Ghost Fingers

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

Regular readers will be aware of my passion for clouds, also more than a passing interest in the posthumous consciousness; this poem combines elements of both.

(Photo taken from the Internet)

GHOST FINGERS

Inspiring the young, comforting old,

fuelling tales at cosy fires,

melting a frost on cobbles of despair,

thawing the icy grip of fear;

a warning too or at least a hint

of what’s to be, rooted

in shifting sands of a memory playing

fast and loose with our desires,

heavenly spires secretly tumbling us

Partying the young, partnering old,

fireflies dashing at twilight,

breaking into its pregnant silences,

fracturing cruel thoughts;

an intruder too, wearing a mask

that’s oozing familiarity,

shifting sands of a memory playing

fast and loose with our desires,

heavenly spires overtly spinning us

Driving the young, steering the old,

taking rough with smooth,

making inroads to forbidden places,

bringing hope, love;

a stranger at the wheel, no map

to dictate our route across

shifting sands of memory playing

fast and loose with our desires,

heavenly spires playfully teasing us

Feeding imagination, art’s finer promise;

clouds, like ghost fingers, signing to us

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007

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

Paying a (Heavy) Price for Climate Change, 3000 AD

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

[Update June 2nd 2017]: Yesterday, president Trump withdrew the USA from the Paris agreement on climate change. Such a step has been met with dismay by most countries around the world. Wie the president professes to be putting America and Americans first, it remains to be seen if that will prove the case or whether excessive carbon emissions may yet be the death of us all.] RT

As regular readers will know, I am revising some  poems that appear in my collection. An earlier version of today's poem first appeared in an anthology, Free-Falling, Poetry Now [Forward Press] 2006 and subsequently in my collection the following year. While there is a strong argument for leaving well alone, as I look at poems from a distance of several years or more, I sometimes feel the need to 'get it right'. Some readers, of course, will always prefer the original.

Now, we hear and read about climate change all the time.Yet how seriously do we take it? How committed are we to future generations?  Nor is climate all that's changing. Some would argue that humankind itself is being gradually eroded by complacency if not by by its own inhumanity.

Fatalism is humankind's worst enemy; we cannot blame our shortcomings on fate, only ourselves.

As for the planet, I suspect nature has ideas of its own ...

Whatever, there is no room for complacency; the well-being of future generations is at stake. Governments of the world and certain politicians with an invested interest in fossil fuels need declare those interests, get their priorities right and log into some positive thinking ... NOW.
  

PAYING A (HEAVY) PRICE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE, 3000 AD

Preserved in ice, like some

prehistoric monster

poised to tread weeping clay,

dead water

Traces of green, shades of envy

to the probing eye

investigating its reappearance

and repercussions

Provoking alarm in Big Brother’s

desolate backyard

stretching endlessly, like

a yawning clay pit

Hysteria among humanoid

and robotic camps alike,

tugging at the archaeologist’s arm

to leave well alone

Preserved in ice, like some

prehistoric monster,

missed potential for all humanity;

Statue of Liberty

Copyright R. N. Taber 2006; 2013

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears 1st eds. of  Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; 2nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.]

Old Haunts

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

I suspect we all get lonely sometimes. Ghosts and soap characters can be good company, but there is nothing like going out and meeting people to feel...alive! Essentially, it's a matter of self-confidence, believing in ourselves and others or how can we expect them believe in and have confidence in us?

Never let anyone tell you you're less of a person then they are, whatever inflexible socio-cultural-religious 'principles' they may throw at you.  We are all different and as I have said many times on both blogs, being different doesn't make us different, only human. 😉

OLD HAUNTS 

World, glimpsed

in its bed-sit windows

weaving fictions

around street corners

Cracks on a pane

chasing forgotten dreams

made whole again

(while the sun shines)

Lonely, a sad word,

like a weepy autumn mist

asking of the world

it answer to its ghosts

Hope, still  treading warily

through eternity

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in  First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.] 

Defining Moments .

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

How many time have you heard someone say about someone that he or she doesn’t stand a chance of succeeding at this or that because they are too small or too tall, too young or too old, not well enough known or connected or not good looking enough or don’t have enough experience or qualifications.etc…?

Ah, but never underestimate the powers of the human spirit or be too quick to dismiss the old adage, ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way.’

Now, I am not a religious person, but was raised as a Christian and know my Bible. I have since learned that all the Holy Books have much in common; God is a hero, humanity heroic, and everyday life recognised for what it is, the greatest story ever told.

DEFINING MOMENTS

I watched a small red boat

riding waves on a big blue sea;

suddenly, it occurred to me

that small can be big, depending

on whatever our perception,

a popular misconception being

that little is helpless against

a far mightier charge, as small

is to large. Who cannot recall

tales of David  against Goliath

and Samson beating Delilah

at her own game, taken for fools

on a roll call of heroes

Who knows? Sailors on a small

red boat may yet prove themselves

equally worthy. Let’s not forget

that who laughs last laughs longest

nor is best always found among

strongest, for where wisdom lies

and purpose, sheer will defies

any need to avoid where lions feed

as Daniel in the den discovered

and young Isaac to the block tied,

wise men, too, and shepherds

mo less blind to the art of metaphor
than Paul on the Damascus road

A small red boat in a storm

may well defy all odds against

fending off its cries and fury,

come into its own, return home

(as I stay muzzled at the helm

of a grander vessel by far, deemed

fated to follow orders and trust

in my betters to always know best?)

For good or ill, let’s take a turn 

at the Wheel and chance surviving

the re-telling of a tale already

re-worked by idiots, all but lost

and signifying next to nothing

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2011; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears as ‘Fools’ Paradise’ in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber Assembly Books, 2004.]

The Zen of Personal Space

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

Sometimes we get lost in a scary, all but surreal landscape of conflicting emotions through which we cannot see our way clear to any safe haven. 

At such times, we need to call upon the inner self to step back from it all, create our own space, set mind, body and spirit free of temporal concerns just long enough to at least draw us a map that will guide us back into the real world..

We all need to take care that certain socio-cultural-religious obligations don't make such demands on us that mind-body-spirit is left screaming, "Please. just let me BE!" while other things (and people) that matter to us simply pass us by...

THE ZEN OF PERSONAL SPACE 

Looking for a shortcut to nowhere,
found a pretty little road
that turned out to be nothing more
than a dead end at a ring of dark water,
no way round

Tossing stones in a ring of dark water,
nothing much else to do
but watch ever-widening circles
pass out of sight like poetic  shadows
in a weepy, leafy, light

Among poetic shadows in a leafy light,
a face darting in and out
like the Cheshire Cat in a classic take
on escapism from the chaos of our reality
into sheer pandemonium

No escape, only ever-widening circles
across a ring of dark water,
subject to the swing of a human arm,
measure of a human eye, raging of a beast
left impotent by despair

Surely, plaintive cries growing weaker
like ripples on a ring of dark water
chasing The Cat into the same nowhere
that’s begging a shortcut, brief respite 
for mind-body-spirit

Past-present-future engaging the senses
to suss the integrity of  imagination,
let ripples in a leafy light lent us by whim
or other of nature 's moods suggest a way yet 
to cross a ring of dark water


Copyright R. N. Taber 2013 [Rev. + Alt title 2/19]

The Mind Hears, the Heart Listens

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

Yes, we should probably do what our heads tell us more often, but it’s invariably so much more fun (and human) to follow our hearts. True, it can be a risky business but some risks are always worth taking, and love is one of them.

Love comes in all shapes and sizes, expresses itself in countless ways,  probably has a finer grasp of what life (and time?) is really all about than even the most learned mind will ever know.

This poem is a villanelle.

THE MIND HEARS, THE HEART LISTENS

Where Time has its way

with each of us,

Love will always have a say

Eyes shut, cold clay,

no sweet caress

where Time has its way

Fear not the close of day

(waking to emptiness?)

Love will always have a say

Duty, too, its passion may

well speak up for us

where Time has its way

On dark secrets kept at bay

(haunts of fear and lies)

Love will always have a say

Eternity but a breath away

from a cynic’s kiss;

where Time has its way,

Love will always have a say

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2012

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

Spring Sunshine

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

We talk about the spring, summer, autumn and winter of our years (which probably places me in mid winter) but I suspect that for most if not all of us, at heart anyway,  it’s always spring…

[Photo taken from the Internet]]

SPRING SUNSHINE 

Oh, for spring’s leafy corner of the heart

where I love to lie and watch the sunrise,

a beacon of hope to guide us at the start,

its life-shadows playing tricks on our eyes

Each time a cloud passes over my head,

they home in on me, such shadows, on wing,

like birds of prey demanding to be fed

or winter dreams grown impatient for spring

Clouds pass, leafy sky fills with song again

come the sun at noon and twilight’s descent;

though shadows chill a heart like winter rain,

in one corner, spring sunshine never spent

Where nature gives and nature takes away,

in love’s leafy corner, spring sure to stay…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2013

[Note: The first line of the final couplet has been revised from an earlier version of this poem that appears in 1^st eds. of Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; 2^nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.]