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.

Monday 21 September 2015

Waking Up to the Power of Positive Thinking

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

Please remember that my blogs do not accept comments, but I always reply to emails. Some readers have said they have problems using AOL; in which case try taberroger@yahoo.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Now, who hasn't despaired now and then of even getting up in the morning?

People sometimes tell me that they have given up on love. I tell them, never even think about it.. Love can happen along just when you least expect it. Besides, as I’ve pointed out many times on the blogs, love expresses itself in many shapes and forms; it doesn’t have to be sexual. Love between lovers is special, yes, but then any love is special; for family, friends, pets, even places.

Give up on love and we might as well not bother to get up in the morning, for all life is worth without love in it. We just have to see what’s on offer and GO for it. Take me, for example. On days when I feel down and there’s no one around to talk things through with (or I may not feel like talking to anyone anyway) I’ll most likely take myself off to be by the sea for the day, often Brighton (Sussex) because I love everything about the place and always feel so much better for going there.

Oh, and as regular readers will know, just because I am not religious and don’t accept the God as portrayed by various religions, doesn’t mean I'm not receptive to succour from a sense of spirituality. Only, I get it from nature, not religion.

This poem is a (yes, another) villanelle

WAKING UP TO THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING 

No heart beating in vain
under anaesthetising darkness
at a new dawn

Left wondering when
(if ever) its turn for happiness…?
No heart beating in vain

Will sleep’s half-open
portals close on or let in distress
at a new dawn?

If dreams bring pain
where life and death paths cross…
no heart beating in vain

Late invitation
to troubled souls seeking redress
at a new dawn

Where light bursting in,
nature filling us with its life-force,
no heart beating in vain
at a new dawn

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2015

[Note: Revised (2015) from an earlier version that appears under the title 'Heartbeat' in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

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Saturday 19 September 2015

Whispers in the Wind


History is a great teacher of love and peace; the pity is that humankind is (such) a slow learner in respect of either …  

Oh, there is peace in many parts of the world, but only where we define pace as the opposite of war ; it is an uneasy peace with societies refusing to reconcile with core differences threatening to undermine national (even global) stability at the best of times ; similarly, there is love, in all its shapes and forms, so long as we don't look too closely at the various shortcomings of human nature.

WHISPERS IN THE WIND

Whispers in the wind
like autumn leaves, ever drifting
time and space…

Love poems in the heart
like tears of a rose, harbinger
of autumn

Hymns to nature voicing
hunger for change and peace
of mind

Bogeyman at every corner
waiting to pounce, force-feed us
its prejudices

Drop-ins along every street,
ready to lend an ear, teach us
fight-back

People of all persuasions
asking no more of life than love
and peace

Grim Reaper harvesting
humankind’s failure to settle
its differences

Whispers in the wind
like deaf ears, perpetually drifting
time and space…


Copyright R. N. Taber 2015



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Tuesday 8 September 2015

L-i-f-e, Beachcomber Tales


Now and then, readers of one or other (even both) my poetry blogs  - all ages, both sexes, gay and straight - email to say they are in London or coming to London and would like to meet up for a chat (about anything and everything) over a few drinks or a meal. I always enjoy these get-togethers, have met up with some very interesting people and keep in touch with many of them if only by email. So feel free to contact me any time, even if a meet-up is never likely to be on the cards. While I don’t allow comments on the blogs, I will always reply to emails; a lively exchange of views and opinions is always enjoyable.

Meanwhile...

'There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves or lose our ventures.' -  William Shakespeare

Dreams and daydreams are more a part of us than we care to admit, carefully – or even carelessly - stored away in some shadowy corner of the mind waiting for sandmen to come along and explore, rather like a children  rummaging through the contents of an attic and turning it into an adventure as only children can. Quite possibly, too, they instinctively recognize the worth or worthlessness of whatever they find there…as only children can.

Like it or not, few if any of us leave childhood – or at least its natural instincts – behind altogether; naivety and innocence may be tiresome from an adult perspective, while both harbour an honesty unfettered by the so-called ‘wisdom’ that comes with maturity and invariably urges discretion if not total restraint…for (our) survival’s sake if nothing (or no one) else’s.

L-I-F-E, BEACHCOMBER TALES

Sun going down,
leaving our daydreams to float
on waves of twilight
where some are sure to drown,
others washed up
on green-gold shores of infinity,
the rest left drifting
on a vast sea of darkness,
flotsam and jetsam
of human nature to be claimed
in the passing of time
by that old beachcomber, Sleep,
and re-appraised,
reworked by sandmen, guardians
of our secret selves

Twilight dimming,
anticipating thoughts drowning
beneath wintry waves
of abandoned hope, ambition,
darker aspects of nature
and human nature sure to drag
the human condition
into an unfathomable despair
were they not there
to watch over us, keep us safe
in dimensions of Being
beyond its everyday assumptions,
painting picture-poems
on closed eyes anxious to open
closed minds

A Smiley Moon
overseeing black holes for worms
and makeshift coffins
made up of pillows, duvets and sheets
where monsters lurk, waiting
to pounce unawares on consciences
left exposed and vulnerable
in the absence of any conscious effort
to make the kind of excuses
we need to half-believe in or spiral
into a state of half-living,
inciting us to try and beat The Reaper
as his own game,
losers all, we bit players in the greater
scheme of things

Sun resurfacing,
lending passage to lion and lamb
and all of nature’s own
going about the business of living
much as we human beings
if more protective and protecting
of its species and spaces
in spite of the world’s demanding
of Earth Mother far more
than its share of natural resources,
but all’s fair…(so they say)
and the human beast needs must
be the best of a bad bunch
occupying Her territories, fighting
over them for centuries

Cold light of day,
taking us through everyday motions
many if not most of us
think of as living, taking for granted
every ripple, every wave,
carrying us to the very edge of a world
created for ourselves,
all-comers welcome while remaining
in their seats lest they rock
this Ship of Fools chartered by ‘betters’
to take the rest of us
towards a landfall some call ‘Heaven’
where no going down
of the sun, no pillow promises made
at dawn cruelly broken

Selfies, everywhere
like dogs at a bitch on heat inciting
priority attention
as becomes nature’s motivation to fill in
time’s blank spaces
with living, loving, thriving species,
meant to mature,
(since such is the cycle of natural life)
by filling in their own blanks
with living, loving, thriving issues,
and any black holes
with light enough to show we were here,
we bit players, we flotsam
and jetsam, we bringers of all history
coasting shores of infinity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015

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