Nature of the Beast

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

[Update 30/11/17: I have been living with hormone therapy for nearly seven years now as well as mobility problems since my fall. Believe me, it ain't easy. Even so, I get out and about as best I can and am still looking on the bright side of life. if only because the alternative is unthinkable. Besides, there are always people much worse off than ourselves. I have some good friends, my life and my blogs so count myself lucky.]

[Update 22/4/17: Following a bad fall in 2014, I was unable to do the Shine (Charity) walk again, but a friend did it for me  that year and we raised a tidy sum for Prostate Cancer Research UK. Earlier this month, I gave a sponsored poetry reading and, again, raised money on-line for Prostate Cancer UK via my JustGiving page. Hormone therapy continues to prevent my cancer becoming aggressive. More than six years on from being diagnosed, I remain a Happy Bunny...well, most of the time.]

To readers that email me now and then to ask how I am dealing with my prostate cancer, I can only say ‘so far, so good.’ I manage it OK(ish) by getting out and about as much as I can, drinking lots of root ginger tea, and making the most of being with good friends, ever thankful for their support; oh, yes, and writing up the blogs while adding new poems whenever inspiration strikes. (Any form of creative therapy is as good a safety net as any while we walk the tightrope that is life.) It will catch up with me one day of course, the cancer, but you can be sure that, in my own way, I'll have given it a good run for its money. Hopefully there will be some while will read my blogs, thereby make contact with my posthumous consciousness, and feel encouraged if not inspired to keep looking on the bright side of life... 

While hormone therapy continues to keep my prostate e cancer from becoming aggressive., I have to admit I get more than a little fed-up with having to pee so often, especially at night when all I want to do is sleep, perchance to dream... 

Now, fear and I are old adversaries; for the most part, we have the measure of, and more or less tolerate each other. Even so, we wage fierce battles now and then whenever it ventures out from that shadowy corner of self-awareness to which I would much prefer it was confined.  Eventually, it admits defeat and slinks back into its corner, but not before having taunted mind-body-spirit to near exhaustion. 

I once confided fear of something (I can’t recall what, but does it matter?) to a teacher at my secondary school 50+ years ago who commented to the effect that to deny fear is to deny the inner self that makes us human.  ‘Deal with it, Taber, and get on with your life,’ he said. ‘It may not go away entirely, but the chances are it won’t bother you anywhere near as much ever again.’ Wise advice, especially as it works...well, most of the time.

Participating in the London Shine Walk for Cancer last year to raise money for prostate  cancer research left me with such a sense of achievement for being able to complete a half marathon even in my late 60s (in 5.5 hours, with pit stops) that Fear retreated back into its corner and has yet to raise its ugly head again. 

This poem is a kenning, sometimes called a ‘Who am I?’ poem.

THE TRACKER or NATURE OF THE BEAST

I journey through life
with companions I would leave
but for clammy fingers
clutching at my sleeve and voices
I would prefer to ignore
demanding my attention, pity,
moral support and more
than I am willing to give, yet
can but do my best

I arrive at crossroads
with companions I would leave
to their own devices
while knowing they would be lost
without me, no map
supplied to help them decide
which way to choose
other than human instinct set
to following its nose

I journey on, on, and on,
companions that would leave me
to my own devices
as obsessed with my keeping track
of the world’s injustices
as with lesser vices charging
a vulnerable mentality
to take responsibility for mind,
body and spirit

Find me, Ego, feeding a fear-curiosity
that drives, and may yet kill humanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014















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Saturday 12 April 2014

Looking for Answers


It has been my experience of life so far (I was born on Dec 21 1945) that many people ask the wrong questions of themselves and others. Could that be why, more often than not, they come up with the wrong answers?

Questions are too often tailored to preconceived ideas, including stereotypes. I refer in particular to those bigots who persist in condemning gay people for their sexuality and/or others for the colour of their skin and/or religion (or non-religion). Whatever happened to live and let live?

Sadly, stereotypes of all kinds become fixed in some people’s minds; especially where the mind is so small there is little room for manoeuvre. If only more people were to consider opening up their minds and hearts to accommodate new ideas, confront the possibility that their approach to morality and various socio-cultural-religious issues is not without its flaws. 

World religions preach love and peace, but this requires an open heart and mind. Sadly, it has been my experience through life that relatively few religious  people practice what their religion preaches. Oh, they would deny it and are quick to seek media attention whenever a personal, local or national tragedy strikes, especially any form of hate crime that makes headlines, but many if not most most are simply paying lip service to what is expected of them; increasingly less so with young people, it is good to see.

Could it be that asking more appropriate and relevant questions might well encourage all of us to enter into (even if continuing to disagree with or even disapprove of) more appropriate and relevant points of view...sufficiently, at least, to leave us feeling less inclined to impose our own?

Oh, but I wish...!

As I have said before (and probably will again) our differences don’t make us different, only human.

“Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.” - Voltaire

LOOKING FOR ANSWERS 

‘Who am I?’’I asked a river
but it just kept rushing on by without
making any reply;
‘Who am I?’ I asked a songbird,
but it just took off into the sky without
making any reply;
‘Who am I?’ I asked a sycamore
where angels fell from the sky without
making any reply

‘What are you?’ asked a river
but I’d just keep rushing on by without
making any reply;
‘What are you?’ asked a songbird,
but I’d just scoff pie in the sky without
making any reply;
‘What are you?’ asked a sycamore
where angel wings were in a flap about
any right of reply

River, bird, tree, human being,
leading questions in the mind’s eye, only
guessing at replies;
questions of identity the world seeks
to thread through a needle’s eye without
caring how or why;
If Discovery the Mother of Creation,
may it teach us to ask the right questions,
respect any reply

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011


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Wednesday 9 April 2014

Symphony Pathétique


For me, love and nature go hand in hand. There is nothing more natural or beautiful in this life than to love...unless it is to be loved in return.

As for our sexuality - gay, straight or transgender - love does not discriminate so by what right does anyone else?

The death of a loved one, in any circumstances, is one of the hardest things we have to face in life. Thinking about death, though, does not have to be morbid or depressing. We just have to remember that spring always follows winter and be glad for the good times. [True, it’s never easy, but always worthwhile.]

As I have said before on my blogs, and dare say will again, moving on does not mean leaving anyone behind.

SYMPHONY PATHETIQUE

I see the sunrise in your eyes,
watch it set in your hair,
but when I’d kiss you goodnight,
you’re not there

I laugh with you in the rain
like we hadn’t a care,
but when the sun starts to shine
you’re not there

Media homing in on the spread
of HIV-AIDS everywhere,
the rhetoric of concern exposed
for an empty chair

If heaven’s kisses bitter-sweet
for the love in our care,
dare we betray, fail to keep it safe
in lust’s dark lair?

But for your love in my heart,
I could not bear
to know each time I take a fall
you’re not there

Let nature leave its mark on us
nor its passion us spare;
come mind-body-spirit awakened,
you are there

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2018


[Note: This poem first appears under the title ‘Sympathetique’ in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]













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Monday 7 April 2014

Poetry, Rites of Way OR Engaging with Mind-body-Spirit

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

Now, I am often asked why I write poetry. While I think of myself as a poet who happens to be gay rather than a gay poet, the gay input to my poetry is especially important to me. Hopefully, gay readers will enjoy relating to it, if only in part, while the less gay-friendly heterosexual reader is invited to put aside any outdated, misleading, and often offensive stereotypes that continue to attach themselves to the whole gay ethic in the minds of the less enlightened.  Much the same can be said of my approach to fiction; I haven't written many novels and none have been bestsellers although they sold well and feedback was mixed but on the whole appreciative; as with my poetry, I have tried to reach a mixed readership, and enjoyed every minute of it.   Anyone interested can read my fiction in serial form on my Fiction in the Subject Field blog; synopses at:

Now, although I enjoy socialising, I am also a very private person. I have never kept a journal because I hate the idea of anyone accessing details of my private life and thoughts when I am no longer around to qualify what I wrote. At the same time, my poems are journal pages of a kind; few are strictly autobiographical, but each and every one turns on the kind of person I am, warts ‘n’ all.

Many of my poems have been inspired by conversations with all sorts of people - men and women, gay and straight alike - who have told me about themselves as this bar, that bus queue…wherever. The subsequent poem is as much their story as mine. At the same time, how I chose to write the poem illustrates my train of thought upon hearing and often relating to what they had to say and mulling it over for hours, weeks, months, and even years. My fiction takes shape in much the same way although I, personally, find poetry both more expansive and inclusive. Any readers interested, may like to visit my fiction blog sometime, details at:

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html

Writing poetry, like any creative process, exercises the inner eye in seeing even what is sometimes considered (by whom?) best overlooked. We all need to see and feel in order to try and understand; every artist wants to share his or her insight, feelings, and subsequent understanding - flawed though it may well be - with others.

Past-present-future, the poetry of yesterday-today-tomorrow, the stuff of dreams and personal space, seeing as through ... whatever.

Oh, and, by the way, I was born on a sloping dead-end street.

POETRY, RITES OF WAY or ENGAGING WITH MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

When this life ceases to be,
my spirit left to feed on eternity,
what will they think of me
who drank my wine at table,
doubted I was even able
to write at all or, at least, as well
as one might who always
kept Mount Parnassus in sight,
despite the English climate?

Oh, I dare say they were right,
but I’ve so enjoyed being a poet,
lapping up all criticism, praise,
scepticism, quips about simplicity,
a serious lack of intellectuality,
how gay-interest poetry undermines
a proud genre’s finer integrity,
compromises the very aesthetic
of its history and spirituality

I've heard it’s a cardinal sin
to lower the tone, let anyone in
on a poem, its place in the arts
intended to impress, access
only partly allowed or its mystery
all but solved, and that way
(surely?) anarchy lies. Whatever,
a poet will always have the edge
on Mr, Mrs, and Ms Average

Although but mortal, mind and body
expect more of the human spirit

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was mistakenly published under its draft title 'Requiem for a Poet' in A Feeling for the Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

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Sunday 6 April 2014

A Short History of the Human Race


2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War 1. While it is only right that we should remember all those who fought and died for world peace along with millions of unsung others caught up in the conflict one way or another, we should perhaps reflect upon how various socio-cultural-religious divides have caused conflicts through the ages, and continue to do so.

If wars are all about winning the peace, remembering that has to be making sure peace prevails, surely? Or what has it all been for, apart from killing innocent people, greasing the palms of arms dealers, promoting political rhetoric and profiling humankind’s inhumanity towards its own? [World leaders of all socio-cultural-religious persuasions, please note.]

When will they every learn? When we ever learn...?

This poem is a villanelle.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE HUMAN RACE

Coursing centuries,
blood of angry ancestors
cancerous war cries

Wherever they rise,
venom of our adversaries
coursing centuries

Kingdoms, dynasties,
playgrounds for predators’
cancerous war cries

A pot-pourri of lies
camouflaged in scriptures
coursing centuries

Socio-political policies
(sovereign ears and eyes)
cancerous war cries

Drawing on prejudice’s
bottomless well of tears;
coursing centuries,
cancerous war cries


Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

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Thursday 3 April 2014

Lines on a Carthorse


I wonder...how many of us pause every now and then to look at something (or someone) and see something (or someone) else?

Photo (Internet)

LINES ON A CARTHORSE

Green patch, bursts of sunshine,
retired carthorse munching
contentedly away at a spread
of dandelions

Light breeze in a solitary ash
washing down a dusty heart
with tactile thoughts inclined
to haunt like romantic songs
played on your guitar dedicated
to the pair of us, could well
be now, fancying that I glimpse
a lock of red hair at the edge
of a teasing, passing cloud whose
oh, so-familiar ears, eyes,
nose, lips, turned to another

I didn’t see what was happening,
lost sight of listening, forgot 
to look at what I saw, mistook hazy
infringements of personal space
for a lazy contentment, happiness
unaffected by the world beyond
that perimeter fence I constructed
with loving care, either assuming
we'd want the same things or maybe
too scared to ask, unknowingly
afraid of getting it wrong, ending
up alone

Retired carthorse, last seen munching
on dandelions by a solitary walker
shot down in a green patch by bursts
of sunshine


Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2010

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Observing Life, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2000 and The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; revised version appears in CC & D poetry magazine, Scars Publications, U S., 2010.]





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