W-A-R, Crucible of Remembrance

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

Now and then, I receive emails from ordinary men and women who have lost loved ones in one or other of the world’s a war zones, and seek peace of mind.

Every death deserves a poem. Sadly, though, the Muse cannot keep pace with it all. As for peace of mind, there is little enough of that to be found in a war zone, whether it be in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza…wherever.

Let us give some thought, too, to the survivors of those life-or-death battles around the world in which involvement they may, rightly or wrongly, take pride, while I suspect they, like the rest of us, can but struggle to find words to justify it all. Oh, plenty of excuses under cover of various socio-cultural-religious-political camouflage, but justification in real (human) terms...?

We should also bear in mind, of course, that we are all but human beings trying to do what we think is right; there are casualties on both sides of any conflict, their loved ones, too, left behind to try and pick up the pieces of a fragmented life.

Tragically, while love may well nurture dreams that last forever, the world’s power-hungry vultures from various quasi-cultural/ religious/political backgrounds are inclined to do the same for its nightmares.

W-A-R, CRUCIBLE OF REMEMBRANCE

Blood on the grass, blood on the mud,

evening skies spilling the blood

of dying and wounded on sand, on sea,

sacrifices meant to set the world free

Blood on the hands helping comrades

to call out and challenge Hades;

blood on the pillow, blood on the sheet

where love’s worst nightmares meet

Blood on the ceiling, the lamp shade too,

bloodshot eyes still weeping for you;

bloody, the colour of your lips and warm,

defying nightmares to save a dream

Blood on the grass, blood on the sands,

rites of passages no one understands;

though it shed blood (in whatever name)

to a common humanity, the same dream

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2014

Sometimes Love Doesn't (Quite) Make It

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

Gay or straight, man or woman, I dare say there are a good few people out there whose hearts have been stirred if not broken by a romantic interlude on holiday…or just about any time, anywhere.

Oh, but romance can be so fickle. Love, now that’s something else, and where there’s life…

SOMETIMES LOVE DOESN’T (QUITE) MAKE IT

I’ve strolled in green hills

felt summer’s fingers in my hair,

raindrops like kisses,

envying leafy songbirds

free to fly where they choose

as nature intended,

lying on a bed of heather

its scent invading all my senses

just as you (still) do

We’d stroll in green hills

where you’d run fingers in my hair,

(pausing for kisses)

and write love songs

for the birds, fly where we chose

as nature intended,

lying on a bed of heather

its scent invading all our senses,

all but conquering us

I’ve walked grubby streets

felt summer’s fingers tease my hair,

raindrops like tears,

envying couples holding hands

their sweeter life choices

(or nature at play?)

wishing them kinder places

than sure to invade all the senses,

keep the spoils

Once, we were songbirds flying high,

till a north wind exposed us for a lie

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

(Other) Secret Agendas OR Ongoing Repair Work in Fractured Societies

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

Who needs aliens? You don’t have to be paranoid to imagine shadowy figures in the world, not only treading its corridors of power and conspiring to access our own living rooms but which will almost certainly bring us to the very edge of Armageddon one day if only to give humanity a final push and send us all into freefall…from which only a select few are likely to survive.

The public face of the world leaves much to be desired. Thank goodness then for those people from all socio-cultural-religious backgrounds ever bent upon exposing misleading stereotypes and  redundant traditions to help bring the whole socio-cultural-religious ethic into the 21^st century regardless of the risks to their personal safety from die-hard bigots, religious fundamentalists, and those faceless mandarins that have stalked the corridors of power for centuries whose primary concern is self-interest.

No one person can change the world, but if everyone but does their best in their own little corner of it, hopefully the ripples will spread…

(OTHER) SECRET AGENDAS or ONGOING REPAIR WORK IN FRACTURED SOCIETIES

Secret agendas,

writing treaties in various tongues

on a mother’s heart,

smiling at young lovers cavorting

in comic strip cartoons

Secret agendas,

providing a eulogy for the failures

of its multi-cultures,

observing how occupied territories

live on empty gestures

Secret agendas,

inciting revolution among dreamers

who would face facts,

repair broken words to make good

well-heeled intentions

Secret agendas,

dropping lovers in black holes blown

by would-be martyrs,

sending letters home written on scraps

of roadside shrapnel

Secret agendas

shooting down deaf-blind stargazers

for darker centuries

than this, light years on since we first

let battle commence

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008, 2014

Plight of the Yazidis OR Another Bloody Stain on the Landscape of Religion

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

[Update: May 2018:The plight of the Yazidi people continues...]

[Update: November 15th 2015: The Yazidi people continue to suffer indescribable atrocities at the
hands of the cowardly murderers calling themselves Islamic State. Iraqi Kurds have retaken Sinjar from IS so there is light at the end of the tunnel for this minority group, at least for now. Out hearts go out to them and hopes that these I S psychopaths will eventually be wiped from the face of the earth as they deserve.]

Tens of thousands of Yazidis - mostly women and children - were forced to flee to Mount Sinjar, in north-west Iraq when the militant Islamic State (formerly ISIS) recently overran the Sinjar region.

The Yazidis have been surrounded by the militants for days in blistering heat, and with little food or water. Many have died. Thanks to the actions of the Kurdish peshmerga forces and US air strikes targeting the militants, many have now been able to cross into Syria and return to Kurdistan, but many others remain trapped. 

There have been reports of anyone refusing to convert to Islam being summarily executed by Islamic State, taken into slavery, and even buried alive.

All religious fundamentalists are a disgrace to their religion and to humanity. When will they ever learn...?

[Update, May 3rd 2015: Thousands of Yazidi men, woman and children have been massacred by so-called 'Islamic State' in northern Iraq.  Yet, acts of such appalling abuse against humanity and Islam continue to attract followers, especially among young, disaffected Muslims across Europe. ]

PLIGHT OF THE YAZIDIS or ANOTHER BLOODY STAIN ON THE LANDSCAPE OF RELIGION

Victims of a radical Islamic obsession

men, women and children, no safe haven,

under siege on a mountain

Misunderstood by many for centuries

(a common perception, devil worshippers)

a veil over the world’s eyes

Defiant, proud, pursued into the glare

of a sorry world’s shortcomings and media,

focusing on their terror

Islamic State (ISIS) as dark a force as evil,

rallying to a flag as black as any terror-devil

might well raise at will

World, wringing its hands at their misery,

does what it can, little enough for the Yazidi

children of the century

Islamic State, swathe of horrific obsession,

raping body, mind and spirit of a pure religion,

impregnating a generation

London, August 11th 2014

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

Extracts from a Treatise on Time

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

It was 1964 when I first heard Pete Seeger sing Where Have All The Flowers Gone?  I was 17 years-old and moved to tears. I told my mother, adding that I felt such a fool.

‘Never regret tears,’ she said. ‘Only fools never cry. It’s tears that oil the wheels of Time, and without Time there would be no way of carrying our memories to a safe place where we can access them whenever we feel the need…’

'That's daft,' I said.

'No, dear,' she said, 'that's history...'

Now I know better. As I grow old, I need to access my most precious memories; people, places, events that have had, and will always have,  a special place in my life. My mother also spoke of a posthumous consciousness we can access at will, and feel close to those we have loved and since passed away...

This poem is a villanelle:

EXTRACTS FROM A TREATISE ON TIME

Where time, it passes us on,

we, too, pass on in time 

like a flower, its season gone

No wintry world ever reborn

in love’s fair springtime

where time, it passes us on

Find peace on Earth forsworn,

(poetry forsaking rhyme)

like a flower, its season gone

Find all sacred songs written

(to give God a name…?)

where time, it passes us on

On its battlefields dearly won,

glory buries its crime

like a flower, its season gone

Whether molehill or mountain,

may the human spirit climb

where time, it passes us on...

like a flower, its season gone

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008; 2014

[Note: Regular readers may recall that an earlier version of this poem first appeared on the blog under the title 'An Autobiography of Time'.]

Figures in a Landscape OR Home Truths, Chief Protagonists in Art Forms

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

Regarding my You Tube channel, it appears that some viewers have not realised they should keep the sound on to catch the poems I read over the latter videos nor that the poem is also included in the description that accompanies each video. Hopefully, this information will add to your enjoyment as Graham and I have a lot of fun shooting the videos and writing the poems. We don’t have a state of the arts video camera, though, so don’t expect a BBC level production:

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

Meanwhile...

Among all art forms, it is possibly a painting that brings us closest to considering home truths we prefer to keep at bay...? Could that be because all art probes the secrets of nature and human nature that, as we connect with and relate to it, in one way or another, we cause at least some to surface? T

Art, indeed all the arts, are one of the rare occasions when time really does wait for us to make our mark (for better, for worse) and make ourselves heard... whether or not anyone chooses to look, see, hear, listen...

FIGURES IN A LANDSCAPE or HOME TRUTHS, CHIEF PROTAGONISTS IN ART FORMS 

Colours, plain enough

to see, tricks of light

portraying the same scene

if differently, discerning inner eye

homing in selectively

Familiar enough backdrop;

humanity busy scrapping,

hell-bent on settling old scores

under the very noses of arguably

elected ‘betters’

Society stripped of dignity,

its integrity left wide open

to question, hypocrisy ripped

away like ozone, ways of seeing

increasingly less clear

Earth Mother going it alone;

world conforming

to tribal identities, a conflicting

evolution, pictures in an exhibition

up for speculation

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2014

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

Time, a Run-Around Life

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

I love nature, and as a child never understood one of my mother’s favourite sayings about people unable to see the wood for the trees.

It took a while, but I finally grew up and found out…the hard way.

TIME, A RUN-AROUND LIFE

Once

we played chase games   

in a dead-end street,

happy enough, but wishing

kid’s stuff over, time for a go

at living for real

Once

we chased each other

for career success,

happy enough, but wishing

we had more time to make a go

at living for real

Once

we played a chase game

with someone else,

happy enough, but sensing

we were somehow falling short

of living for real

Once

we chanced to meet up  

in a busy street,

happy enough, but sensing

others were making a better go

of living for real

Time

to take stock of dead-ends,

let imagination

run free, take a chance

on each other, start having a go

at living for real

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014