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 17 March 2020

Clouds


As a child (born 1945) I was stroking a cat one day, happened to look up and could make out a cloud in the shape of a cat. I asked my mother what a cat was doing in the sky. She told me that cloud is a gauze curtain that takes many shapes through which God can see what we humans are up to on Earth. Rain, she added for good measure, is His tears because he rarely likes what He sees, especially when little boys misbehave.

I was very close to my mother. She was a very Christian woman, and although she was far from being one of those people inclined to inflict their own views on others, her words put me off religion forever if only because I did not like the idea of any God spying on me; nor did I much care for the implied threat that I should behave myself … or else. Even so, her words haunted me for many years as I grappled with various concepts of religion and God, eventually discarding both in favour of nature. Nature would offer the young (gay) man I became, a sense of spirituality that came free, no strings (or dogma) attached yet contained within the organised chaos of a time frame-cum-continuum to which the Muse in me could easily relate.

It took me many more years to even begin to articulate on that offer, but was happy to settle for the warm glow it awoke in me and the subsequent poetry it has never ceased to comfort, teach and inspire. Whatever our race, creed or sexuality, we are all but human and - where we like it or not - we are all in the swim of life together. 

This poem is a villanelle.

PHOTO: from the Internet



CLOUDS

Cloud cover
come another dawn
(like cats' fur)

All a-shimmer
(a lonely, weepy sun)
cloud cover

Quicksilver
heavens for everyone
(like cats' fur)

‘Live’ mirror
(humanity looking in);
cloud cover

Analogies
demanding our attention
(like cats' fur)

Fine promises
caught out on the turn?
Cloud cover
like cats' fur

Copyright R. N. Taber 1999; 2016


[Note: revised (2016) from an earlier version that appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed.in e-format in preparation.] 

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Friday 9 May 2014

Observations on the Human Nature of Cats


When I was much younger (I was born in 1945) I used to play with a local stray cat that would cadge food, shelter, and affection from just about anyone, until it grew old and didn’t want to do much other than laze around yawning for much of the time.  Every now and then, though, it would throw me a knowing look as if to say, ‘I may be getting old, but I can still climb trees in my sleep. One day you’ll know what I mean.’

Yes, well, that cat never said a truer word…


[Photo from the Internet]
  
OBSERVATIONS ON THE HUMAN NATURE OF CATS

No feeble cat, I haunt people and places
I have loved, glimpse in smiling faces
a hint of pain and weariness but quickly
overcome by a strength of spirit
and zest for life, feeding me the same
though I am lost for words, cannot
name this feeling in me that puts a spring
in my step, clears blurred vision, warming
bones that have seen better days

Home cat, alley cat, pedigree, strayed,
pacing the same boundaries laid
when the appetite for territory strong
and I made my presence felt among
peers, not always for the best of reasons
it has to be said, but my seasons
well spent, better instincts no less reliable
for feeling my way when Top Cat disagrees
for seeing, sadly, through misty eyes

To each living thing, a time must come
to set the spirit free, surrender
all temporal claim to a body seen us
through good times and bad,
made grave mistakes, done us proud,
no undoing or (ever) going back, 
on chances given us to make amends, 
live and let live among old enemies, never
having to forgive old friends

Black cat, white cat, tricks of light;
tiger, tiger, burning bright…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem (under the title Year of the Cat) appears in 1st editions of The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; 2nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.]


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