Anatomy of Chaos

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

We may not be rich, but even those of us blessed with life’s simpler, everyday comforts need to count our blessings whenever, from time to time, they may seem somewhat thin on the ground. 

Millions of people worldwide are struggling to survive in appalling conditions; floods, drought, famine, lack of clean drinking water, overcrowded refugee camps, extreme poverty, war…We may catch glimpses of these on TV and spare them a thought, only to go on and watch a movie, fun quiz, chat show or whatever…

There is no point in feeling guilty, just very fortunate, and if awareness of the world’s ills does not help us keep a sense of proportion, it damn well should.

ANATOMY OF CHAOS 

Carpet stains
greeting the dawn,
yawning
away with bare feet,
flip-flops,
mouths dripping
coffee,
cornflakes, butter
on toast…
chair legs banging on
about
how chaos rules
OK

Carpet stains,
epitome of a life
enjoyed,
fibre heart strings
singing along
with garden birds,
grasshoppers,
teenage rock moves
and ma
performing a star
turn
at the kitchen
sink

Carpet stains,
alive, but only just;
sunset
soaking its fibres
with shades
of red and yellow,
like autumn
saying its goodbyes
to faces
at windows looking
for ways
to make the best 
of things

Carpet stains,
put to bed with wine
and candles,
left to soak up
evidence
of home comforts,
world politics
redirecting its refugees
via short-cuts
to Paradise Road,
splinters
of broken glass
overlooked

There will be blood...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

Systems Failure OR Oh, But If...

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

Information technology is a wonderful thing although I suspect it is leaving me behind, but at least I can read, write, wrestle fairly successfully with numbers and don’t need a computer to write a poem in my head…

Oh, and yes, I can go into common sense mode with ease as well. [Whatever happened to that plain, old-fashioned common sense upon which world societies once turned?]

Nowadays, I suspect we get our priorities if not wrong, exactly, then muddled to say the least. Technology must take its share of the blame. More of us are relying on it to the extent that we are getting lazy about thinking for ourselves. Worse, some people actually prefer social networks to meeting up and chatting face to face with people and friends.  (Is it any wonder social and interpersonal skills are going much the same way as common sense?)

No, I am not knocking new technology, but we should remain alert to the truism, ‘garbage in, garbage out’. Information technology, for all its wonders, remains vulnerable to human input.

The Scottish Robert Burns expressed it well in his own dialect, which more or less translates as 'the best laid plans of mice and men are apt to go awry.'

 “The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.” - Robert Burns (1759-1796)

SYSTEMS FAILURE or OH, BUT IF...

If…

life is about humility,

love a question

of values, democracy 

a state of mind, (freedom)

so…what?

If…

a body, becomes numb,

(even dumb)

behind twitching curtains

of acid rain, what aid for us

in IT?

If…

to rummage e-archives

for inspiration,

we amateur philosophers

are driven, what if we haven’t

a clue?

So…

we could ask a computer

what IT's all about,

but don’t forget garbage in,

garbage out, may well see us

shut down

Copyright R. N. Taber 2000; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appeared in The Language of Life, Poetry Today (Forward Press) 2000 and subsequently in Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001.]

Reflections on the Darker Side of Human Nature

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

[Update (Sept 4, 2016) A perceptible rise in hate crime against EU and other migrants in parts of the UK since the Brexit vote is as disturbing as it is appalling; another modern tragedy perpetrated by a significant but vocal minority along with racism and homophobia. Even intolerance of elderly and disabled people is not unheard of in this sorry world of ours While some prejudices are ingrained in certain socio-cultural-religious conventions, others merely service a warped ego; all need to be weeded out, and will be, but not in my lifetime, I fear.]

From time to time (or perhaps more often these days?) stress rears its ugly head and tempers become frayed. We can try and recognise the signs and stay calm, but that's easier said than done. 

Too often, we say things we don’t mean in a temper or, if we do mean them, we probably shouldn’t have said them. If the worst comes to the worst, all we can do is apologise and try and make peace. As my late mother used to say, if your head is too big to apologise, your mind is too small for it.

With some people, of course, the damage done is irreparable but that isn’t always a bad thing. Having let rip with anger, it can sometimes bring a welcome sense of relief, especially when it targets those among us with whom it is impossible to talk things through. If it gives the person with whom we have lost our temper food for thought, so much the better and we should accept any genuine olive branch gracefully. However, some people are too self-centred to concede that it takes two to make a quarrel and two to make it up. They prefer to hug their grievances to them, relating them to all and sundry as a means to gaining an invariably undeserved sympathy vote.

By the way, I speak from personal experience. When I was younger I would put up with ‘friends’ (and family) treating me badly because I knew they didn’t necessarily mean it. Even so, most would run a mile rather than sit down and talk things through. Once I turned sixty, I decided life is too short and time too precious to waste on people like that.

“Angry people are not always wise.” - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

This poem is kenning.

REFLECTIONS ON THE DARKER SIDE OF HUMAN NATURE 

I watch you, though from shadows,
and you know I am there yet choose
to ignore me, hoping I will go away
but it’s my choice to stay, observe
the way you walk, talk, seeing how
you react to what others do or say,
assessing your hurt by scratch marks
of the queerest designs you pass off
as laughter lines

I follow you about wherever you go
and you would be rid of my company
yet dare not face me with all the facts
I have gleaned over years of grooming
you for my own ends. Any resistance
is futile, though I grow apprehensive
when you mix with others who would
usurp my place, take you for their own,
share love’s crown

Years pass, and now we walk together
and you dare not say ‘no’ to passing
into the shadows with me for have I not
watched over you as I would a child?
Where can the light of the world take us
but among regrets and betrayal, along
tracks made by paper tigers that belong
here, where only leafy skies have shed
tears for centuries

I hold the hand writing history’s next page,
and am called Rage

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2018

[Note: This poem first appears under the title 'The Savage' in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010; rev. title 5/18]

Bitter Harvest

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

In reality, there is no such thing as easy money. Even a huge lottery win is rarely roses all the way and more often than not leaves a trail of heartbreak. Someone recently mentioned that betting is easy money (he had just won £50 on a horse.) Ah, but how many bets had he lost over years, I wondered? Even so, I resisted the temptation to ask and risk throwing cold water on an old man’s elation.

Many years ago, during a period of mental illness, I became addicted to fruit machines and probably wasted thousands of pounds over a period of several years. Fortunately, I am cured now and have a life. Gambling is no less addictive than drugs, smoking or alcohol. It can destroy people and their families. At the time, I was caught up in the protracted aftermath of a nervous breakdown. That’s when addiction strikes, when we’re at our most vulnerable. It can happen to anyone. So never give up on an addict, yeah? The challenge is trying to prevent addicts giving up on themselves.

It is an appalling indictment on contemporary society, especially given the stresses and strains of modern living, that there are relatively few rehabilitation centres or other avenues of help for addicts or those less obviously in the grip of mental illness. They may be the last to admit, it but they need friends and family to stand by them and be willing to go that last mile.

If you know an addict (drugs, gambling, whatever) please, please, be there for them. You won’t get much if anything by way of thanks, but no one can beat addiction without support from someone who cares that they should. Sometimes, yes, it’s a losing battle for everyone concerned, but we have to try…for all our sakes.

Did I say it was easy?

Every day, I hear someone say in the street, media, library, bus or train...words to the effect that there’s ‘easy’ money for the taking if we only play our cards right.  No, I don’t think so, not unless those 'cards' happen to be in sync with the kinder or at least more responsible elements of mind-body-spirit.

BITTER HARVEST

Public faces reaping

more respect than many

have earned the right

to expect in modern times;

paper tigers wandering

corridors of power, seeking

an easy prey, a nose

for more; bits and pieces,

(when put together)

likely to create an incomplete

jigsaw 

People come and go,

all history in the making,

fortunes for the taking;

winners, losers,

gamblers paying respects

to palaces of pleasure,

Stock Exchanges,

After Hours bars ringing

with a cacophony

of celebration, despair,

whatever...

Worldwide, trails

like snails’ slime tracking

the best and worst

of us, no discrimination;

looking to the future,

(things sure to get better)

Family of Man living

up to old myths, bearing

fruits to feed a world 
last observed harvesting 
lemon trees

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2014

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

My Friends, The Trees

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

Sometimes it can feel as if our world has come to an end or is closing down on us like the curtain on a Shakespearean tragedy.  

I have often felt that way, even as a child (when no one took depression in children very seriously if at all) and have spent the best part of a lifetime finding ways of restoring a view of life and self that gives rise to optimism rather than pessimism.

Creative therapy (writing) and reading have played a vital part in my battle to beat depression, but it is nature that has proved my salvation.  While not even the finest arts can copy it, a troubled mind, body, and spirit can do far, far, worse than try. So it has been with mine since my partner died even though we were together but a few years and it was a long time ago. My mother’s death, too, affected me deeply. 

Yet, the trees remain, the same trees we walked among, talked among, and rested among to enjoy leafy kaleidoscopes and create our own; trees now bursting with life, now all but dying only to thrive again according to time and season. Such is the stoicism of nature from which the human body-mind-spirit can take heart if it will but pause long enough to look and see, listen and learn…

MY FRIENDS, THE TREES

I never felt so alone

as once you were gone,

drab days stretching

on and on like dirt tracks

leading nowhere

but deeper into woodlands

where no sun shining,

birds singing or rabbits

teasing the eye

Then a day came, 

long after you were gone,

I chanced to spot

a chick sparrow fly the nest,

hover uncertainly,

fledgling wings in a flap,

but only briefly

before soaring up, up,

and away 

I followed its flight,

spotted a trickle of sunlight

bursting through trees

whose spring leaves

dripped rainbows on the eye,

restoring colour 

to a world left colourless 

since you painted me

out of it

Suddenly, the inner ear 

hears once more, inner eye

can see again,

empty heart starting to fill

(if slowly) with joys 

of spring, reawakening

happier times, 

trying out heart strings

and retuning 

Oh, but less lonely now,

befriended by trees, lifted

by ages-old tales

of love and peace, songs

celebrating life,

poems reflecting that death

must wait its turn

while we relish the thrill

of first flight

Sparrow flies into tree,

possibly same bird, same tree,

but not the same me, 

loath to leave my friends,

the trees, yet anxious

as they to remind the world 

it’s spring, 

body, mind, and spirit 

overflowing

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

In Praise of Perennials OR Survivors, Making History

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

Regular readers will know I have prostate cancer and have been receiving hormone therapy. I am trying to take it all in my stride. Think positive, Taber, I keep telling myself, and urge anyone in the same or similar circumstances to do the same.

The body as well as mind and spirit need to stay strong if they are to defeat any intruders that present a threat. Whatever happens, why deny ourselves the satisfaction of putting up a good fight? Letting things (or people) get us down only makes a bad situation worse.

Few if any of us can say, hand on heart, that we never have ‘bad’ days. It is a challenge to get through as least scarred as possible by problems, crises, disappointments, nasty shocks and/or scary happenings...whatever.

Me, I take my cue from nature. Mind you, that’s after taking several long, slow, deep breaths and counting to ten....

IN PRAISE OF PERENNIALS or SURVIVORS, MAKING HISTORY

I am the spirit of the wind

writing poems for trees, turning leaves

just as humankind turns select pages

of history, Creation taking imagination

to its heart and turning it

into a religion, nurturing growth

independent of home truths

daring to question how best to raise

born again geraniums

I am the spirit of the wind,

no sooner rocking a baby in its cradle

and composing a lullaby than pitting

sailors against  moody waves as fickle 

as the Holy See towards gay 

and transgender folks standing up 

for love and peace, re-asserting

that common body, mind, and spirit

aspiring to enlightenment

I am the spirit of the wind

treating the eagle and the dove

with equal favour or cruelty,

as Earth Mother has demonstrated

since Creation took imagination

to its heart and turned it into a religion,

stunting growth, leaving home truths

so vulnerable to decay in the thick

of a long, weepy, autumn

Perennials, like ghosts in the wind,

templates for humankind…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]

Earmarked for Development

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

Several readers have asked when I intend to record more of my poems for You Tube. Well, soon I hope. However, Graham, my close friend and cameraman works full-time so is not often available and I have been unable to get anyone else interested.

For those of you who may be interested but haven’t yet seen and heard my capers on You Tube,

try: http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber  or keyword ‘Roger Taber You Tube’

We only do it for fun (and that includes heading straight for the nearest pub afterwards) but hopefully people will enjoy our efforts. I will be posting more on You Tube throughout the year, weather and cameraman availability permitting.

Meanwhile...

The world's growing population requires that we provide for its housing and other needs. We should not forget, though, that nature provides not only for its own protection but ours too. Our taking from nature without giving back is already making itself menacingly felt in various ways, and will likely haunt future generations with even greater menace. Deforestation especially, leaves us all exposed to climate change,

EARMARKED FOR DEVELOPMENT 

Archived, children at play

where once were trees and grass;

echoes of sunny laughter
but splinters of broken glass

Carefree voices, last heard
drifting away like autumn leaves;
carbuncles springing up
where Earth Mother grieves

Manna for the developers,

demand ever outstripping supply;

grass all concreted over,
(a time to live, a time to die?)

Nobody left likely to recall
how things were once-upon-a-tree
come nature, fairy tale...
Carbuncles, the new poetry

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; rev. ed. in e-format in preparation.]