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].
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.
A reader,
Helen, has kindly written in to say she and her family enjoy my poetry and she
thinks my blogs I deserve more followers. Well, thanks a lot, Helen, encouragement is always
welcome. Poetry, though, is not everyone’s cup of tea and I am just happy that
the blogs are still going strong after six years via my Google Plus site that links to new and historical posts/poems. I have set the statistics
so Google does not count my own views; this gives me a clearer picture of
readership.
Now,
today’s little poem was written way back in 1979. Sadly, it strikes me as being even more relevant now than it was then. A neighbour had been complaining to me
about retirement, saying how he missed ‘the buzz of real life’ because all
there was for the likes of retired people was a second hand existence by
courtesy of television and cinema. I suggested keeping up with friends, getting
out and about and doing things, going places…pleasures for which we often have
little or no time when working full-time and/or bringing up a family…? (Mind
you, we need tomaketime.) He simply shrugged and went
indoors to watch an afternoon soap opera.
No, I’m
not knocking TV, or the fact that we live in a Digital Age, but now I am retired myself, I enjoy keeping up with friends, getting out and about and doing things,
going places…the simple pleasures for which it was often hard making time for when
working.
Following
a bad fall in summer 2014, I was housebound for months and spent a good
year or so learning to walk again. I live alone so TV was a great comfort and
companionship (of sorts) in between writing up the blogs, three sessions of
(ten) physiotherapy exercises a day and chatting to friends who were kind
enough to drop by and help out on a regular basis all the while I could barely
walk. I missed getting out and about and do so now as much as I can; even
though walking is still quite painful, I have a sturdy oak walking stick, and
it is always worth making the effort.
So when I
talk to young people rushing home to spend hours on social media, I can’t help
feeling they are missing out…
No, I am
not knocking on-line social networking, but there can be no substitute
for real-life, face to face companionship and banter among friends, not to
mention getting out and about in the sunshine…can there? Now I am older (71)
and less mobile, it is harder to get out and about and meet people, but (still)alwaysworth making the effort.
Social media. the world wide web, TV...all have a place in our lives, of course they do, but no one's real life balance should be tipped in their favour...surely?
Yes, cyber fun can be good fun, but there's no fun quite like sharing fun in the real-life company of friends, forming and developing interpersonal skills that can teach us as much about ourselves as other people, and will see us though the best part of a lifetime. Oh, and it really isn't a case of you can't teach an old dog new (digital) tricks; this old dog knows a few, and all the better for having learned a good few of the non-digital variety...
A LIFE IN THE DAY OF A COUCH POTATO
Little
birds singing on the garden wall
I’ll not
write you up;
you’re, too
sentimental
for the
Age, they say
As one to
another you brightly call
I’ll shut
the window;
a new
soap opera's about
to start
on TV
Bright
sunlight distorting everything
Screen-lined
faces
like
grotesque cartoons
in a Hall
of Mirrors
Let's
close the curtains, better already
Comfortable now... with armchair perspectives on the world
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2001; 2017
[Note:
This poem has been revised since it first appeared under the title 'To a Sunny Day' inLove and Human
Remainsby R. N. Taber,
Assembly Books, 2001.]
[Update Sept 2, 2017] I am not well at the moment but no worries. Going into hospital soon, but hoping for a short stay and back soon. Meanwhile, I hope you will enjoy browsing the blog/s anyway. You can, of course find poems via the search field in the top right hand corner.]
[Update March 25, 2017]: Well, the poetry evening is done and dusted. Not a lot of people came but we enjoyed ourselves and it raised a tidy sum for Prostate Cancer UK. (I have been living with prostate cancer since 2011 during which time hormone therapy has prevented it from becoming aggressive.) There's nothing quite like live poetry.) Everyone seemed to appreciate my choice of gay-interest and general poems and we all got on well during the break which was really nice as some people had only just met for the first time. The arts are meant firstly to entertain and secondly to offer food for thought. Feedback suggests the evening was a success on both counts.
For me, personally, it was hard work but a labour of love so I'm glad I went ahead with it despite being a bag of nerves...which, thankfully, steadied once I got started. This year marks sixty years of getting my poetry into print, given that my first published poem appeared in my school magazine summer 1957.]
I did not have the confidence to read in public for years. However, after a few years of occasionally performing Open Mics at Farrago Poetry evenings in London, I found the self-confidence to accept invitations to give readings around the UK (2003-2014). Only weeks after a reading in 2014, I had a bad fall and have spent much of the last two years learning to walk again. I can get out and about quite well now with the aid of a walking stick, for which I am truly thankful as my left ankle had sustained a complicated fracture and I was warned I might never walk again. Oh, but I love walking and am stubborn enough to defy any harbingers of doom. Even so, I did not expect to give another poetry reading.
Now, this first poem appeared in Visions of the Mind, Spotlight Poets (Forward Press) in 1998 and subsequently in my first collection, Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001. It is an early piece, written in the summer of 1976 during which I gave an impromptu reading of it in Trafalgar Square to a friend (and several appreciative passers-by who paused to listen.)
POETRY LIVE
Words
to music, out of words
let the sun rise
in the eyes of that ragged-eared mongrel
curled on George’s doorstep
tongue lolling stupidly
nostrils a-smoke
Words
to music, out of words
let carnival hot dogs
substitute for garden scents,
make easier the stink
of slop-outs in
the gutter
Words
out of choc-smeared mouths
in Bank Holiday sunshine;
kids in glad rags spilling
on the streets like bin bags;
shirtsleeves copper
getting chatty
Poetry
Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2017
I never dreamt that 30+ years on I would be reading a selection of my poems there, this time to a global audience via web stream as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s ‘live’ sculpture project, One and Other (2009) sponsored by Sky Arts. To view, click on:
This poem is the direct result of a visit to the historic Sussex town of Lewes. As always, my friend Graham Collett shot and edited the video and I wrote a poem to accompany it. I have posted the video/poem on my You Tube channel:
It was during the latter days of last summer that
Graham and I visited Lewes. We only had time to visit the castle and Anne of Cleves’ House, and we
thought you might enjoy sharing the experience.
The town is the location of several significant
historic buildings, including Lewes Castle and a sixteenth-century
timber-framed Wealden hall house known as Anne of Cleves House because it was
given to her as part of her divorce settlement from Henry VIII; although there is no historical evidence to show that she never
lived there, she may well have visited from time to time.
Both Anne of Cleves' House and the Castle are owned and maintained by the
Sussex Archaeological Society.
LEWES,
LANDSCAPE OF IMAGINATION
Looking
for creative therapy?
Visit
the landscape of imagination,
take
a journey into history;
Lewes,
spoils of Norman invasion,
Courtesy
of William, Conqueror
to
William de Warenne and spouse
on
overcoming Saxon resistance,
a
castle there to build on the Ouse,
dedicated
to St Pancras,
in
remembrance of a child martyr,
executed
for his faith
Pass
through the Barbican Gate,
get
a feel for olde England surrounds;
a
Motte and Bailey castle,
later
fortified with stone, the better
to
defend against invasion;
few
richer spoils of time to be found,
firing
the imagination,
filling
inner eye and ear with sights
and
sounds of generations
ghosting
a courtyard dominated
by
all-seeing towers
Climb,
climb, a winding stair
of
stone, labour of love, chiselled
out
of the history
of
olde England, witness to battles
and
executions,
as
well as celebrations, successes
and
failures of its tenants
over
centuries of war and peace;
echoes
of laughter and tears
haunting
East Sussex surrounds
for
a thousand years
Lewes,
meeting its past head-on,
where
Anne of Cleves, and entourage
loyal
to a discarded queen
may
well have sought out the peace
of
Tudor England’s green
but
troubled land, under a fickle king
so
desperate for a son
he
wed unwisely (six times, no less)
letting
ego-led lust have its head,
while
Anne kept hers, even acquired
a
house in Lewes
Time,
though, will wait for nothing
and
no one, least of all a poem passing
through
its eternal passages
of
fame and fortune, secrets and lies,
honourable
deaths, executions
history
may well attempt to justify
and
scholars make excuses
while
poets love to visit time and again,
bring
to the landscapes
of
imagination, inner eye and ear,
open
to whatever…
Day
done, history’s curtain drawn
across
the windows of minds anxious
to
chew on history’s bones,
reach
their own conclusions as to how
past
into present excavations
of
various ruins and other testaments
to
history’s own, for better or worse,
invest
ghosts the ilk of Anne of Cleves
and
such tenants as its castle
once
let live, love, make merry and die,
with
a singular peace…
Lewes
Copyright
R. N. Taber 2016 Note: I had problems uploading the video to You Tube so you may need to watch it again if your first attempt resulted in any distorted images.
A friend who (like me) has not had a good year confided that he almost dreads the year drawing to a close because he fears what next year may bring. He is 80, and (for years now) inclined to think every Christmas will be his last. In my book, that’s as as good as saying he’s afraid to wake up and face a new day in case it is worse than the day before. Oh, I get it, I really do, but negative thinking never got anyone anywhere they would prefer to be.
Me? As regular readers know, I try to take my cue from Monty Python, always looking on the bright side of life, no matter what, even when the view is a wee murky.
Besides, where some people take inspiration and comfort from religion, I take mine from nature…and doesn’t spring always follow winter?
DARKNESS, THE POETRY OF MIXED FEELINGS
In the absence of light,
not a soul in sight, nor star or moon,
yet whispers
in a passing breeze urge calm
as kind ghosts return
to fill a lonely heart with love
and urge us all
to seek peace of mind, be at ease
with ourselves
Does the heart play deaf
for fear of pain returning to haunt
a mind hosting
too many regrets that so relish
any prompting
to haunt, taunt us, make us
feel small
where no shadows even
to take our side?
Oh, but listen, listen, listen
to what friendly ghosts have to say
about seizing the day,
the better to let sweeter dreams
drive the Bogeyman
far away, unwilling to return,
risk further humiliation
where happy hauntings sure
to drive him out
Though a mind be as restless
as a wintry sea on some lonely shore,
let the heart say its piece,
hear it out, let it ease body’s aches
and pains, inspire
the human spirit to picture moon
and stars looking down
on us with a twinkle in each eye,
anticipating a new day
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber For years now I have written a general and gay-interest Poem for Christmas and sent it to everyone on my contact list instead of a Christmas card, not least because (as other poems on the blog may well illustrate) I am not a particularly Christmassy person. It is my pleasure to share this one with you; the other will appear on my gay blog and both will appear on my Google Plus site. (Although I have a gay and general poetry site, as far as I am concerned, a poem is a poem is a poem, regardless of content which is why I am pleased to post both on Google Plus.) Incidentally, some of you may be interested to know that I am giving a sponsored poetry reading for Prostate Cancer UK on World Poetry Day, May 21, 2017. I will not only be celebrating having seen my poetry in print for 60 years (my first poem appeared in my school magazine, 1957) but also living with prostate cancer for 6+ years. As I am not a religious person, Christmas means nothing to me in that sense. While I can appreciate and respect the fact that religious festivals are important to those who wish to celebrate their religion, it often seems to me (being gay) that any messages of love, peace and goodwill to everyone are little more than empty words. Religions are only closed shops, though, if their followers choose to make them so; many if not most (but not all, thank goodness) have closed hearts, open only to those who follow its dogma to the letter. (Heaven forbid, anyone should ‘deviate’ even in the name of humanity). Any inhumanity is easily put aside for a Heaven that’s any sheep’s reward for not having the temerity to stray from the dogmatic fold as preached by ‘betters’ who would appear to have His (or Her?) ear. Some readers may think my Christmas poems disrespectful, but I can assure you that it is not towards religion that I am so minded but towards those who - in my experience - pay little more than lip service to the major lessons (any) religion professes to preach; e.g. peace, love, equality, respect and fairness amongst a common humanity… Thank you for reading my blog/s, hope you have found plenty to enjoy, and here’s wishing you all a VERY Happy Christmas. CHRISTMAS, CUE FOR AN OPEN HEART A pet is not just for Christmas nor should December have a monopoly on spreading peace and goodwill Love is not just for Christmas nor should celebrating any religion mean shutting one up or out Caring is not just for Christmas nor can token gestures of goodies repay neglecting the real thing Mind, body, spirit, have no need of fairy lights on trees, decorations, or even and being seen going to prayers Let’s celebrate the heart that’s open all seasons and all hours, no one turned away, no excuses Copyright R. N. Taber 2016
N-A-T-U-R-E, Imaging Eternity aOR Transcending Known Parameters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber It seems to me that we often overlook the simpler pleasures of life in our enthusiasm for the more exotic or whatever is most likely to impress family, peers and neighbours. A friend once commented, ‘We never know long we’ve got so all the more reason to cram in as much as we can while we can.’ I get that, but not everyone is a crammer; we all want different things from life and just because someone does not appear to have a lot to show for his or her life doesn’t mean they have not live it, in their own wat and time, to the full. Now, every so often, someone asks me why I often write about death. Well, as a positive thinker, I try to be as positive about the inevitability of death as I do about making the most of each day as it comes, no matter what it may bring. Besides, I have been living with prostate cancer for nearly six years now so shying away from death is not an option. Not that I have any intention of letting the Grim Reaper have his way with me just yet! (Better to be positive, surely?) It has been suggested by those who do not know me very well that I should ‘find God’ and therefore need have no fear of death. They mean well, of course, but I have never been able to relate to any religion or idea of a personified ‘God’. Nor am I am an atheist, though, but more of an agnostic in as much as I do believe in a sense of spirituality that enhances our customised vision of the world; outwardly and inwardly. However, as regular readers well know, I take that sense of spirituality from nature, not religion. Oh, and why, too, do I have a particular fondness for robins? Well, not least because they are survivors, known to see out the worst winters if only to sing in another spring, reminding us all that, of all nature’s gifts, hope has to be among the best on offer. (And should hope die in some bleak winter of the heart? Well, as spring follows winter so, too, perhaps might we…?) Such is a sense of spirituality as I see it or if you prefer, the Landscape of Imagination from which so much of my poetry takes its inspiration, both mutually inclusive in my view. N-A-T-U-R-E, IMAGING ETERNITY or TRANSCENDING KNOWN PARAMETERS No one ever lays flowers, comes even to rework old times, but an old tree reads poems that passes for a fitting eulogy, and a robin sings No memorial marks the spot, none have cause to pause this way, but shadows make a play for life at Apollo’s pleasure, and seeds grow Each of four winds has a say in how the tree needs must recite; leafy branches acting out rhythm, rhyme, blank verse, (all weathers) Mark how seasons play a part, anticipating nature’s every mood, overseeing a predilection for happy-sad shades of green, amber, red and mould No let-up by day or night, the tree passing on its every nuance of sight and sound to each man, woman and child with any feeling for the natural world Nature may well see us through time’s ever-changing kaleidoscope, yet humanity has far more say than any leaves in what patterns it may shape us…? Ah, but such is human nature, it may yet branch out on leafy whim to make, break, let rise or fall such passions of the human heart as a robin sings Roger N. Taber (2016)
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.]
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
cananyof 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.]