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.

Thursday 24 October 2019

High Noon, an Epic Confrontation

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

This post/poem appears in my gay-interest blog's archives for March 2013.Such confrontations are still going on around the world; not only  LGBT people either, anxiously debating within themselves whether or not to follow their nature /instincts or continue to struggle within the socio-cultural-religious framework in which they were raised. Will loved ones understand, even support us? Have we the inner strength to go it alone if we must? Is it all really worth it, maybe best to leave well alone and carry on pretending? These are questions it is hard and painful enough for any adult to face - as many do - so imagine what it must be like for a girl or boy still at school and not yet fully matured? It is a living hell, believe you me. For me, though, it was some 60 years ago, yet time and again I have included gay-interest poetry at readings around the country and someone has emailed me the next day to say it is the same for them in this supposedly positive thinking 21st Century.

How do many among the heterosexual majority justify putting anyone through this, but especially a young person? Where is the morality in it, I ask of those who whose prejudices are such that they even support hate crime against anyone who happens to be 'different' from some academic 'norm'? Are we not one human race, and should be supporting each other? If climate change progresses as expected, there will come a time when we will all need each other to stand any chance of survival.

We should never forget that in some countries, same-sex relationships are still a criminal offence, punishable by long prison sentences or even death.

A reader in the UK but whose family live in Nigeria has been in touch on several occasions to say he has a gay relation there who is suicidal. I can relate to that. Gay relationships were a criminal offence here in the UK all through my teenage years into early manhood. I did not feel I could confide in anyone, least of all my family, and found it hard to get on top of my struggle with an emerging sexuality that contradicted everything I had been told and taught.

As regular readers know, I won my battle, but it contributed hugely to a severe nervous breakdown in my early 30s during which I contemplated suicide more than once; on one occasion, I took an overdose that was no cry for help but a serious attempt to end my life. Thankfully, I came through all that, and am all the stronger for it. Even so, it was a living nightmare that haunts me even to this day. Whenever I hear about people brought to the edge of suicide or have taken that final step, my heart goes out to them.

I am fortunate enough to live in a country that now permits me to be openly gay, but even here in the UK there are young gay people growing up in a gay-unfriendly environment and facing much the same inner struggle with their sexuality as I did all those years ago. (I am in my 70's now.)

What can I say? I can only reassure gay people worldwide that they have nothing to be ashamed of although, yes, in some countries and within some families of various cultural origins they may well have reasons to be scared.

The freedom to be ourselves and not as others - even if not especially those closest to us - would prefer us to be is one of life’s greater gifts; we may well have to wait, even fight for it (emotionally if not physically) but it is my personal experience that either is well worth the effort.

To those gay boys, girls, men and women who live under repressive regimes that continue to fan the flames of homophobia I can only repeat, never feel ashamed of your sexuality or believe you are a less of a human being for it. Whether or not our circumstances allow us to be openly gay, there is an inner freedom that no one can take away from us.

Regular readers will also know that I support euthanasia in certain circumstances. More often than not, though, suicide is a temptation that is our enemy, Surrender to it, and we let the enemy win. It has to be better, surely, to live to fight our corner, each in our own way?

Yes, I am gay, but each to his or her own personal battles, whether it be with the homophobes among us or certain other socio-cultural-religious bigots bent upon giving this early 21st century of ours not only a poor start around the world but also a bad name. 

We hear much talk of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ but even here in the West, there is too much rhetoric and not nearly enough done to ensure that, within reason, we are left safe and free to be ourselves rather than puppets of someone else’s convention, morality, politics, culture, religion, whatever…

HIGH NOON, AN EPIC CONFRONTATION

I had adopted a stoic pose at a cliff edge,
preparing for whatever, although no Icarus,
but able to rectify my mistakes

Despairing of promises my inner self
would gladly have let me keep,
but for a life eroding like a coral reef
for whom even its Big Fish fear
in still waters running far, far, deeper
than the, oh, so fickle foam below
now yelling, ‘I told you so’ for the times
I’d turn a blind eye and deaf ear
to all a better, kinder, self in me refused
to hear or see for its both feet kicking
at reality, too busy kidding as true a self
as ever wore a size eight shoe

Conscience was clear and not to blame,
accomplice (by any other name)
to dark forces as likely to smash against
the walls of the mind as the sea to rage
at the world’s cliffs simply for being here,
where I stand - NOW - at a moment
in time and space above cultural hang-ups,
religious dogma, the rhetoric of politics
or philosophy, turning my back on poetry,
rejecting plain fact and pretty fiction,
answering for size eight shoes by making
a gothic horror of friendly ghosts
summoned to decide and execute my fate
(ultimately relieving me of its weight)

Ah, but they know me too well, my ghosts
and utter not one word of reproach,
or persuasion even to listen to what some call
the ‘voice of reason’ - but preferring
to watch and wait as I move closer to the edge
of mortality, martyr to infinity, gift wrapped
in foam for tin gods to argue over its contents
without even opening me, a galling enough
metaphor for eternity, come a high tide intent
on swallowing us whole dare we surrender
to it. Not a whisper in the wind, only the sound
of angry gods rising to the bait…
(a pretty if senseless enough simile for fate)
where I flinched for feeling mocked

Taken for a fool by world, ghosts and Muse
for not only refusing to be overlooked
but eager to enter any fray that might justify
pole position at my shoulder like a parrot
repeating such facts of life and death by rote
as I may have been known to utter now
and then (voice of reason or drama queen?)
returning to haunt me, remind me
I’m no Gary Cooper challenging high noon;
(If I don’t cave in, I still can’t win.)
So what to do? Where to go? Time to start
trusting my friendly ghosts implicitly

Coming clean, letting life get real with me,
holding my head high for being gay, tin gods
left to their quarrelsome play

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012, 2019

[Note: This poem takes its title from the classic western 'High Noon' (1952)]

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