Nature, Poetry of Remembrance

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

Update (May 2016): A reader has been in touch to ask for the link to an interview I recently gave a student at my old university (some 40+ years ago) about my poetry for a multi-media project on 'an interesting person'. It was fun. Moreover, it warms the cockles of this septuagenarian's heart to know people still find me interesting. Unfortunately, this reader used the Comments button, but did not include an e-mail address so I am posting it again here.]

https://r224e31251.racontr.com/index.html  (NB. Copy into your browser to access this link.)

Meanwhile…

My mother died in 1976. I once asked her what she wanted out of life. She replied, ‘All I ask is that people remember and think well of me after I’m dead. I'd so like to be more than a photo on the mantelpiece," she added almost as an afterthought. 

What more can any of us ask for, eh?

Oh, I didn't quite get it at the time. I do now. Oh, yes, especially in springtime when I go for a walk in the countryside; I can see her smile and hear her voice everywhere I look... or... when I get home and listen to Shirley Bassey, her favourite singer...or... visit an art gallery and enjoy the Turner landscapes she loved...

Art, like nature, is always with us. Nature, though, is very much a living organism in its own right while art relies on the observer (or listener) to achieve much the same. Memories, too, are always with us, especially those surrounding loved ones. Yes, art can stir memories. Nature, though, offers a more direct route, reminding us that all living things, not just people, have their seasons, pass away and come again...

For me, it is this sense of spirituality that nature offers which transcends precious memories into a life-force in a way no religion ever could, and gives the poem its title.

NATURE, POETRY OF REMEMBRANCE 

Come a time I’ll close my eyes forever,

never again observe a waking day,

think of me with love as a new sun rises,

and weep not, but look for me there

Come a time I’ll close my ears forever.

hear dawn’s sweet chorus no more,

think of me as heavens make glad music,

and weep not, but listen for me there

Come a time my senses fail me forever,

never again smell a rain-kissed earth,

think of me as flowers open their petals,

and weep not, but walk with me there

Come a time we’ll have run life’s gamut,

may the dream that was ours never fade,

but merge into Earth Mother’s natural art

created for all our sakes and we for it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2016

[Note: This poem first appeared under the title, 'Rhetoric of Mortality, Poetry of Life' in Accomplices to Illusion: poems by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]

Epilogue

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

[Update: Oct 6, 2017]: The 2nd Invictus Games, created by Prince Harry, and the only international multi-sporting event for wounded, injured and sick service men and women, have been a great success, not only - and most importantly - in helping the participants to rise above any disability and all the emotional baggage that goes with it, but also in helping able-bodied audiences around the world to appreciate their efforts; disabled people are far too often stereotyped, even all but written off because the less enlightened see only the disability, not the person. More yet needs to be done for war veterans worldwide to encourage those who feel undermined and undervalued by virtue of this or other disability to give them a shared purpose in life, restore self-esteem, let them feel appreciated for who they are and for their self-sacrifice on our behalf without any sense of being patronised. Three Cheers for Prince Harry for having the sensibility and insight to found the event; his mother would have been very proud of him for it.]

November 11, Armistice Day, will see the commemoration of an armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Compiègne, an agreement that ended the fighting on the Western Fron that went into effect at 11 a.m. Paris time on 11 November 1918. While it marked a victory for the Allies and a complete defeat for Germany, it was not a formal surrender; although the armistice ended all actual fighting, it took six months of negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to conclude a peace treaty, the Treaty of Versailles.

Today’s poem first appeared under the title, Epilogue in the on-line poetry journal, Ydrasil (2009) and Poetry Monthly International (2010)before I changed the title yet again for my collection. (It sometimes takes a good while for me to feel 'right' about a title.) I wrote it soon after a former soldier I’d met in a bar had been telling me about a friend and former comrade who was in prison. The friend has been found guilty of attacking an ‘innocent’ party who had been goading him about looking better in uniform than in a suit. Apparently, he was on probation at the time. My companion commented, ‘It’s hard. You go to a war zone a whole person but each time you come back it’s like something more of that person is missing. Part of you dies out there or goes AWOL at the very least. I guess how much so is different for everyone…’

Many ex-service personnel (anyone, anywhere) need help to adjust to everyday life once they are home again either on leave or after being discharged. While it is important to help the injured and support the bereaved, there are also men and women who carry no visible signs of having been to war, but are just as much in need of our support and understanding as well as (in some cases) professional counselling. 

The man in the bar told me something else. ‘You have to be tough to fight, really tough. Show any weakness, and if the enemy doesn’t get you, your own side will. Back home, it can often feel like there’s a total stranger living in your skin and the chances are you don’t like that person at all. It's like the old self is all but dead. Sometimes the best part of that old self will make its way back, sometimes not. I dare say it’s the same for both sides in any war…’ He paused before adding tearfully, "It's hard on family and friends. They see a soldier hero, and have no idea..."

All disabled people, and I include forms of mental illness and any struggling to get the better of the likes of post traumatic stress disorders - regardless of race, creed, gender or sexuality - are an inspiration,  heroes of battles they face daily, winning some, losing some, but determined to get the better of both disability and the misleading stereotypes it so often attracts.

This poem is a villanelle.

EPILOGUE

I so look up to you with love and pride

for the finer human traits you nurture
in each, a candle lit for those who died

The first time you went to war, I cried,

while you but longed for adventure;

you fill me with such love, and pride

In Iraq, your worst fears chose to hide

in caches of ‘true grit’ human nature;

in each, a candle lit for those who died

In Afghanistan, you fought side by side

with the bravest, a born again warrior;

I so look up to you with love and pride

You saw friends killed or injured, tried

seeing Hell as but forms of cruel satire,
in each, a candle lit for those who died

You seemed to take it all in your stride,

 heaving the fallen over your shoulder;

 I so look up to you with love and pride,

 in each, a candle lit for those who died

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012; 2016

[Note: This poem appears under the title 'Missing, Believed Killed' in  print editions of Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Book, 2012.]

Human Spirit, the Hand that Rocks the Cradle

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

By now readers will know the so-called Arab Spring (2010) has left those countries involved no better if not worse off than before. Well, that's world politics for you...

Civil war has all but broken out in Libya yet People Power continues to make its voice heard across North Africa and the Middle East, ordinary men and women desperate for democratic reform and risking their lives for it.  The human spirit is strong if vulnerable, proving time and time again that it can and will rise above tragedy.  Perhaps, though, if more Western politicians even half understood Middle East politics and neither side did not always assume they know best...

Nature and human nature, they give and they take away. Perhaps, though, if it were even just a shade less inclined to reflex actions that demand it bite the hand that feeds it, humankind might yet find itself in better shape to prevent itself going to the dogs of war that have haunted its every step since the beginning of time...?

The poem first appeared in Poetry Monthly International (2010) and subsequently in my collection.

HUMAN SPIRIT, THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE

There’s a hand that caresses the first buds of spring

and bids them grow;

it moves among summer corn in time for harvesting

by courtesy of Apollo

Where autumn’s leaves making ready for its turning,

it bestows a blessing;

when winter brings us to our knees, of life despairing,

it beckons us to spring

Where we run the gamut of love, hate, peace and war,

find, too, Earth Mother;

let Her fair hand caress and smooth the troubled brow

or we destroy each other

The question arises, dare we bite the hand that feeds us

and face the consequences

or do we accept it in a spirit of goodwill to all humanity,

put aside our differences?

Beware, or the hand that rocks the cradle may let it drop,

our world broken or worse;

needs must, we learn to read the hand that’s writing us up,

go back to school or else... 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was first published in Poetry Monthly International, February 2010 and subsequently Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012.]

Reconciling with Halloween

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

Now, Halloween is reputedly a time for witches and warlocks. So did witches and warlocks have no time for love? Moreover, what of their sexual persuasion, and who are we to make assumptions? As for ghosts…I dare say we all have our share of those.

In effect, Halloween is just a date on the calendar. We may well associate it with ‘Trick or Treat’ but I suspect most if not all of us find ourselves playing mind games now and then; with our various selves as well as with others, and they with us. (Let’s face it. Halloween isn’t the only time some of us love or even prefer to wear masks - metaphorically speaking, of course - so no one can read our faces.)

True, Halloween may well be as good a time as any to choose whether to let our ghosts persist in personifying our worst nightmares or invest them with benign fantasy and give peace of mind a fighting chance, whatever it takes, but who needs Halloween for that...?

Some aspects of Halloween have always appealed to and inspired me, especially the concept of a posthumous consciousness which I wholeheartedly embrace. Not all ghosts are nightmarish, of course; some are welcome reminders of happy times spent with loved ones long since passed away and whom I love to revisit, but who needs Halloween for that either?

However we view Halloween, I guess the important thing is to enter into the spirit of things, and enjoy it.

RECONCILING WITH HALLOWEEN

One Halloween at a full moon,

come the witching hour,

live wires humming our tune

You had left me, oh, too soon,

life tasting, oh, so sour,

one Halloween at a full moon

Walking on, an autumnal rain

but a heavenly shower,

live wires humming our tune

A hand slipped gently into mine

like spring to a flower,

one Halloween at a full moon

Love, treading a rare timeline,

kept me company there,

live wires humming our tune

It lifted me, a spirit all but divine,

a light in me forever.

one Halloween at a full moon,

live wires humming our tune

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2016

[Note: This poem first appears under the title ’Taking on Halloween’ in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007.]

On the Nature of Love

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

I have often heard people say they feel they have missed out on love, and it saddens them because they feel life has left them feeling incomplete.  Perhaps they have never been ‘in love’ or a partner has died young or a lover may have let them down in their eyes…

Whatever, love is neither so easily defined nor confined to the context of being ‘in love’. As I have said before on the blogs (and dare say will say again) love takes many shapes and forms that can be as real, inspiring and life-shaping as a lover.

Me, I haven’t had a steady partner for many years and we only had a short time together, but knowing him was a learning curve in many ways, not least in learning to take nothing for granted, especially love. It is possible, even likely, that platonic love between good friends can be as enriching in its own way as the love shared by lovers. A love of certain places or simply for travelling and experiencing new places can be wonderful nor less so the love of home life and everything it means to us, even if we rarely if ever step out of that particular comfort zone.

Different people want and need different things from life, but so long as we keep our eye on love, and always remain aware of and nurture its presence, the least likely we are to ever look back on our lives and find them wanting.

Few people, in my experience, can say they feel wholly fulfilled, Yes, I envy those that can, of course I do, but we should never let envy of others blind us to our own blessings, even when the latter sometimes seem somewhat thin on the ground; be assured they will pick up, but only if we open up to them, fill our senses with them, see them for what they are through our own eyes, not someone else’s.  Yes, I know it’s pretty obvious, but SO many people fail to see the proverbial wood for trees planted by someone else.

As for sexuality, it embraces love, yes, but love is bigger than that, and anyone who believes in love needs to be big enough to admit it, socio-cultural-religious prejudices notwithstanding, or they are 
hypocrites...to say the least.

‘Where there is love, there is life.’ - Mahatma Gandhi

ON THE NATURE OF LOVE

Hey, listen out…

Hear that lasting beat 

whose remit to feed

the sweetest memories

to a hungry heart.

long after its life force

carried away

on wings of a day set aside

for sorrow

Hey, look there…

Discover cloud shapes

whose remit to relay

best (and worst) times

to an inner eye

long after losing sight

of friendly faces

to hands on a wall clock

stuck fast

Hey, have a smell…

Where grass is greenest

and leaves bring

the scent of summer roses

to the mind

all but closing down

in keeping

with a winter all but gone

to earth

Hey, get the taste…

For honey on the tongue

on what we may

liken to a ‘soul’ having left

its lasting imprint

on such as we may care

to call ‘spirit’

in the lamentable absence

of a poem

Ever get the feeling…?

Earth Mother, nurturing

the beauty

of our seasons going

full cycle,

constructive comment

even on dreams

of each hopeful tomorrow

left unfulfilled

Hey, reach up, touch…

Where the heart beats out

its hopes

for such peace and love

as may or may not

run true, but much the more 

worth the dreaming

for filling all my senses

with you

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Pictures in an Exhibition

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

A reader from Switzerland has emailed me to ask - as people often do - why a poet writes fiction. Well, there is poetry of a kind in fiction too. I needed to try my hand at writing novels, partly because I knew I would enjoy it (as I did) and partly because i suspected it would bring me closer to an understanding of human nature...as it has; as, indeed, do all the arts, each in their own way. Take fiction; it is not all about plot, but creating characters, good and bad. The writer needs to explore the various interrelationships of mind, body and spirit. Hopefully, this has also made me a better poet... but that, of course, is up to you, my readers, to decide.

Most of my novels - published and unpublished - remain in serial form on my fiction blog. Each serial is preceded by a separate synopsis post. It wa my original intention that as each complete novel  would be published to Google Play in e-format and removed from the blog. but a number of readers have emailed to say they cannot access Google Play. For this reason, I will be publishing my gay-interest crime novel 'Blasphemy' to the blog again while continuing to make it available on Google Play. All my novels on the blog are listed at:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html 

It seemed a good idea to publish today's poem here (see below) at the same time as answering a number of queries about publishing my novels (and poetry collections) as e-books to Google Play over the next few years, thereby, making those that have only ever been on sale in the UK available to readers worldwide. UK sales were not too discouraging; first (and only) print runs sold quite well. Even so, I am definitely more of a poet than a novelist, although I enjoy writing fiction, and sheer enjoyment has to be as good a motivation as any.  [Few publishers have shown much interest in my fiction and not all those serialised on the blog have been published in print form; copyright to each, though, remains exclusively mine.]

A librarian in public libraries most of my working life, it would both amuse and sadden me to see hot-blooded heterosexual readers hovering  near the counter until no one else was waiting before presenting any gay-interest items (a novel,  DVD, biography of a gay icon etc.) to be issued or discharged. Many libraries have now installed issue/discharge machines that will spare them any such embarrassment. Yet, why be embarrassed?  Imagination is an Open House. I can only put it down to human nature’s preoccupation with a ‘guilt by association’ ethos and habitual inclination to jump to conclusions.

I wrote this poem while thinking about writing my first novel, ‘Dog Roses; a Gay Man’s Rites of Passage.’ The book was never published except on the blog. No publishers were interested, but that did not matter. By the time I had finished writing it, I realised why I had so needed to write it in the first place. Putting aside aspirations of fame and fortune (just as well) I needed to stop thinking about exploring human nature through fiction as with poetry, and just get on with it, give it my best shot. I have no regrets; it provided no less as rewarding an experience as poetry but via different routes and from different angles. (As for so much as a hint of talent, well, that’s something else altogether…and up to you to form your own opinions.)

I used to regret not being able to paint, draw, compose or play music... until it came home to me how all the arts share a common source; the writer, composer, painter, whatever. needs must get as close to human nature as any gardener or farmer to the very soil we feed and which, in turn, feeds us. How far the analogy can be carried, of course, depend as much on the nature of the soil or genre as that of any of us reaping its rewards; reader, listener, observer, all have no less a part to play than whomsoever's hands planting whatsoever seeds.

This poem is a villanelle.

PICTURES IN AN EXHIBITION

Exploring the human condition,

its good, bad and ugly

life forces stranger than fiction

Any flaws demanding attention,

(for all a subtle simplicity)

exploring the human condition

Nature, its greater contribution

side-lined by humanity;

life forces stranger than fiction

Exposed, a common retribution

(reasoning a moral propriety)

exploring the human condition

Satirised, a political observation

of this life’s tragicomedy;

life forces stranger than fiction

Society, pictures in an exhibition

for whomsoever cares to see;

exploring the human condition,

life forces stranger than fiction

Copyright R. N. Taber 1997; 2016

Tides of the Heart

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

Love can be as fickle as it is desirable, while sometime misinterpreted as fickle when simply unable to reach a decision for one reason or another.

Could it be that many of the world’s lovers (LGBT included) need to talk to each other more…? Even love can be guilty of taking too much for granted…

Whatever, can any of life’s challenges be tougher than faced by the long distance swimmer on tides of the human heart…?

TIDES OF THE HEART

Sat on a beach,

watching the waves

roll in, out,

and back again…

like love’s promises

to me

Just out of reach,

waiting for your love

to roll in, out,

and back again…

like the finest poetry

and prose

Winging, calling

to you among sea birds,

now high, now low,

nature’s wry comment

on humanity’s tides

of life

Alone on a beach,

its beachcombing hearts

on the look-out

for any such as ours,

among love’s flotsam

and jetsam

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Secrets, Ebb and Flow' in an anthology, As Waves Pass By, Poetry Now (Forward Press) 2002, and subsequently in my own collection, First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]