Nobody Listens to Ghosts

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

Now, readers get in touch from time to time to pour scorn on my ‘preoccupation’ with ghosts while others endorse an affinity with the past and its subsequent influences on present and future behaviour (for better or worse) both from a personal and global point of view.

I believe we are all subject to a posthumous consciousness to which we can choose to pay attention or ignore, feel inspired by past achievements (including any bookmarked ‘failure’) or simply confirm our worst suspicions.

Whatever, let the inner ear and eye have its way, and any of us may well identify a ghost at his or her shoulder urging we listen and learn.

On a personal level, it is easy if only because the ghost/s in question will have helped make us who we are; on socio-cultural-religious level, though, how many of our so-called 'betters' listen and hear, look and see...?

Maybe those of us who never listen to our ghosts need to try it sometime?

NOBODY LISTENS TO GHOSTS

Stranger

on a garden fence, watching

flowers growing,

can’t decide on the best

for the picking

and taking home, then cocks

an ear to a passing ghost,

pleading, for all our sakes, leave them

alone

Teacher

at a local school desk, watching

children growing,

can’t decide on the best

candidates for success

(perhaps even fame) then cocks

an ear to a passing ghost

pleading, for all our sakes, treat them

the same

Cleric

on a classic high horse, watching

everyone listening,

can’t decide on the most

likely to want grooming

for paradise, then cocks an ear

to a passing ghost

pleading, for all our sakes, leave them

a choice

Politician

on a popular soap box, watching

audience reaction,

can’t decide on the best

cues for winning

an election, then cocks an ear

to a passing ghost

pleading, for all our sakes, talk down

speculation

Ghosts

in passing storm clouds, watching

a world in chaos

unable to agree on the best

strategy for achieving

lasting peace, turning cloth ears

to its children

pleading, for all our sakes, come good

for us

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

Playing Dirty, the Politics of War (and Peace)

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

It has to be one of human nature’s greater ironies that it invariably deflects the greater blame for its worst tragedies away from itself.

It is called politics.

It is probably fair to say, though, that most if not all of us are no less guilty sometimes than those who tread the Corridors of Power.

PLAYING DIRTY, THE POLITICS OF WAR (AND PEACE)

Last seen standing on the edge of war,

strutting bravery, dreaming of glory,

no conception of carnage gone before,

rewriting, in blood, a nation’s story

Heads high, eager to answer duty’s call,

faith let fly in the wind, flags unfurled,

no one suspecting how many might fall,

prayers unanswered around the world

Victory (as ever) fell on time’s sword,

eleventh hour, day, month, 1918;

no action-replay, we gave them our word,

only to break it again and again…

Heroes, on Time's sword called upon to fall
for the sake of Peace and Goodwill (to all?)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2018

[Note: Revised (2016) version of a poem that  appears under the title 'The Rhetoric of Blame' in   Accomplices to Illusion, by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

Weeping Ozone, Sleepwalking World

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

[Update July 29th 2019: The world s beginning to wake up to the threat of climate change. Better late than never, although some pf its major players (like US President Donald Trump, to name just one continue to insist it is fake news. Let's all hope it is not too late for future generations.] RT

It is GOOD that (at last!) the world is starting to take climate change seriously, and accepting some responsibility for it. Even so, I can’t help thinking it is too little too late…especially as humankind is, on the whole, inclined to put its immediate needs first; immediate, but often (well) above and beyond the basics. Food, shelter and affordable housing are constantly put at risk by corporate greed funded by the wealthy intent upon getting wealthier and supported by the kind of back-door politics at which so many politicians excel.

There are, of course, a lot of good people out there if outnumbered by the bad. (The expression, 'the smile on the face of a tiger' springs to mind…)

It will be down to future generations to make the best (or worst, as the case may be) of the mess we have made and  continue to make of our planet with whatever resources available and, hopefully, a generous dose of sound common sense.

Whatever happened to priorities? It is bad enough that many people continue to bury their heads in the sand and pretend global warming is a fiction. How a significant number of those same people can continue to rage against gay relationships, for example, while playing down if not ignoring what has to be one of the greatest threats to the human race we will ever face is beyond my comprehension.

WEEPING OZONE, SLEEPWALKING WORLD

Terror in the sky, likely to bring
about the destruction of our planet;
rivers run dry, poisoned plants,
beasts of the wild starved of a will
to live, birds of the air unable
to take wing, too weak to sing even;
fishes in the sea, last to survive
nature’s very own Armageddon,
no end of tears in the ozone

Fear enough to melt glaciers,
seed mountains, valleys, urban oases
of wishful thinking among
fortune hunters quick to seize the day,
make a killing for profit (or kicks)
in human as well as animal trade-offs,
heart sleeves of the best cloth,
faux promises dead in the water,
potential eulogy for humanity

Panic in forests stripped of trees
meant to protect us in mean streets,
 androids forced to their knees
by silicon gods competing to be first
to clone eternity, any semblance
of morality but a vainglorious sterility
glossing over forsworn obligations
to generations left rummaging nature
for crumbs of survival

To the earth, a relentless rush of pain
its peoples shrug off as acid rain

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye: poems by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004 under the title 'Under Threat'; rev title 2018.]

Sometime Healer, All-time Friend

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

When a loved one dies, we need to give grief a chance, allow love a healing process of sorts so that its wounds can be tended rather than be left to congeal and possibly leave the body physically as well as emotionally damaged for the duration.

Love must be allowed to run the gamut of regret, anger, bitterness, disillusionment, even guilt so that it can emerge from the long, dark tunnel of loss refreshed and strengthened. There will be scars, of course, yet we should let grief clean them with our tears so they, too, are not left weeping, but become landmarks of love to guide us through the time we must spend without the loved one, help us see that where a door closes on our lives, a window really will open for us if we’ll only it.

I have seen people spend the rest of their lives behind that closed door, rarely letting anyone in; for those of us permitted even limited access, it is painful to witness what is essentially a process of disintegration.

We can keep faith with love, and still move on if only because our loved ones would have it no other way. Besides, love’s place is among the living; only there can it thrive and preserve its losses.

'Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.' -
Edgar Allan Poe

This poem is a kenning.

SOMETIME HEALER, ALL-TIME FRIEND

I bend like a flower in a cruel wind,

sing sad songs learned from the trees,

sink to my knees among shadows

like monks in shabby cowls kneeling

in prayer urging me to do the same,

but I cannot pray for the only feeling

left in me is a pain that is all my own,

yet there is another as much to blame

for leaving me here alone, so alone

I prostrate myself at the altar of Time

that sees all, spares nothing and no one,

cold within the folds of winter’s dark,

angry at the cheerful song of a skylark

circling above, predisposed to celebrate

the natural world, precious little thought

for the fragile nature of a human heart,

broken, as mine, into insignificant pieces

no one will spare a second glance

What would you have me do, skylark,

get up and dance? How dare you deny me

this moment of cut-throat bliss that is

(they say) but the other side of happiness?

Leave me! Let your sweet song beguile

ears anxious to hear, not mine, closed now

to cheery sounds and smells of summer

where autumn has shed its tears and long,

lonely winter days sure to last for years

I am Grief, a healing (of sorts) - Guardian
of Loss to the heart left nursing its pain

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 20114

Peacemakers, Salt of the Earth OR Everyday Heroes

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

We all need others to help us ease the burdens we carry just as they, in turn, need us. So it has always been and will always be…

Just as we may well find inspiration, comfort, hope … whatever … in words and achievements we find in select pages of history so, too, we should bear in mind that we all become history with each passing moment and what we say or do, great or small, may yet encourage (or discourage) those who come after us to work through any of life’s bad times into its better, kinder ways.

If a global humanity cannot make a lasting peace with its own, what chance a lasting peace with the natural world? (Sceptics regarding conservation, regeneration and climate change, please note.)

 PEACEMAKERS, SALT OF THE EARTH or  EVERYDAY HEROES

In the rain, acid rain, find them there,

easing the burden of our despair

Let the world roll out its history,

consigning us to memory,

clouds forbid even Apollo to weep;

in my dark, your light I’ll keep

though the flesh little more can stand

yet rejecting Death’s hand,

lessons of history vowing to learn

treading muddy graveyards but softly,

ever wary of disturbing dreams

In the rain, acid rain, find them there,

easing the burden of our despair

Though the world blast into infinity,

find its many life-forms designed

to endure, nurtured by Apollo’s heat

and Earth Mother’s gentler tears

upon its vast, sprawling killing fields

trusting that the  Children of Time

shall rise above to make love not war,

do their best to reassure restless ghosts

fearful of dying all over again

In the rain, acid rain, find us still here,

easing the burden of global despair

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

Misty Memories OR Time, No Final Curtain

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

An earlier version of this poem  appeared in Poetry Monthly magazine (April 2007) and subsequently in my collection, Accomplices to Illusion, the same year; it was written with a friend in mind, but also for the many thousands of people diagnosed with dementia and their carers to try and give them some encouragement and help them through the early years of what is a heart-breaking condition

My friend rarely indicates that he recognises me now, but his friends and family know the person who is my friend is still there, inside the person he has become, because every now and then he finds a way - if only fleetingly, through the ever thickening mists of dementia - to tell us so. 

Time, even unto death and beyond, has neither remit nor power to erase living memory altogether, especially where love is concerned.

'Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.' - Oscar Wilde

“That I shall love always,
I argue thee
that love is life,
and life hath immortality”
- Emily Dickinson,  That I did always Love

MISTY MEMORIES or TIME, NO FINAL CURTAIN

Let life be painting pictures on the heart

for the soul’s grasp forever to retain,

so the mind’s eye, less clear than at the start

and peering through mist,can enjoy again

Though memory’s jigsaw, it may fall apart,

fitting the pieces, we make bad choices,

the mind’s ear, if less clear than at the start,

is still listening out, hears love’s voices

Our finer senses, heart and soul shall hone,

if seen to work in mysterious ways,

so Memory, though fair stripped to the bone,

to the inner self stays true all our days

Though we be taken for but shadows in a mist,
we know better whom love has ever kissed

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2019

[Note:The dinal couplet of this poems was revied, May 2020.]

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