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 18 June 2019

Past-Present-Future, 'Live' Art

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

In mind-body-spirit - or personal space - I am always revisiting people and places I’ve known and loved; invariably they inspire a poem. It is one of my favourite pastimes, looking back at my life and seeing how (albeit unknown to me at the time) interaction with certain people whether they be loved ones, old friends, casual acquaintances or total strangers with whom I may well have got chatting at a bus stop, on a beach, wherever…have directly or indirectly affected me, and how I have progressed (or not) since.

Each time, I go there, I see parts of whatever whole from a different perspective, but always making a connection between my Then-and-Now and my Here-and Now, while also speculating how it may yet affect any or all of my tomorrows…

Each of us are links in various chains of existence; our own, of course, but also other people’s albeit any or none made visible, even to the inner eye, at any one time.

Once, at school some 60+ years ago, our Religious Education teacher, M Partridge, was asked by a classmate what happened to anyone who did not believe in God. Why, he wanted to know, should we go to Hell over a difference of opinion? Mr P did not hesitate. “One way or another, we make our own heaven just as we make our own hell here on Earth,” he replied, “… regardless of what or in whom we believe.” “God goes by different names according to our religion, but no religion has a monopoly on God because, above all. God is Peace, something we all deserve and aspire to. (I, for one, believe that’s what Death is all about.) As for the manner of such peace, who knows…religion shapes it one way but who’s to say there aren’t alternatives we devise for ourselves as we go through life. Does that answer your question?”

It didn’t, of course, and probably wouldn’t to any 14-year-old, but it certainly gave the entire class food for thought; food on which I have chewed over time and again, alone and among friends.  Rarely do we reach a consensus, but we enjoy agreeing to differ, thereby – to my mind at least – driving home the principle that our differences don’t make us different, only human. It is a sound principle (surely) and one that, for me, has its roots in a 50 mins R E lesson in 1959.

PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, 'LIVE' ART

I’ve strolled, with ghosts,
by rivers and streams, crossed oceans,
climbed mountains, lain
in green fields under sun, moon and stars,
recreating time and space

I’ve chatted with ghosts
about living for days passing too soon,
finding and losing track
of lesser dreams, harvesting the best,
leaving the rest to others

I’ve wept with ghosts
for missed opportunities, love affairs
lost to poor choices
made in good faith, yet proving nemeses
to all mind-body-spirit

We have made promises
to each other, my ghosts and I, some kept,
many broken or filed
among heartbeats last heard of skipping
multiple lost causes

I’ll sing along with ghosts
of joy and regret, lyrics by sun nymphs,
happy-sad ballads
orchestrated by wind and rain as if to sustain
a kinder Here-and-Now

They wait for me, my ghosts,
where I, too, will inevitably take my place
in a consciousness
loath to surrender any gifts of word-deed
inspiring a greater good

I will know them, my ghosts,
whatever truths they may yet bring home,
though but silhouettes
against a feisty sunset on any favourite places
mind-body spirit revisiting


Copyright R. N. Taber 2019











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Thursday 6 October 2016

Tides of the Heart


Love can be as fickle as it is desirable, while sometime misinterpreted as fickle when simply unable to reach a decision for one reason or another.

Could it be that many of the world’s lovers (LGBT included) need to talk to each other more…? Even love can be guilty of taking too much for granted…

Whatever, can any of life’s challenges be tougher than faced by the long distance swimmer on tides of the human heart…?

TIDES OF THE HEART

Sat on a beach,
watching the waves
roll in, out,
and back again…
like love’s promises
to me

Just out of reach,
waiting for your love
to roll in, out,
and back again…
like the finest poetry
and prose

Winging, calling
to you among sea birds,
now high, now low,
nature’s wry comment
on humanity’s tides
of life

Alone on a beach,
its beachcombing hearts
on the look-out
for any such as ours,
among love’s flotsam
and jetsam

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Secrets, Ebb and Flow' in an anthology, As Waves Pass By, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2002, and subsequently in my own collection, First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

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