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 9 March 2016

Mind-Body-Spirit, Will and Testament


I, for one, am sick and tired of being told I’m in the wrong by people because I happen to disagree with them; called a sinner because I don’t comply with dogma according to a religion to which I don’t even subscribe; generally having various social, cultural, religious and political views rammed down my throat…

What is wrong with agreeing to differ? Why can’t people live and let live, respecting each other’s differences instead of berating, even punishing them for their refusal to be bullied or emotionally blackmailed into changing a particular point of view? I would say moral issues aside…but certain socio-cultural-religious and political parties seem to have little respect even for those except when it suits them.

All I can say is that, I, in turn, have no respect for bullies.

Meanwhile...

Although I reject immortality in any religious sense, regular reader will know that I often engage with the prospect of a posthumous consciousness in which we continue to play part in the lives of those on whom we have made an impression  - for better, for worse  (hopefully the former) - by way of word, deed, whatever...

This poem is a kenning.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, WILL AND TESTAMENT 

I ensure the greater inheritance
to which humankind is born, regardless
of station in life or place in the world’s
way of things that ticks away according
to how strong we are, how much
we earn or even how the heart may yearn
for a kinder way of living among its kin,
boxed up as we are, ticked off then sat on
to try and keep us down

I ensure the greater inheritance
to which humankind is born, finer spoils
of every persuasion under the sun
if it chooses to look, see, hear and, listen,
play the chameleon (as well it may)
since few people see with the inner eye,
hear with the inner ear, preoccupied
as they are with ritual and religion diverting
attention from the bigger picture

I ensure the greater inheritance
to which humankind is born whose tragedy
is a potential for greatness
beyond the riches of its sheikhs and kings,
tunnel vision of clerics insinuating
its personal space, claiming Squatters Rights
should anyone try to move them on,
any appearance of mutual negotiation
but paying lip service to reason

I am Mind-Body-Spirit, a creative ingenuity
redefining immortality

Copyright R N Taber, 2012, 2016

[Note: Revised (2019) from an earlier version under the title 'The Executor' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.] 







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Friday 4 March 2016

Victims


Domestic abuse can happen anywhere in the world at any time. More often than not family members and/or friends and/or neighbours and/or teachers and/or work colleagues may have suspicions. It is not a subject on which anyone should remain silent for fear of being wrong. Better to be proven wrong than let a wrong continue and say nothing, surely…? 

Domestic abuse is not uncommon in any society; men, women, children, it can happen to anyone. Yet, the same people that will protest about environmental and Human Rights abuses will often remain silent about domestic abuse.  Where is the logic in that and what excuses can there be? Yes, well, plenty of excuses; even love - to its everlasting shame - is one of the masks perpetrators of domestic abuse often wear.

VICTIMS

Brightness falling from the sky
like summer rain, makes flowers grow,
the world shine like rainbow trout
on a school kid's line at a local stream
who should be in the football team,
but his dad's beat him black and blue
where ma's laid out on the kitchen floor,
can't take any more

Brightness falling from the sky
like acid rain, making the trees cry
as leaves die like fishes in the sea,
collector specimens neatly laid out
under glass for generations to see
how dead things appear to suggest
a history of human deprivation for want
of a better education

Shadows, like corpses on the grass;
skylark, a near forgotten sound at a spot
where revelations in the clay suggest
a once-busy stream in a world earmarked
for the winning team, the rest of us
neatly laid out under corporate glass,
(preserved for a new century, a new class)
victims of abuse

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2016

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from an earlier version that appears in 1st eds. of Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

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Tuesday 1 March 2016

The Yellow Balloon

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

Children across the world are expected to take its worst tantrums in their stride, but for how long…?

For the many caught up in its conflicts, the world must often seem a bleak place, any worthwhile future, for them at least, an all but impossible dream.

Of course, it is not all doom and gloom, but children should not have to snatch at happiness as and when they can; it should be the greater part of growing up. Yes, even playtime has its ups and downs, good times and bad, but that’s life, a learning curve for all of us at any age. 

True, the world today is a dangerous place, but children need to be reasonably prepared for, not scared of it. Besides, is not having to deal with parental and peer pressures enough without having to contend with being made to feel they are a disappointment for not fully participating in someone else’s second hand life or, far worse, struggling to survive a war zone? 

Whatever, indeed, happened to playtime?

THE YELLOW BALLOON 

Children
playing with a yellow balloon,
mothers calling   
back home, as a mocking wind 
snatches it from tiny fingers,
dispatching it to drift mottled skies
weepy with satire?

Children
chasing after a yellow balloon,
father calling
back home, but they play deaf
among innocent cries
inciting adventures, welcome respite
from secrets and lies

Children
trying to catch a yellow balloon
beyond either reach or ken,
no sense of direction, quickly
consumed by angry skies,
menaced by cloud figures waving
smoking guns

Children
observed in tears over a balloon
burst by a phoenix
rising from its everyday ashes
to heavens where sunlight
last seen glancing off shrapnel
slowly killing them

Children, in near and faraway places
picking up the pieces…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

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