A Poet's Blog: Roger N.Taber shares his thoughts & poems...

Thoughts and observations by English poet Roger N. Taber, a retired librarian and poet-novelist.- "Ethnicity, Religion, Gender, Sexuality ... these are but parts of a whole. It is the whole that counts." RNT [NB While I have no wish to create a social network, I will always reply to critical emails about my poetry. Contact: rogertab@aol.com].

Name:
Location: London, United Kingdom

Sadly, a bad fall in 2012 has left me with a mobility problem, and being diagnosed with prostate cancer the same year hasn't helped, but I get out and about with my trusty walking stick as much as I can, take each day as it comes and try to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life. Many of my poems reflect the need to nurture a positive-thinking mindset whatever life throws at us.

Monday 30 May 2016

L-I-F-E, a Compendium of Mind Games


As I grow old, I am reminded how true it is what they say about recalling times past more graphically than the day before. Some of my memories are peopled with family, old friends, lovers and colleagues, even those I only ever knew as friendly faces with whom to pass a pleasant evening at a local bar after a long day of getting nowhere fast.

I do not summon these ghosts, rather vice versa, as if to heap me with regret and/or unanswerable questions as to why we no longer see each other. Did we simply drift apart or was there never any question of our staying in touch anyway? In the latter case, why should I recall them at all? What is it about certain people that they leave such a lasting impression on us? I suspect it tells us less about them than about ourselves if we care to probe further which is perhaps why we rarely do…in case we don’t like some of the answers we may come up with?

A prevailing image of memory I have is of two cruise liners; one, carrying us along with those who have truly meant something to us in life (for good or ill) and another carrying those we recall for reasons we cannot or prefer not to articulate. So they - and we - journey across time and space, passing each other from time to time like ships in the night, each with its ‘live’ cargo of assorted shadows.

L-I-F-E, A COMPENDIUM OF MIND GAMES

As I walked into a crowded room,
everyone stopped talking,
stared at me as if I were a stranger
and had no right to be there,
an uninvited guest, gatecrasher, someone
sure to disturb their peace

I approached someone I once knew
to kick-start a conversation,
cue for everyone to start blowing
pretty bubbles of words
that hit the ceiling, burst, spilling questions
on each and every one of us

‘Tell me, how are things in your world
since last we got together?
Why must Time so hoard its past
as if it were a collector 
gathering evidence to prove a point,
as if world history 
isn’t always reminding us of our hits, 
near misses, successes
and failures, kindly meant interference
in other people’s affairs 
as likely to end in tears as assumptions 
that not even the best laid plans 
of mice and men are as guaranteed to see 
the cold light of day as any tall tales that come
and go like furniture and fittings

Silences tickling my ears, like no-answers
to a single question dripping me
like raindrops, leaving puddles in my wake
as I negotiate paths opening up
to let me pass, courtesy of people I’d loved,
let slip away or simply forgotten

No welcome hugs, kisses on each cheek,
only looks probing my thoughts
from bubble faces soaking me in memories,
half memories, pretend memories
for all I know, pulling at lesser heartstrings,
sleepwalking me into other selves

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016







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Tuesday 10 May 2016

Running the Gauntlet OR The Undefeated


As it deepens, despair takes us into the very heart of human darkness. There may well be a pinprick of light at the end of the proverbial tunnel, but sometimes it is no more than a blur. Yet, if we can manage to focus even for just an instant, the blur becomes a lantern that will guide us back into the daylight and sunshine of what we laughingly call ‘normal’ life. After so many years of being made to feel bad about being gay, ana subsequently in and out if the damn closet like a jack-in-the-box, I was finally close to enlightenment. Yes, being gay was OK.

I made tough bit inspiring this journey in my early 30’s (I am in my 70's now) and it is the closest I have ever come to experiencing an epiphany. Where I had once sought but never found any comfort or inspiration in religion, a drowning mind-body-spirit  sensed and reached out to a spirituality in the nature of all things reassuring me that Earth Mother had not given up on me, and I must not give up on myself.

 RUNNING THE GAUNTLET or THE UNDEFEATED

Eyes glowing in a premature darkness
like cat’s eyes on a loping highway in a storm,
padding its way with stealth and guile,
brushing giant leaf and fern in Brobdingnag
concrete jungle spread all around;
wings of steel pitted against natural instinct;
dirt tracks strewn with primeval litter,
secret paths to Earth Mother’s hand written
poetry and prose

Hear the lion roar, rearing and pawing
at the sky, unbowed by heaven’s wary eye;
flashes like daggers at Caesar’s back,
taking the Beast through its paces till it drops;
apes swinging here and there,
mock a weary lion but taking care to steer
well clear, avoiding confrontation
else a feast of claws devour even salvation,
torn pages of Darwin

Ah, but let the Beast rest while it may;
hunters and hunted will find each other out
soon enough, about to discover
what (if any) creature can match us
eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
and for whom the wind composes a eulogy
where darkest poetry and prose read,
old gods (and new) mocking our inability
to understand a word

Tunnel caving in, barely a pin-prick of light;
human spirit, running the gauntlet...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2016


[Note: Revised (2016) from an earlier version that appears under the title ‘Heart of Darkness’ in 1st eds of The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

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Monday 9 May 2016

Foot Soldier


Across the modern world, freedoms are being whittled away by the very socio-cultural-religious and political forces that purport to support and endorse them; freedom of speech (cannot even agree to differ without causing offence in some quarters); freedom to assume whatever sexual identity we feel appropriate (as if gay or transgender folks have a choice…); freedom to protest, put our names to a legitimate petition or such documentation as may be considered ‘indiscreet’ by Intelligence sources (ask Julian Assange   …) etc. etc. etc.

In places like Saudi Arabia, young people risk crucifixion, for protesting against a vile regime which many western politicians and other leading figures like to cosy up to if only for its wealth and oil.

Whoever and wherever we are, we should never take what freedom we have for granted, but neither should we assume it is the last word in what freedom means; those freedoms we don’t have or any that are at risk will always be worth fighting for as and when required.

Have two terrible world wars taught so much of humankind so little about freedom?

'Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast.' (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet) a quote the EEU and the Arab Spring of 2011 would have done well to keep in mind...?

FOOT SOLDIER

Weary, a foot soldier
forever trudging human highways,
byways, country lanes...

Maybe arrive by nightfall
or needs must press on till daybreak,
destination unknown

Under orders from a skylark
last seen soaring into a tearful dawn
(looking for Heaven?)

Apollo offers hope in time
to lighten the heartbeat, put a spring
in the loneliest step

Centuries-old aspirations
discarded on the slopes of Parnassus
recovered, read aloud

Where life no less precious
on highways, byways, country lanes,
find bitter-sweet poems

Human spirit, alive and well
among earthworms researching poems
of love, peace and war

Apollo, on visiting the grave, 
has been known to throw light on it all
among those who listened

Freedom, foot soldier, lives on 
in open minds and hearts of free spirits 
across time and space


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

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Saturday 7 May 2016

A Meeting of Minds at the Last Chance Saloon

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

One of my favourite subjects at school some 50+ years ago was History, not least because we had a teacher who made history come alive in in the mind’s eye. I well recall Mr Vickers - fondly known as ‘Chopper’ by generations of schoolkids - telling the class to bear in mind that History hates to lose face. He went to comment along the lines that, just as many if not most of us are inclined to be less than honest when reflecting on home truths, so it is with history. Consequently, he added with a characteristic chuckle, history is paved with excuses. 

I have since come to understand how it is invariably in the light of these excuses that events are recorded, re-recorded and often ‘adapted’ to reconcile with contemporary opinion according to this or that point of view.  

Fortunately, I also had an excellent English teacher at the same school [ 'Jock' Rankin] who taught us how to identify elements of bias in both factual and fictional writings as well as various media presentations. There is nothing wrong with bias, he would say, so long as we recognise it as such and make up our own minds.

On the whole, I hated my schooldays, but looking back I see now how, as an Education for Life, they excelled. Even so...50+ years ago, and what's really changed?  Well, not human nature, for a start...

A MEETING OF MINDS AT THE LAST CHANCE SALOON

Should global warming kill us all,
even Earth Mother may not survive
but as one among stars poised fall;
among its remains, nothing left alive

They say humankind fails to consider
that nature might turn and retaliate
for killing off trees, failing to nurture
respect for bird or beast until too late

We hear much talk of saving habitats,
ending world poverty, famine, wars,
as the poor grow poorer to feed fat cats,
old gods and new, settling old scores

Oh, but there’s politics, sure to save us  
from worms haunting its mass graves,
last-ditch rhetoric for wannabe saviours
still burning its oil in midnight's caves

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2016

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Sunday 24 April 2016

Friends

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

Today’s poem - another villanelle - was first written in 2002 and published in an anthology the following year before I included it in my collection.

Why do I make revisions at all?  During the process of preparing my collection for publication to Google Play in e-format, I find myself dissatisfied with some poems for reasons not always obvious, even to me; most, it has to do with how a poems ‘flows’ – or doesn’t, as the case may be.

Given that I’ve never really got along with most members of either my immediate or extended family, good friends have always been especially important to me. (Yes, even those of the ‘fair weather’ variety.) As I grow old (71 now and live alone) I am, oh, so thankful to and for good friends. and value our friendship even more.  

FRIENDS

Come some dark, lonely night
or saddest sunny day,
find friends, making it all right

At one with moon and starlight
kept at bay,
come some dark, lonely, night

Wherever a so-weepy half-light
gone charcoal grey,
find friends, making it all right

Find home fires burning bright
(shaping our clay)
come some dark, lonely night

Losing out (again) taking fright
of facing another day;
find friends, making it all right

Oh, but no kinder end or respite
from worldly rites of way;
come some darkest, longest night,
find friends, making it all right

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Among Friends, Music to the Ears' in an anthology, Where the Words take You, Anchor Books [Forward Press] 2003 and subsequently in The Third Eye (2004) by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

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Saturday 23 April 2016

Blues OR Up the Down Escalator

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

This may not be one of my better poems (!) but one I enjoyed writing; a reader got in touch to say she was 'an emotional wreck'  (I know the feeling!) and asked for a poem to cheer her up. 


I played around with this poem one evening and sent it. Later, the reader said it had encouraged her to stop feeling sorry for herself and ‘go and find Somewhere Town’.


Years ago when I was struggling to recover from a severe nervous breakdown, an artist friend suggested I listen to some Blues. When I expressed scepticism, he simply said, Believe me. nothing is more uplifting than to know despair is universal and you're not alone.' Another friend (a musician) agreed, insisting that 'The sheer emotional intensity of Blues takes you where you where the mind needs must be to start over, way above and beyond where the heart is too scared of losing its safety net to even want to try.' 


That's all very well, I thought, but meaningless...until I spent an hour or so one day listening to some great Blues...


It worked, and I started to get my life back.



"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

BLUES or UP THE DOWN ESCALATOR


I had the Blues,

was close to breaking down.
just kept rolling on
towards Nowhere Town,
heading north of the sun,
veering west at the moon;
be sure there’s a Nowhere Town
for everyone

I sang the Blues,

whole world egging me on,
nowhere else to run
but Nowhere Town;
folks laughed and cried,
didn’t take me for a clown;
be sure everyone  sings the Blues
in Nowhere Town

Through the Blues,

I saw a knowing wink declare,
it’s a dead loss here,
so try going somewhere
south of the sun,
a little east at the moon,
where there’s a Somewhere Town
for everyone

Blues, they don't ever let me down;

destination, Somewhere Town…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

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Friday 22 April 2016

Humanity, Greater than the Sum of its Stereotypes


We live in a troubled world. Even so, for most of us, our faith in the essential goodness of human nature remains unshaken if somewhat battered; on balance, good, kind people in the world far outnumber their opposites, and hopefully always will.

Like many gay people, I have been physically as well as verbally abused for being gay. Homophobia, racist, religious intolerance...once, these made me angry, bitter and resentful. Now, at 70+ years-old, they just makes me sad, very sad.

We are a common humanity. As I have said many times and will say again, we need to respect each other for our differences not fight over them; try to support each other as and when we can even as we are (sometimes) struggling to get to grips with life  ourselves.

Is that really too much to ask?

When push comes to shove, what does anyone's colour, creed, sex or sexuality have to do with their humanity anyway?

Now, inhumanity, that's another story...

Yes, we all know it makes common sense…so what holier-than-thou fool threw that out of what window on the world centuries ago, I wonder?

HUMANITY, GREATER THAN THE SUM OF ITS STEREOTYPES 

There is a place in this life
for everyone,
space enough in this world
for everyone,
love’s flowers enough to share
with everyone,
happy hours enough to care
for everyone

There is a place in this life
for everyone,
pain enough in this world
for everyone,
inhumanity enough laid bare
to everyone,
healing ways enough to care
for everyone

There is a place in this life
for everyone,
(gay or straight) in a world
for everyone,
individuality enough to share
with everyone,
humanity enough (surely?)
in everyone

Though hard choices imposed
on everyone,
divided voices superimposed
on everyone,
let humanity make time enough
for everyone,
happy hours enough to care
for everyone

So come on, world, out with it;
what’s your problem with that?


Copyright R. N. Taber 2008

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