The Longest Journey

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Of all the joys in life as we journey through it, love has to be the greatest. As for the pitfalls, love can always be relied on to pick us up, brush us down and help us start all over again ... but only if we let it. For some, sadly. life is cut short sooner than they or we would wish, but any love they inspired will sustain us as we continue life's journey on their behalf, in mind-body-spirit through all time and space whatever our socio-cultural-religious persuasion.

THE LONGEST JOURNEY

Love, it has many faces,
some gay, some not,
journeys many places,
laughs, cries a lot…
No finer friend you’ll find
to share peace of mind
where demons on the brain
come again, again
for the soul - or we will
surely fall

Love, it has many faces
comforts, make afraid
in least expected places,
reflects all that’s likely
to make us tearful, sublime,
captives of Time;
in a world (not of our choice)
its sweeter voices may yet
ease the soul or, yes, we will
surely fall

Love, it has many reasons,
asks questions, tells lies;
reflecting all human seasons
as the need flies…
in the heat of human sorrows,
through dark tomorrows;
brave hearts on wing in spite
of everything that drags
on the soul or, yes, we will
surely fall

Love, it wears a friend’s face,
makes no demands;
a single candle left burning
at my heart’s command…
under threat of darker sorrows,
striving better tomorrows,
a light in the soul’s gloaming
to guide an epic roaming
at freedom’s call or, yes we will
surely fail

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poems appears in Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001]

Lasting Impressions

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Today’s poem last appeared on the blog in February 2009 and has been requested by ‘Louisa and Richard’ to mark the birth of their daughter Charlotte Anne. Congratulations!

We owe so much to the Arts and its artists. Who would want to live in a world without music, theatre, paintings, sculptures and other such labours of love? They are always there to  remind us of takes on life, love and death that comprise humanity, men and women creating lasting impressions that we should never take for granted.

Update (March 2016): Some readers may be interested in my reading of the poem - along with another - on Brighton beach for my You Tube channel (see below) albeit in the early days of the channel before Graham and I discovered how to insert a voice file so I could read a poem over the video. [For other videos, visit https://www.youtube.com/user/rogerNtaber ]

LASTING IMPRESSIONS

Once I heard a story
about a dream that never dies;
of all we hope to see
beyond love’s tears and lies

Once I read poetry
about a love that never ends,
its spirit set free
from all the body but lends

Once I heard a song
that let fly my heart like a bird
soaring proud and strong
on the wings of every word

Once I saw a painting
of lovers in some long-ago time
yet as real as if still living
the dream now yours and mine

Once I saw actors bring
love’s ageless story to the stage,
a poem about our writing
its every word, turning every page

Come cut and thrust of all creation,
it’s to love we look for inspiration

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

[From: Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]

Time Spent In A Valley

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Like so many of my poems, this one is not a strictly autobiographical. Yet, as I get older, my mind loves to wander to places where I have been happy; in reality and in my imagination. It is not only a pleasant pastime but also distracts from wondering how many such times I have left to me...

Oh, but how green is the valley of our imagination and how hard to reconcile it with a need to tend and nurture as reality bites, and we grow up...

"Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices." - Jiddu Krishnamurti 

TIME SPENT IN A VALLEY

Once I played in a place full of shadows,
chasing after them as I might butterflies,
trying to catch but always failing, dropping
to the ground in fits of laughter rippling
across a valley like raindrops on that lake
where I’d swim among ducks and swans
in hues of silver, gold, pink, come the sun’s
yawning at dawn, glaring at noon, roaming
Memory Lane in a twilight spitting blood,
sunsets reminiscent of this world’s wars
whose shadows, to its own design, always
find a source to blame, scapegoat to ease
the consciences of poor souls born to front
a politics of separatism

Years on, I revisited those same shadows,
wary of them as I might be of ghosts,
trying to hide but always failing, cowering
in corners praying to a Heaven I doubted
that I’d not be discovered or, if so, taken
in shackles to some cliff edge and forced
to consider awful lies told, mistakes made,
excuses given for believing in justification
(or glorification?) of the ego rather than seek
redemption in humility, let dying echoes in
the shadow of a child’s soul feed imagination,
relying on a custom built God for salvation
should the politics of disintegration become
a serious moral issue

Growing old, I haunt that place of shadows,
greet them as old acquaintances, even try
pretending we were friends, though forced
to confess I’d sought them out for own ends
but keen to make amends (no idea how)
mindful of nature’s gentler surrounds, inner
eye blinking at children chasing after a fragile
mortality, asking questions not asked before
when answers seemed far less important than
actions according to whatever rule of thumb
convenient at the time, perhaps best explained
or excused as ‘meant well’ or (better still)
for the greater good of generations warned
against hurting butterflies

Valley of shadows, where words left unsaid
gorge on things left undone - and spit us out

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books 2007]

Lullaby for a Fractious Child

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A college lecturer has contacted me to say he enjoys some of the stories my poems tell but I should write more 'real' poetry.

So what, I ask myself is 'real' poetry? Whatever...I am as I am, and I write as I write. Many people seem to enjoy my poems and that's good enough for me; at least they are real. As for my critics... [Do I care? Better to be read and found wanting than never read at all. I can't and don't expect every reader to like every poem as I write in many voices, and one reader's pleasure may well not be to another's taste at all. C'est la vie. ]

Meanwhile...

Modern life can be hassle, hassle, and more hassle. Thank goodness for nature and its various retreats from t modern life it offers. I live in Kentish Town, a district of London that is close to Hampstead Heath, the Regent’s Canal and the Regent’s Park. I love them all but especially love strolling on the Heath and enjoying the feeling that I could well be a million miles from the heart of one of the world’s frantically busy cities. London may have lots of cultural treasures to enjoy but without its natural retreats living here would be unbearable.

I would hate to see these retreats and all those like them across this sorry world of ours end up in the hands of property developers. They are, for many of us, a lifeline. Killing off nature is tantamount to manslaughter if not cold-blooded murder.

LULLABY FOR A FRACTIOUS CHILD

In a dream I lay in Earth Mothers arms

as we watched the world passing by,

gladly surrendering to the mixed charms

of a tearful twilight’s ages-old lullaby

We saw fair Apollo turn the grass brown,

humanity and beast alike starve and die,

Poseidon cause even his acolytes to drown,

whose wells and streams already run dry

We witnessed such blind grief and despair

as the Grim Reaper lets drop in his wake,

wept to see how our loved-ones might fare,

made to run the gamut for life’s own sake

Waking, I let Earth Mother wipe my tears,

words of a peace song ringing in my ears

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010, 2019

[Note: This poem has been slightly revised from the version that appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

Postscript to a Wintry Frost

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Today's poem first appeared on the blog two years ago and has been requested my 'Marianne' for her partner 'Rose-Marie' and by a reader from Leeds in West Yorkshire who did not give a name (I never reveal screen names).

I am often accused of being whimsical in my poems. Well, yes, I do whimsy.

Many years ago in the course of a mental breakdown, I attempted suicide. Thankfully, I failed. It was a grim experience and I was ill for several years, but it put me on a learning curve and gave me a new lease and appreciation of life.

POSTSCRIPT TO A WINTRY FROST

Early one morning in a winter frost
I walked to the Gates of Death
where so many have gone whom
I have loved and lost;
frozen flowers like miniature statues
lined the winding path I took;
I felt as if I were weaving my way
out of a storybook;
as a weepy sun rose higher in the sky
the statues came alive,
Earth Mother’s daily rallying call
reassuring us of her love

By now it had passed, the winter frost,
and I arrived at the Gates of Love
where so many have gone whom
I have loved and lost;
the gate, it flew open and showed me
a world beyond imaginings,
of peace and beauty everywhere,
the stuff of fairy tale endings;
I sighed, sensing I dare not linger long
where I hadn't yet reached
my journey’s end, though hopeful
for leaving a winter frost behind

Come a time we'll weather a winter frost
to the Gates of Death
and run a gamut of tears, see them open
to a new springtime of our years

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

Lament for an Endangered Species

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We worry about endangered species across the animal and plant worlds, and rightly so, but what about us? Yes, we are right to be concerned about climate change, but aren't we, too,  an endangered species given the way the world’s governments carry on? (Mind you, who elects them...?)

Ah, but we should be wary of playing the blame game as the final stages may well be played out on our own doorsteps. Across the world, including here in the UK, a significant number of young people are losing the plot.

Street crime and gang culture are on the rise especially among young people, and those involved need to ask themselves some important questions, not least what they really want out of life. If the answers include blood on their hands, possibly an early death and/or a long prison sentence... then I guess they will go ahead... throw their lives away and the lives of others while they're about it.

I'm told it's all about acting 'big'. Well, there is nothing big about it at all of course although I suspect that in many cases it is all an act. Those who see sense walk away before it's too late. Now, that's big.

LAMENT FOR AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

I walked out early one morning
and heard a lark singing
a song I’d only vaguely heard
before, its melody
of a curious beauty, yet weeping

blood and tears

Once, I'd get on with whatever
presents itself  at the time,
only vaguely conscious of feeling
all the more inspired to surpass
at the task in hand for a song worthy
of reassuring lost souls
at Heaven’s door kept waiting
for an answer...

Once, I'd roam territorial streets
find sounds of laughter
lifting me till someone's crying
moves me to follow
the awful sound down side roads
and back alleys, leading
to a human being left bleeding 
from knife wounds

Eyes wide open, lips appealing
to our common humanity
for help to see out another day,
hear what a skylark
has to say before too late,
world already darker,
its streets busy ringing war cries
between phone alerts

Now, I roam the streets at twilight
wishing I’d arrived in time
to save the young man who died
in my arms… wondering who
could have had such little respect
for human life as to rob youth
of its future, family life of its soul,
friendship of a like spirit?

Born to achieve this or that goal,
he had but found himself
in the wrong place at the wrong time,
no lark’s song of hope and glory
come close to gang culture’s senseless
prose and blank verse

Come night, a star for every lark come
to sing us to our graves

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2019

A Christmas Truce

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Religious festivals should bring people together. Yet, so often they follow the age-old tradition of religions worldwide and, in the end, but cause division among family, friends, neighbours....

Christmas is no exception for many of us.

Even where people are brought together for a day or two, it is often no more than calling a truce. Before we know it, we are divided; fighting, insulting, demanding more than we deserve, failing to enter into each other’s points of view...or simply ignoring each other again.

Even so, calling a truce can be a new beginning ... if we let it, always bearing in mind that it takes two to tango' there has to be the will to get together, albeit often absent for all kinds of reasons it is not for any of us to judge.

A CHRISTMAS TRUCE?

Sought, a safe haven on Christmas Day
from family stuff, presents round a tree,
giving the rein to how things should be,
denying what stares in each tinsel face;
A stranger in red mentioned such a place
where I might escape, find sanctuary,
even peace - away from all pretence
at burying home truths under layers of truce,
letting sweet carols on the ear replace
a harsher cacophony of lies, more lies,
accusation (and retribution?) for crimes
against the ego (never mind humanity)
in the daily round of sheer hypocrisy
and petty discrimination against whatever
points of view that can’t, won’t, shouldn’t
always go with the flow in case we tread
on Someone’s feelings, trigger into motion
a tedious, even violent chain reaction,
that might go on for years, spill more tears
than for Judas or lied about Christmas

So, where to go? I asked a jolly man in red
who started laughing, said to use some
common sense and moved on, leaving me
for dead among piles of pretty wrapping,
more calls for a truce, plates of mince pies
and sausage rolls blind to a soul’s fears,
deaf to its prayers

[From: A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]