Nature, Powerhouse of Secrets

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

We may like to think we live in an open society, yet behind closed doors thrive secrets of all kinds, not least the human kind.

Open or less open, the world’s societies (human and natural) along with all their various families and communities - have nurtured a whole world of secrets since the beginning of time, many to which any human mind-body-spirit may yet have access if it but cares to tap into itself while looking to see, listening to hear ... if not necessarily what it wants or expects to see-hear, given the native arrogance of human nature in supposing itself second to none.

For better or worse, appearances are often deceptive; no more or less true of nature than human nature ...

NATURE, POWERHOUSE OF SECRETS

I have heard a spring rain

cajole the world open up to us

a whole world of secrets

I have heard leafy sunshine

serenade flowers with summers

overflowing with secrets

I have heard autumnal hues
reassuring all the world’s lovers

of keeping their secrets

I have heard a wintry wind
express every intention to expose 

even the best kept secrets

Between its womb and tomb,

peace of mind needs must access

a whole world of secrets

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

On the Mend

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

Regular readers will be aware that I suffered a severe nervous breakdown in 1979. As I began to recover, so I started writing again as much by way of creative therapy as any natural love for the art form. Following an indescribable struggle with mind, body and spirit, I finally regained a sense of ‘normality’ and was fortunate enough to dig myself out of that Black Hole, unemployment, and return to work a few years later. In 2005, I began publishing poems, self-publishing the only option open to me as no literary agents or publishers wanted my gay-interest material and I refused to leave it out.

This poem (a villanelle) has been significantly revised since I published in 2005, itself a (lesser) revision of a (handwritten) version written during the 1990’s. Not one of my better poems, perhaps, although its place in the history of my poetry of no small significance. 

For years now, I have been striving to (a) reach out to readers, (b) share an inner learning curve, and (c) reconcile form and content in my poetry in a way that does some justice to its art form; it has been a long journey, and not over yet. To critics who suggest I should not poet poems until I and they are ‘ready’ I can only say that, having sowed various seeds, I am never quite clear how they might grow until they flower; sometimes they remain but seeds or may sprout shoots that refuse to flower or may flower in ways that are true to a picture on the seed packet.

One way or another, we have to take responsibility for ourselves; playing the blame game never got anybody anywhere hast unless it’s a Black Hole like the one I crawled out of years ago into a self-awareness that insisted I stop playing Jack-in-a Box about being gay and learned to take responsibility for and a pride in a better, kinder self than any which life experience had all but succeeded in moulding me into hitherto.

I’m 71 now, and still learning…

ON THE MEND

We broke the pot,

(Earth Mother cried)

up to us to mend it…

Birthdays forgot,

(the old beggar died)

we broke the pot

Loyalty split,

(so our ‘Betters’ lied?)

up to us to mend it

Peace, it could not

get the better of pride;

we broke the pot

To each our lot;

though humanity divide,

up to us to mend it

Marking the spot

where hope all but died;

we broke the pot,

up to us to mend it…

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2017

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared under the title 'Picking Up the Pieces' in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

A Life in the Day of a Couch Potato

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

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 to make time.) 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) always worth 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' in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001.]

Poetry Live

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

[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:

https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223131109/http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T    [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT

Lewes, Landscape of Imagination

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

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:

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

or access direct at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6LfIGu7gd4

or see below

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.

Darkness, the Poetry of Mixed Feelings

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

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

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Christmas, Cue for an Open Heart

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