Predator, Invisible Enemy

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

It being National HIV Testing Week, it seemed a good idea to drop by with this poem from my gay-interest blog archives for March 2013...

Gay or straight, there is no room for complacency regarding HIV-AIDS. We all owe it to ourselves and any potential sex partners to be responsible about sex and use a condom.

It might help if HIV-AIDS were not still something of a taboo subject with many people...

Education has to be the key to raise HIV-AIDS Awareness, in which context I wholeheartedly support organisations like DAMSET whose volunteers created a mural for people who have died of AIDS across Dorset; it involved going into schools and talking about HIV-AIDS. The tiles on the mural were designed by schoolchildren.

I would love to see similar projects worldwide:

http://damset.co.uk

[See also:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKzi9VRjuq0 on my You Tube channel OR search for 'Autobiography of a Beach' on the blog where the video accompanying it is also available.)

PREDATOR, INVISIBLE ENEMY

I have no need to look far for prey,

just follow footprints in the clay

where careless minds feed on a heat

in the blood as if it were for water,

rice or bread, answer to an everyday

need; no problem for a seasoned

tracker such as I, descending upon

bodies nursing what surely has to be

the world’s worst inhumanity

Unable to tell where my axe will fall,

some convince themselves I am

no real threat at all, rather something

akin to a bogeyman, hardly a figment

of the imagination but best consigned

to a cosy corner of a mind less likely

consider why so many get so careless

in the first place. Besides, who wants

to look a bogeyman in the face?

Men, women and children cannot run

from me unless privy to such ways

of the world even I cannot pin down,

kill slowly or, for a while at least,

subject to slavery; every act, thought,

bought with their sweat and tears,

save for those who have the measure

of my intention and can readily access

the means of best protection

In the blood, tracking footprints any size,

I, the predator, who am HIV-AIDS

[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

Sex, Lies and Stereotype

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

This poem appears in my gay-interest blog archives for February 2012

Most if not all gay men and women remember the horror of that damn closet, whether we are there for a long or short while. It has to be one of the 21st century’s greater tragedies that many gay people stay there all their lives because certain judgemental societies and/or socio-cultural-religious factors in the home continue to work against our Human Rights worldwide.

This poem was retrospective when it was written in 1995 following an exchange of closet anecdotes among gay friends, and is as relevant today as it was then.  Only a few months ago, here in London, I saw two young men kissing in a crowded gay bar that, according to the person standing next to me who pointed them out, had been with a ‘butch’ crowd he’d known since schooldays that regularly yelled homophobic abuse at him in the street. Obviously, they hadn’t yet realised that it really isn’t ‘in’ to be with an in-crowd that’s very much the wrong crowd. 

Mind you, I’ve often wondered about openly homophobic types. As Shakespeare, might well have said, methinks they do protest too much...

SEX, LIES AND STEREOTYPE

Billy was a shy boy

who lived in my hometown,

did well at school,

never played the fool,

had a voice as thick as honey,

kept his head in a book;

that first time he smiled

and said ‘hello’ I didn’t quite

know where to look

Early one morning

I went fishing at my special place;

Billy was already there,

tongues of red hair licking

at my face as I told him

to go, the sacrilege all his,

but he stood his ground;

I flung him down, a heat in us

rising like the dawn

Our lips brushed

as if meant, his sweet body sighed;

mine paused, replied

until spent, spiritually content

for finding sanctuary

in the lap of a songbird,

no willows weeping

or fish biting nor any hint

of unease or dissent

Down at the pub

one evening, drinking with the lads,

poised to win at darts,

my girl cheering … Enter Billy

with a mate, and I score

a bull! Crowd’s roaring my victory,

my girl adoring me

as I'm drowning in a swell

and, oh, so hurting ...

like hell

Copyright R. N. Taber 1995; 2012

[Note: Thus poem has been revised from an earlier version that has already appeared on the blog and in  my first collection,  Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]

No Stigma for HIV/AIDS

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

'When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.' John F. Kerry]

This poem first appeared on the blog in 2009 and has since been requested by ‘Moira’ and ‘Simon K’ whose respective partners died of HIV-related infections.

Regular readers will know that I feel very privileged to have once been asked to write a poem (also on the blog) for DAMSET, an AIDS Educational Trust; thanks to the dedication and tireless efforts of those involved, the Trust has been responsible for creating a memorial mural in Bournemouth (near the pier entrance) to people who have died of AIDS across Dorset. Many of the tiles were designed by schoolchildren and I think it is wonderful (and not before time) that something so practical, imaginative, and sensitive has been created to promote HIV-AIDS Awareness. For years, tourists as well as local people will get the message while enjoying the tribute at the same time.

For more about DAMSET:

http://www.aidsmemorial.info/memorial/id=73/dorset_aids_memorial.html

I feel especially privileged that my poem - Autobiography of a Beach - has been included in the mural. ( See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKzi9VRjuq0&t=91s )

NO STIGMA FOR HIV/AIDS 

A neighbour had AIDS, and that’s why
some people speak of him
as if he were a dog that caught rabies
and had to be put down

He was a good man, some people say,
often whispering in my ear
(as if loath to confide a great sin)
that he was gay

He was a kind man, some people seem
anxious I should believe, as if
making reparation of the kind worn
on a perfectly ironed sleeve

He was an honest man, various people
are quick to cry as if
on the defensive after being caught out
in a well-honed lie

He was a lovable man, and had AIDS
although some people
won’t say that, as if in denial of a word
that deserves they get it right

A good, kind, honest, lovable man dies
of AIDS, and some people
(still) blame it on gay men as if they
have a monopoly on promiscuity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared in CC& D magazine v 212, Scars Publications (USA) 2010 and subsequently in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]

Love, Getting the Better of its Nemeses

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

Who cannot, in one way or another, relate to a love poem? 

Personal though they may be for the poet, love poems are (like love) for everyone whatever their ethnicity, creed, sex or sexuality ...

Love is not only timeless in the sense that it exists within the human psyche forever in the form of remembrance, it has the capacity for rising above any prejudice or whatever thrown at it for reasons best known to the its nemeses. 

  

LOVE, GETTING THE BETTER OF ITS NEMESES

Spring showers, ever overtaking us 

like hours in a day,

recalling a Once-Upon-A-Time 

we let love have its way

Summer storms, ever overtaking us

like months, years,

since first we dared kiss as lovers 

through bitter-sweet tears

Autumn leaves, pausing as they pass

to write songl lyrics

about lovers the whole world over

disproving cynics and clerics

Dead leaves, drifting past my window,

trees (for now) bare…

signs that even cock robin’s bravado

cannot deny winter is here

Nature, a mirror to our every season;

love, even by time, never overtaken

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

Never Call Me Names

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

I left school many years ago feeling a failure, and that feeling stayed with me for years.

One night, a complete stranger and I were chatting at a bar. He was a successful businessman staying at a local hotel. ‘It makes me mad,’ he said, ‘when people talk about success and failure. Some people seem to get what they want in life and others don’t. For a start, though, appearances are often deceptive. Besides, it isn’t what we think we want in life that counts, but what we know we have. If what we have makes us happy, that’s success.’

‘The trouble is,’ he went on, ‘ so many people don’t realize what they have because they are too busy wishing things different. Take me, for example. I’ve done well in my career and worked hard for it, but I’m looking for another job because I’ve finally woken up to the fact that I hardly see my wife and kids for weeks at a time. When I think of my family, that’s when I feel successful, not when I am checking my bank statement. I’ve been too busy trying to give them everything they need that I forgot they need me too, just as I need them.’

‘Look at what you need to make you happy, man, and go for it. Everyone’s needs are different so it follows that everyone’s measure of so-called success or failure will be different too, right?’

I could only nod and think on…

This poem is a kenning.

NEVER CALL ME NAMES

I wear no medals for battles won

nor will I ever walk on a red carpet

while everyone around me

applauds, begs me pause and lend

my signature to whatever

association with fame and fortune

may haunt and taunt us

at every turn, poor companion

to self-deception

It’s unlikely I will journey into space,

walk on the moon, find water on Mars

or even help repair a space station,

cross from pole to pole, raise the flag

on a mountain, pose with royalty,

leave my mark on the century - but

for getting older, growing closer

to nature, letting its finer spirituality

define my sexuality

What care I if no one speaks of me

in the same breath as classic writers

musicians, dancers, inventors,

founders of religions before they lost

their way, politicians suing

for peace where all around them

confounded by lies? I care not,

only that none should speak my name

in fear, pain or shame

Out of sheer spite, some call me Failure

that live among those who know better

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

Caliban's Song, 21st Century

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

The multiple stresses and strains of everyday life in the 20^th century have carried over into the 21^st and if anything are far greater. We all want to rise above them and enjoy who else life has to offer us, but for a growing number of people it is easier said than done.

Regular readers will know I suffered a severe nervous breakdown some 30+ years ago. One of many causes lay in growing up in a gay-unfriendly society. Basically, my psyche was on a hair trigger and it didn’t take much to have it explode in my face. The consequences included years of struggling to escape from a very dark place indeed, from which I only managed to escape  in the end thanks to a few good friends and my eventually rediscovering a passion for creative writing, especially poetry; for me, at least, it has proven the best therapy. Meanwhile, the struggle continued long after I was well enough to get a job and start rebuilding my life. It was an ugly time and I felt very ugly.

Sadly, attitudes towards mental ill-health have not changed much. People suffering varying degrees of mental illness continue to be stigmatised by the less enlightened in society. Many people still think of depression as being little more than very fed-up; few appreciate the depths to which a depressed person sinks, unable to swim and badly needing someone to throw them a lifeline.

I met an old friend recently who told me he is beginning to feel he is over the worst of a nervous breakdown that struck him several years ago. ‘I can function again,’ he told me, but I still feel so ugly and that everyone is looking at me, judging me, despising me...’

Mental illness is an ugly condition, but uglier still is that common enough attitude towards mentally ill people that persists in putting them in stereotypical boxes and slamming down the lid.

The last person to realise that he or she is slipping into a depression of one form or another is the person themselves. So if someone you know seems to be acting out of character, please look out for and try to help them rather than shrug it off with good or less good intentions as a ‘C’est la vie.’ Situation

This poem appeared in a Poetry Now (Forward Press) anthology, /Poetry) anthology Words That Live On (2004) just prior to its inclusion in my collection. My email address is easy to find on the Internet and a number of people have been in touch since then to say how closely they can identify with the poem and my comments have encouraged them to take back control of their lives. If my poems and comments about depression can help just one person do just that, I feel privileged to have played a small part in their recovery.

There is no quick fix for depression, no Prospero to free us from its slavery. Yet, as Prospero finally demonstrated by freeing Caliban, we have but to be put back in touch with our kinder feelings and better selves to make a start at transcending wishful thinking into a positive, workable reality.

Did I say it was easy ...?

CALIBAN’S SONG, 21st CENTURY

A suspect integrity, deprived of dignity,

hung on a washing line to dry
until time to put us through the wringer
until (hopefully) made to or at least
appearing to conform to the expectations
of mandarins of power wherever ...

Mind, a mist, its damp heat soaks my sleep,

brings a welcome wetness though eyes

stay dry, no matter how I long to weep…

for that daytime nightmare, made to share

with a world inclined to turn and stare at me
as if I were a dog cocking a leg up a tree

No place to turn, words that can even begin

to explain the loneliness, desperation

of a horror situation, its awful, nagging pain

ever an object of gross misconception,

sentenced to life (far worse than any felon)

no answers to the same universal question

Lost in hell’s maze, no seeing ways forward

for back. Panic sets in, takes cover
in a corner of madness (mistaking insanity
for safety in the grip of a sick anxiety
to escape asylum’s cutting edge, complex
enough even for a poet’s tearful imagination

Years on, still counting the cost of dignity lost,

integrity stolen from me, trying (impotently?)

to hold my own. Battles lost, war - won?

A hollow victory when left but to get through 

another day till that sleep unbroken may yet

free us from a genetically modified inhumanity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Postcards From the Edge OR Notice of Intent

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

This poem provoked a flood of emails after it first appeared on the blog and in my collection during 2007. Most readers expressed pleasure if not relief that I was airing a condition with which many of us are forced to deal, frequently on a regular basis.

Many of my poems touch on the trauma of depression albeit ending on a positive note. Why is that? Well, for a start, too many people continue to underestimate depression, believing it synonymous with being very fed-up. It is an attitude that needs to change. Depression is tough enough without family, friends and work colleagues implying that all we have to do is pull our damn socks up!

There was a time when attitudes towards my sexuality provoked bouts of severe depression, especially as I have been prone to depression since early childhood (not recognized in children and young people then as it is now.) There are multiple causes of depression. We are all vulnerable to it, especially in the kind of world in which we live today although I dare say every century has had its various stresses and strains under which some people have buckled for one reason or another (there is rarely a single cause.)

My dear late mother used to say that when things are looking bad, the trick is to focus on all the good things in life and people. A simple idea, yes, even a trite thing to say. Ah, but does it work? Oh, yes!!! Maybe not right away but, like most things in life, we have to work at it.

Be understanding, patient and supportive towards with depressed people. yeah? Don't rush to write us off (as many people do) as whingeing wasters. Spread the word that there is no stigma in being depressed, and hopefully people might rush to understand (instead of rushing off in the opposite direction) the man, woman or child who so needs that understanding, patience and support.

POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE or NOTICE OF INTENT

Driven to the naked edge of a snake pit, peering in,
all but poised to leap, defy demons on the brain
constantly jeering because I’m gay, weary of family
and friends urging no surrender to a growing desire
for my own gender, thus acknowledging this, a sexual
identity integral to every other part of me, although
those parts the same, no less true for being honest,
drawn to home truths haunting me since that dawn
I confronted myself for who I am, even as I continued
to perpetuate a sham of being straight (taught a sin,
at the very least a crime - to be gay)

With each new day, subtle shifts of opinion, even in
a fickle media, then legislation intended to give gay
men and women a kinder freedom

I'd stood alone and scared, desperate to end these lies,
half lies, a creeping among shadows like a thief,
seeking a love I dare not own in the face of society's
resolve to expose me for even less than a nobody
crucify me on that old stand-by Cross of Convention
but time, now to let history see I am my own person,
refusing point blank to be made subservient to stereotype.
while not my intention to offend those who mean well,
stood by with tears in their eyes watching the local bigots
breaking our backs with rods for straws, little thought
to making repairs because mud sticks

No more snake pits, self-blame, being made to feel
like a candidate for some Walk of Shame, time to get real,
put closet ways behind me

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2007]