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].

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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.

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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