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 24 April 2016

Friends

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

Today’s poem - another villanelle - was first written in 2002 and published in an anthology the following year before I included it in my collection.

Why do I make revisions at all?  During the process of preparing my collection for publication to Google Play in e-format, I find myself dissatisfied with some poems for reasons not always obvious, even to me; most, it has to do with how a poems ‘flows’ – or doesn’t, as the case may be.

Given that I’ve never really got along with most members of either my immediate or extended family, good friends have always been especially important to me. (Yes, even those of the ‘fair weather’ variety.) As I grow old (71 now and live alone) I am, oh, so thankful to and for good friends. and value our friendship even more.  

FRIENDS

Come some dark, lonely night
or saddest sunny day,
find friends, making it all right

At one with moon and starlight
kept at bay,
come some dark, lonely, night

Wherever a so-weepy half-light
gone charcoal grey,
find friends, making it all right

Find home fires burning bright
(shaping our clay)
come some dark, lonely night

Losing out (again) taking fright
of facing another day;
find friends, making it all right

Oh, but no kinder end or respite
from worldly rites of way;
come some darkest, longest night,
find friends, making it all right

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Among Friends, Music to the Ears' in an anthology, Where the Words take You, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2003 and subsequently in The Third Eye (2004) by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

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Saturday 23 April 2016

Blues OR Up the Down Escalator

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

This may not be one of my better poems (!) but one I enjoyed writing; a reader got in touch to say she was 'an emotional wreck'  (I know the feeling!) and asked for a poem to cheer her up. 


I played around with this poem one evening and sent it. Later, the reader said it had encouraged her to stop feeling sorry for herself and ‘go and find Somewhere Town’.


Years ago when I was struggling to recover from a severe nervous breakdown, an artist friend suggested I listen to some Blues. When I expressed scepticism, he simply said, Believe me. nothing is more uplifting than to know despair is universal and you're not alone.' Another friend (a musician) agreed, insisting that 'The sheer emotional intensity of Blues takes you where you where the mind needs must be to start over, way above and beyond where the heart is too scared of losing its safety net to even want to try.' 


That's all very well, I thought, but meaningless...until I spent an hour or so one day listening to some great Blues...


It worked, and I started to get my life back.



"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

BLUES or UP THE DOWN ESCALATOR


I had the Blues,

was close to breaking down.
just kept rolling on
towards Nowhere Town,
heading north of the sun,
veering west at the moon;
be sure there’s a Nowhere Town
for everyone

I sang the Blues,

whole world egging me on,
nowhere else to run
but Nowhere Town;
folks laughed and cried,
didn’t take me for a clown;
be sure everyone  sings the Blues
in Nowhere Town

Through the Blues,

I saw a knowing wink declare,
it’s a dead loss here,
so try going somewhere
south of the sun,
a little east at the moon,
where there’s a Somewhere Town
for everyone

Blues, they don't ever let me down;

destination, Somewhere Town…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

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Friday 22 April 2016

Humanity, Greater than the Sum of its Stereotypes


We live in a troubled world. Even so, for most of us, our faith in the essential goodness of human nature remains unshaken if somewhat battered; on balance, good, kind people in the world far outnumber their opposites, and hopefully always will.

Like many gay people, I have been physically as well as verbally abused for being gay. Homophobia, racist, religious intolerance...once, these made me angry, bitter and resentful. Now, at 70+ years-old, they just makes me sad, very sad.

We are a common humanity. As I have said many times and will say again, we need to respect each other for our differences not fight over them; try to support each other as and when we can even as we are (sometimes) struggling to get to grips with life  ourselves.

Is that really too much to ask?

When push comes to shove, what does anyone's colour, creed, sex or sexuality have to do with their humanity anyway?

Now, inhumanity, that's another story...

Yes, we all know it makes common sense…so what holier-than-thou fool threw that out of what window on the world centuries ago, I wonder?

HUMANITY, GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS STEREOTYPES 

There is a place in this life
for everyone,
space enough in this world
for everyone,
love’s flowers enough to share
with everyone,
happy hours enough to care
for everyone

There is a place in this life
for everyone,
pain enough in this world
for everyone,
inhumanity enough laid bare
to everyone,
healing ways enough to care
for everyone

There is a place in this life
for everyone,
(gay or straight) in a world
for everyone,
individuality enough to share
with everyone,
humanity enough (surely?)
in everyone

Though hard choices imposed
on everyone,
divided voices superimposed
on everyone,
let humanity make time enough
for everyone,
happy hours enough to care
for everyone

So come on, world, out with it;
what’s your problem with that?


Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

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Thursday 21 April 2016

Majesty, Open Window on an Island History


Today Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth 11 is ninety years-old, the longest serving monarch in British history. Here’s wishing Her Majesty a very Happy Birthday.

(Photo taken from the Internet)

There will be tributes paid across the world far greater than mine, but I could not let the occasion pass without marking it on the blog.

(Photo taken from the Internet)


Her Majesty at 90 and three kings-in-waiting,
(Photo taken from the Internet)
This poem is a villanelle.

MAJESTY, OPEN WINDOW ON AN ISLAND HISTORY

Sixty-four years on the throne,
dedicated to serving her country
a much loved, respected queen

A sunny smile for any occasion
marking milestones of pageantry,
sixty-four years on the throne

Classless greetings for everyone
unfazed by royalty, icon of dignity,
a much loved, respected queen

Her innermost thoughts unknown
to those she serves daily, faithfully,
sixty-four years on the throne

Horse riding, a life-time passion,
imaging a very human personality,
a much-loved, respected queen

No abuse of wealth of position
through years of political history;
sixty-four years on the throne,
a much loved, respected queen


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016


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Thursday 14 April 2016

The Crusher

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

This Age of New Technology is an Information Age like no other (so far) with information available to us at the press of a button. How much of this, though, is reliable or even correct? Although it is a good 50+ years since I left school, I well recall being taught how to discriminate fact from speculation, points of view from an extended imagination which only just falls short of pure fiction.

Often, I hear people tell me they like to speak their minds, and I am all for it. More often than not, though, they are repeating parrot fashion something they have heard or read about with which they happen to relate; relating, however, and agreeing are not the same thing. We need to investigate further in order to reach an informed conclusion.

While many of us have strong opinions on various subjects, we need to respect that others may agree to differ. Better still, we need to be able to support out opinions with information gained from reliable sources. At the same time, we should not dig our heels in to such an extent that we cannot be drawn into alternative arguments which may lead us to reach an altogether different conclusion.

If a closed mind is a dull mind, an open mind is a lively one although sitting on the proverbial fence is not an option and we need to feel confident about deciding where we stand, and be prepared to be counted; that way, the human animal remains free and primed to resists any attempts to cage it by  misleading information or propaganda. 

Where seeing is believing then sadly so, too, is deceiving at times, no one spared, neither political nor religious leaders, while social media targeting the likes of you and me as well.

THE CRUSHER

I will crush you in my grip,
but slowly, relishing the torment
of each victim fallen
into a trap of his or her own making
but deserving better (perhaps?)
than finding me there, rendering
any bid for freedom
no more or less than a pathetic
waste of time

If I show mercy now and then,
be sure it is but part of a dark design
intended to give more false
an impression even than I gave you,
who thought you knew better,
leaving yourself underestimating
your defences, vulnerable
to attack on all sides, quick thinking
your only recourse

I cherish any advantage over you,
relish reminding you time and again
of what deaf-blind vanity
has given you to me like a sacrifice
to Gods of Desire on hand
to enjoy their wicked ways with you,
only to toss their leftovers
where I wait to chew away at live flesh
on the bones

Call me Fake News, active and scary
in world societies believing in me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016, rev. 2021

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised since it last  appeared on the blog under title 'Enemy at the Door' 2016.] RNT







x

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Friday 1 April 2016

Waking up to Life

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

Spring is in the air, season of new life and hope although this sorry world continues to turn as oblivious to positives as to negatives. We human beings, on the other hand, while we, too,  continue our daily lives, we can but look to the former for the inspiration  to carry on just as we must shoulder the latter in order to survive the worst of global conditions and human nature.  

Being positive when the immediate outlook appears bleak is possibly the greatest challenge we face in life. For my part, I always tell myself that spring follows winter, and - trite as it may sound - it has seen me through some BAD times.

May the joyful spirit of spring be with you all regardless of race, creed, sex or sexuality. (Oh, and none of us have to wait till springtime, either, but may well anticipate it by nurturing our own eternal springtime of the heart, arguably the more splendid of all its seasons, bursting with the joy of renewal and the sweet smell of hope.)

WAKING UP TO LIFE 

Showers
in clouds above, promises
of springtime,
tears for a lifetime
of such love 
and loss, joy and sorrow 
haunting us...
thereby remaining a part 
of us forever,
never (quite) leaving us
on our own to run
(oh, so self-consciously)
the eternal gamut
of socio-cultural-religious
trappings coercing
nature and human nature
for selfish gain
if only to get the upper hand
over any secular ethos
promoting self-awareness,
exposing its flaws

Showers
in darkening skies, closing in
on daily lives
trying to make the best of things,
put the worst behind,
bearing in mind a long winter
passed, asking only
of human hearts to open (at last?)
to a side of human nature
that’s less judgemental,
seeking even to be instrumental
in brokering peace
among enemies, encouraging
(mutual) respect)
for multiple differences
of opinion, faith, lifestyle choices,
in a world that rejoices
a civilized society's championing
Human Rights 
for its majorities, minorities too,
no cronyism.

As life-giving showers come and go,
so we, ourselves, aspire to know


Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2016

[Note: This poem appears has been revised since appearing under the title 'A Feeling for Spring' in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007[

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