Origin of a Species

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

As I grow old, I seem to identify less and less with the world as it is today, not least for years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer depriving me of so many happier memories relating to much happier times. If I had known when my cancer was first diagnosed, I would have chosen to have no treatment at all. 

But... it is as it is, and no one to blame but myself. I suspect many of not most of us we make as many bad as good choices in life. 

We do have choices, though, even if ‘freedom” of choice’ has become something of an exaggeration. Why, for example, if a person’s quality of life has become barely tolerable does assisted suicide remain illegal? Various world religions will argue against it, of course, but why should someone who doesn’t even subscribe to these be made to continue suffering or die by their own hand alone? Even if one does subscribe, how does suffering and/or dying alone equate with the God of Love religious bodies are so anxious we should believe in... or what? 

Some religions would see me in Hell because I am gay, but sexuality is not a choice, it is no less an aspect of the human condition than heterosexuality; being of any LGBT persuasion is simply human, and does not deserve either the hate crime or bad press to which we are often subjected, even in a supposedly ‘civilised’ 21^st century. 

History shows that prejudices and bigotry have always existed in various societies and communities worldwide, but if history is an evolving process in the living drama that is a common humanity... how come swathes of common humanity remain hug-up on various sexual, racial and gender prejudices...to name but a few? 

We may well have good reason not to like someone (and they, us) but that’s personal; nurturing any prejudice against someone simply on the grounds of their gender, ethnicity or sexuality... well, that takes ‘personal’ to a new and wholly unacceptable level. (Well, doesn’t it...?) Mind you, I suspect I am not the only person weary of being accused of bigotry when the tensions between me and others have been of a purely personal nature...  

It really is a mad, mad, mad world. 

ORIGINS OF A SPECIES 

I come into the world as I am,
leave it as it has made me, for better or worse,
in sickness or in health,
much the same whole as started out
for all its parts shaping
and reshaping me depending on how the world
would have me be, and resistant
I may prove to be in the face of its various measures
of division, interpretation and derision 

I come into the world as I am
child of nature, born of woman, created either
for pleasure or lust,
as needs must we creatures great and small
do our bit for regeneration,
trusting in something as positive passing on
from generation to generation
as will ever see the beauty of integrity’s seasons come,
nature and human nature’s will be done 

I come into the world as I am,
vulnerable to its divisive ways, each supposedly
caring for the likes of me,
but only on terms acceptable to such aspects
of a (common) humanity
as likely to find favour with whatever line of duty
I’ve been groomed for, in the name
of whatever socio-cultural-religious or political education;
in whose best interests, up for speculation 

Open-hearted, open-minded, I’m a species of human spirit
for whom its self-styled “betters” so love to reap credit 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y, Love Poems

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

As I continue putting together a new collection of poems, this one caught my eye; it first appeared on the blog in 2011.

People often ask me why I write poetry. I try to answer this in many of my love poems. Although the love of my life died many years ago and we had only a few years together, our love for each other continues to sustain me. Yet, as I often say to people living alone as I do, love comes in many shapes and forms; family, friends, pets, places...all these can be loved and become an integral part of not only our lives but also our whole being.

In my case, my relationship with friends and nature are the focus of my love,  and subsequently my love for poetry; the latter, by the way, is a gift from my dear mother who would often recite poems to me at bedtime as well as reading me stories. She died in June 1976 when I was 30 years-old, but I feel her presence whenever I write a poem just as I feel my late partner’s and others I have loved. Yes, there is sadness in me because I will never see them again, but that is more than compensated for and transcended by love...every day of every year.

Years ago, I wrote a gay love poem which, sadly, I have since mislaid as it predated the age of computers and am unable to rewrite as I have a poor memory after years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer. At the time, a colleague urged me to submit it to a poetry magazine whose editor subsequently commended me for my efforts while rejecting it on the grounds that gay love poems lack integrity and might well offend regular readers.

Love comes in all shapes and forms and is as changeable as the seasons, in nature and human nature alike; like every season, it gives new life in one breath and takes with another while encouraging us to be be glad for what we have, and make the best of it, rather then dwell on what we have not, and make the worst.

True love is more than eternal, it is eternity, that you-me-us that has characterised human life since its earliest beginnings, and always will. Nor does any culture or religion have a monopoly on its spirituality; the human spirit in us all will see to that, if we will but let it, whoever and wherever we may be.

This poem is a villanelle.

I-N-T-E-G-R-I-T-Y, LOVE POEMS

In love poems, discern integrity

touching on all life's finer themes;

the ultimate collector's anthology

Any prose on contemporaneity

may well rip us apart at the seams;

in love poems, discern integrity

Where some see cruel ambiguity,

love lends out its promising dreams;

the ultimate collector's anthology

There's a cruelty rooted in bigotry,

humanity but a patch on all it seems;

in love poems, discern integrity

Natural world allowed its dignity,

till Earth Mother's face surely beams;

the ultimate collector's anthology

Come age, gender, race, sexuality, 

prejudices (still) haunting our dreams;

in love poems, discern integrity,

the ultimate collector's anthology

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012, rev. 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title' Love, an Epic Poem' in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012; this post/ poem also appears on my gay-interest poetry blog today.]

Buddy Joe

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

I posted this poem on my gay-interest blog some eight years ago; you can find it in that blog's archives for January 2011. (Archives are listed on the right hand side of any blog page.)

As is the case here in the UK, it has been 'acceptable' and legal for LGBT people to serve in armed forces around the world for some years, but many still choose to remain closet for fear of losing the  respect of their colleagues as much as various reprisals and bullying that invariably go unreported.

The poem was inspired by a conversation with a veteran of World War 2 whose partner has been killed in action. In those days, of course, same-sex relationships were illegal. During the since I wrote it,  I have had similar conversations with young (and older) men (usually in gay bars) who have lost partners on the battlefields of Iraq or Afghanistan. [No, I wasn't necessarily cruising. I guess I have the sort of face people feel they can open up to.] Two of these guys were serving soldiers.  Same-sex relationships may be legal now, even in the armed services, but as one guy put it, 'Let on you're gay in the army and you're fu**ked up good and proper.'

I was only glad to be in the right place at the right time so they could pour their hearts out as only one can to a complete stranger.

I am posting it here today because I had a similar conversation not so long ago with serving army officer. He made the point - and rightly so - that it gay people are good enough to fight and die so the rest of us can carry on with our lives in pace, how come they are not considered (by many) good enough to command our respect simply on the grounds of their sexuality?

Same sex relationships have been practised for aeons, so isn't it high time the rest of the world got real and ceased attacking the likes of your truly, often on the grounds of unfounded stereotypes and fake news by way of innuendo and gossip, not to mention the occasional exposure in the press, most of which are blown up out of all proportion? Yes, there are gay people who set a bad example to the rest of us, but can any die-hard heterosexual claim, hand on heart, that the same is not true of certain heterosexuals the world over? As my closet officer friend commented, "...we come in for more abuse than so-called Islamic State, for chrissake, I ask you!"

A person may not agree with or even approve of another's sexuality, but what business if it of theirs anyway, and whatever happened to agreeing to differ?

BUDDY. JOE

The day buddy Joe left town,
my heart missed a beat, I nearly died;
I prayed for his safe return
at our secret place - and cried

No one knew how buddy Joe
and I shared a love the law forbade;
my grief I dared not show
for the dreams that once we made

Buddy Joe went to fight a war
in a land of which he’d scarcely heard;
of many others gone before,
the powers-that-be gave little word

The day of buddy Joe’s return
my heart missed a beat, I surely died;
as they lowered his coffin down,
for once my tears no cause to hide

No one knows how buddy Joe
and I indulged a passion the law forbade;
the world has another hero…
I can but grieve the dreams we made

To life restored, piece by piece,
and if sometimes taking a wrong turn,
I'm the richer for love and peace
that to Joe I’ll always look and learn

Copyright R. N. Taber 2006

You-Me-Us, the Ultimate Selfie OR Partners for Life

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

It is not only gay people who have a problem with other people's approach to their sexuality; given that given that part of its whole happens to be sex, it is not uncommon for people to be wary, even afraid of sex, especially if they happen to have been have been raised - intentionally or not - in a sex-unfriendly environment. In some homes, sex and sexuality remain ‘not in front of the children’ issues so what are children, especially the early teens, supposed to make of that? Children are not fools; they are frequently more intensely aware of what goes on around them than many parents or even teachers appreciate.

Sex is fun, and in the context of human love can also be a very spiritual experience; there is nothing wrong with having fun, and no spiritual experience deserves to be put down simply because it does not necessarily relate to any religious experience.  As I have often said on my blogs, religion does not have a monopoly on spirituality; of all the parts comprising human nature, a sense of spirituality is one that deserves nurture, but is all too often neglected where religious or cultural identity have a lesser or no role to play.

Some people, of course, simply have no real interest in sex and that’s OK. Others may well be confused by various socio-cultural-religious attitudes towards sex and sexual identity.

Could we all not benefit from being better educated about sex and sexuality other than as prescribed by various socio-cultural-religious conventions? (Yes, I know I am repeating myself and probably will again.) Certainly, there would be far less denial, confusion and bad attitude regarding either if more schools would only discuss it with classes in a manner appropriate to the ages of the children and young people in them. No easy task, I agree, given how many children and young people will laugh and make jokes, as is the nature of people everywhere when someone touches on a nerve. Would they perhaps be less inclined to do so, though, if we adults encouraged them to discuss the subject - in all its aspects - sensitively and intelligently instead of suggesting it’s really a matter for the birds and bees?

In many cases, by the time any birds and bees get in on the act, most children have an idea in their heads about what sex and sexuality involves; that idea needs to be expanded, clarified and discussed.

Since many parents find intimacy if not love too embarrassing a subject to raise with their own children, a family member can be called upon or someone to whom the child or young person can relate and for whom they have affection and respect. All too often, though, this does not happen just as far too many schools also shirk the task of educating their students about where sex related issues fits into the complex jigsaw that is a life comprising love, pleasure, consideration and respect for others (and ourselves) among a gamut of emotions, not least a sense of spirituality. In my case, as regular readers well know, I take the latter from nature, but taking it from religion should not mean intimacy - as an expression of love and/or desire and/or the need to be physically close to someone for whatever reason - becomes demeaned in any way. In many cases, of course, it isn’t, while in others it most certainly is.

Colour, creed, sex, sexuality, these are part of a whole; it is the whole that counts so the greater our understanding of and respect for that, the better person we are likely to become; better equipped, too, for surviving the jungle that is human nature.

This  poem is a kenning.

YOU-ME-US, THE ULTIMATE SELFIE or PARTNERS FOR LIFE

I am that you-me-us

calling on love and peace

wherever they go,

whatever path they take

through life,

trudging sadly, skipping madly

or taking wary steps

across minefields scattered
like leaves of dogma

I am a good friend,

proving a good companion 

on life’s journey,

even beyond halcyon days

and nights committed

to memory, transcending

any regret for times past,

inspiring a lasting spirituality

independent of dogma

See me for what I am,

rooting for the natural world
to beat human odds;

on your side if sometimes 
agreeing to differ,

trusting love to win through;

my brief, to rise

above any contentiousness

perpetuated by dogma

Only, acknowledge my integrity

who am called Sexuality

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Nights Before and Mornings After

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

This poem has been significantly revised from the original as it appears in my collection. Why do I make revisions at all, especially where poems have already appeared in poetry publications elsewhere in their original form? To be honest, I am not really sure. Some poems I don’t revise in the least; others, as I read them from a distance of several years or more, seem to cry out, to a greater or lesser extent, for change.

As a poem is being read and interrelates with the reader, it takes on a life of its own. How much of a life and what shape it takes will depend, of course, as much on the reader as the poet. Could it be perhaps that even poems - like many of us as we grow old(er) - would welcome a makeover of sorts?

I can live with living alone, not least because I am a fairly self-contained person. At the same time, I wake sometimes to a bleak feeling of emptiness that I would never experience upon opening my eyes  to love-lines on the ceiling while listening to the gentle breathing of someone next to me. Moreover, it is a feeling to which  I suspect no single person, whatever their sex or sexuality, would ever claim a monopoly,

NIGHTS BEFORE AND MORNINGS AFTER

The touch of your cheek
like damask on mine;
playful fingers, eagerly
entwining

Watching a crescent moon
play hide-and-seek.
an occasional star venturing
to peek…

Clouds drift down, cover
the world’s lovers
with a handkerchief stained
shades of blue
for all the lights, darks
and in-betweens
of human loves, joy, grief...
marking pearly brows

Distant hum of an aeroplane
waking the senses
to a rare  reality hinting
at immortality

Your lips homing in
on mine,
eager tongues breaking free
of all bondage

Heaven-sent embraces
gathering pace, spinning us
on the Earth’s axis,
spilling us like drops of dew
from spreading petals
come break of day, exuding
incredible scents of  a lifetime's
lovemaking,

Pink triangle of dawn,
risen to a chorus
of nature’s lasting blessing
on our finer triumphs

At peace in your arms,
no sweeter rest
for having no dread of waking
from it alone

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem  appears under the title 'Heaven's Handkerchief' in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

Notes on the Art of Self-Deception

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

We have all met them, people who are too stubborn to admit they even might be wrong or mistaken; who won’t compromise because they see even meeting someone halfway as a sign of weakness.

Mind you, even stubbornness has its place in the human psyche; it can be a virtuy or a vice.. For example, it is helping me through my treatment for prostate cancer; a stubborn streak in me refuses to consider (most of the time) what could yet happen.

Oh, but life is too short to dwell for long on its what-ifs and maybes. Carpe Diem, I say!

This poem is a kenning, sometimes referred to as a 'Who am I?' poem.

NOTES ON THE ART OF SELF-DECEPTION

Few acknowledge

my presence from beginning to end

of their time,

insinuating my way with expertise

worthy of a spy

intent on political obstruction,

slithering in and out

among corridors of a nation’s

central powerhouse

To anyone aware

of my existence, it suits them best

to deny I have any influence

over their affairs, but will insist

they will proceed

with the fairness and diplomacy

(not political expediency)

choosing to ignore my capacity

for sabotage

Though the heart

stay true to all intents and purposes,

I will wreak havoc

among dark corridors of the mind,

slithering in and out

where conscience would tread,

ensuring a degree

of impotence for its slipping up

on a trail of lies

 I pass for a pale imitation of integrity

 in the footlights of human vanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

Flesh And Blood

http://aspectsofagaymanslifeinverse.blogspot.com/

Today’s poem has been inspired by tales told me by young people whose Coming Out experience was no way as tough an experience as they expected. Me, I did not feel I could confide in my family and only told my mother a few years before she died.  I was in and out of the damn closet for years, trusting relatively few people with the knowledge that I am gay, before I finally came out to stay in the early 1980s. [Gay relationships ‘between consenting adults’ were decriminalised in the UK in 1967.]

The poem last appeared on the blog in 2010 and is repeated today for all those gay boys and girls, men and women who have found coming out to family and friends something of a traumatic experience. As my blogs are read worldwide, hopefully gay people whose socio-cultural-religious origins will not allow them to be openly gay, might take heart in the fact that no civilised person sees sexual identity as unnatural, criminal or sinful; it is simply part of our whole identity, albeit an integral part, but it is the whole that really counts. Picking on someone for their sexuality is like claiming to have completed a jigsaw puzzle with much of it still missing, and only a very foolish person does that...

It is easier to be openly gay if you are growing up in a gay-friendly environment, but many of us don’t so it is can be really tough on everyone concerned. Even so, it is well worth it if only for personal peace of mind. If it means having to move away from family and friends and getting a life while they mull things over, so be it.

Sadly, it can take some people a long time to shake off the worst of the outdated, misleading and often offensive stereotypes that continue to attach themselves to gay people in the minds of the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority. But if any family members or so-called ‘friends’ really can’t see that we’re still the same person for coming out of the damn closet they put us in ...well, maybe we are better off without them. 

Believe me. It gets easier for most people...family, friends, and us too! I guess it goes with the territory, learning to fit in to our sexuality like a hand to a glove, and then, before we know it, as a hand to the body with which nature has blessed us.

Oh, but if only those blinkered leaders in countries where gay relationships remain a criminal offence would accept that sexuality is as natural as each breath we take and we can make a valuable contribution to our native society, especially failing societies; invariably, these are hosted by repressive regimes and/or have the ear of religious fundamentalists. [So-called ‘Christian’ evangelical pastors around the world, especially those still relentlessly inciting hate crime across much of Africa, take note!]

Yes, I know I have said it all before. But as my dear late mother used to say, if something is worth saying, it is always worth repeating. Mind you, the old adage is so true; there are none so deaf as will not hear or so blind that will not see. I guess we just have to try and make them...

Did I say it would be easy?

FLESH AND BLOOD

When we told my parents

we are gay and in love,

the looks they flung us said it all

their words fraught

with anger, pain and distress,

urging us to think again

about just what it would mean

to fly in the face of religion,

insult God - and for what?

Desires of the flesh

overriding all human decency

(unnatural at that)

When we told your parents

we are gay and in love,

the looks they flung us said it all,

tumbling over words

conveying their happiness,

hopes that we will

know the same joys of love

that had been theirs

for years - and for what?

Desires of the flesh

mindful of all human decency

playing its part

When my parents met yours

over dinner one night,

the looks they flung each other

did not augur well

for an entertaining evening

but yours won mine over

with their no-nonsense talking

about living, loving,

sharing - and for what?

Desires of the flesh

with all that’s good and decent

at its heart

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: This poem appears in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]