The Key

If people deride is for being gay, that’s their problem – not ours. Yes, they can make very life difficult for us, even unbearable at times. But we should not let intolerant attitudes towards our sexuality have us looking back on closet days through rose tinted spectacles.

If being openly gay can be tough on the outside sometimes, being closet is an ever worsening nightmare on the inside. If staying in the closet is to err on the side of peace and quiet, coming out has to be treading where truth would have us go. Where angels fear to tread, did I hear you say? I beg to differ. Angels are always on the side of love and love never discriminates.

Birmingham (UK) Public Libraries website displayed this poem as Poem of the Month during February (LGBT History Month) 2008. A discreet (mediocre even?) little poem, it was inspired by two closet gay people who later came out and lived together for some years. Several people wrote in to say they liked and/or could relate to the poem after it appeared on the Birmingham site…so that was nice.

THE KEY

I have a key to my front door,
another for the back,
one for an odds ‘n’ sods box
and all the windows have
safety locks

Sometimes keys go missing
and it’s a pain - but
I can nearly always replace,
except one, can’t
you guess?

In that familiar, smiling face
rests a key to my heart
to open up even closet days
conspiring to keep
us apart

[From: The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004]

One Day

Regular readers will know that I do not post comments although I do read them all. Nor do I accept requests to be a friend or submit such requests to other bloggers myself. No offence is intended. As I make it clear in the blog's introduction, I am not interested in creating a social network. You will see that my introduction also includes my email address so if anyone wants to contact me direct, for any reason, they are welcome to do so. I will always reply to emails.

Meanwhile...

All lasting relationships - gay or straight - need to be worked at. In my experience, many people forget that and start taking the other person for granted sooner rather than later...in which case, they should not be surprised if there is no 'later' and they find themselves back at square one.

Yes, we’ll have our ups and downs but, oh, the rich rewards!


ONE DAY

One day to remember, one day to forget;
one day bringing us together, another
tearing us apart

One day for friendship, one day for rage;
one day for love, another
blotting its page

One day to be sure, another to doubt;
one day in your bed, another
in a rush to get out

One day peace, one day panic alarms;
one day heat and joy, another
grown old in your arms

One day, life’s lessons to learn and share;
one day bringing us together, another
finding us still there

[From: Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

A Gay Bashing

When this poem first appeared in my collection in 2005, several people commented that gay bashings were ‘a thing of the past’ as if society doesn’t tolerate such incidents these days.

Oh, how I wish!

Around the time I posted it on my general blog in June 2008, a friend and I were chased by homophobic thugs after leaving a bar in South London. We were lucky and escaped…that time.

Homophobic attacks on gay men have increased in the London area in recent months. While feedback regarding my poems on gay and transgender themes that I read on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square back in July - from straight as well as gay readers – has been encouragingly positive, I have received some hate mail as well.

In some parts of the world, including (certain areas of) London UK, it can be really GOOD to be gay. Yet, we should never be complacent.

Education is the key to fighting homophobia. It is the best if not only way to get across to the less enlightened that all the offensive, misguided outdated stereotypes surrounding gay men and women that many of them (still) grow up with are just that…offensive, misguided and belong to an age of ignorance and bigotry. Otherwise the 21st century risks turning out to be essentially little or no better for us than its predecessors.


A GAY BASHING

I found him late at night,
bleeding in a gutter, near dead,
his fine features an ugly sight,
white shirt turning red;
I called an ambulance, did all I could
to comfort, help ease his pain
but it seemed a long time coming
and he but hardly breathing
as I struggled to speak,
keep him awake, scared
lest he close his eyes and it might
well be the last time he would
hear a voice, feel its warmth
spread over him like my coat;
I offered a prayer, could not bear
that he should leave this life
a victim of ignorance and hate
although a part of me knew
it was already too late - for them
as much as him - given the world
as it is today, paying lip service
to issues gay while, behind
a public front of liberality
cheering for the sheer bestiality
of a criminality seen as justified
because gays are scum, deserve
no better, no matter how (supposedly)
we share a common humanity

Yet, in a sea of sirens, we discovered
new strength in straws

[From: A Feeling For The Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

Stranger Than Fiction

Someone recently asked what I wished for most this Christmas. That’s easy. What is life without love?

To readers everywhere - gay or straight - I wish you love…at any time of the year.

This poem is a kenning

STRANGER THAN FICTION

I’m as likely to arrive naked
at the party and set tongues wagging
as slip quietly away, everyone
asking who I was, where I came from
and wondering why I bothered
turning up at all since I didn’t appear
to have much to do or say,
like some charismatic stranger
stepped out of a dream

I’m as likely to arrive, guns blazing
at a showdown and set tongues wagging
as slip quietly away, everyone
complaining that I didn’t take their side
against this or that antagonist
or snivelling into handkerchiefs like lovers
caught out playing cat and mouse
with a passion that wearies of the game,
leaves them home alone

I’m as likely to arrive in royal fanfare
at some local fete and set tongues wagging
as slip quietly away, everyone
agreed I could have put on a better show
but supposing it’s for the best;
Besides, who really knows what inspires
us to action or inaction, given
a fickle nature so often putting us
at odds with each other?

Call me life, shining love's light on the mind
though its mortal shadow closing in behind

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009

Time And Again

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month marked the end of the First World War. It was meant to be the war to end all wars but of course it wasn’t…

Gay men and women fight wars too.

TIME AND AGAIN

Time and again, lights go out
all over the world;
Time and again, brave men
and women risk all…to
turn them back on

Time and again, the dogs of war
tear into the world;
Time and again, skilled men
and women dare…to
attempt repair

Time and again, bringers of peace
promise us eternity;
Time and again, fine men
and women give all…to
see us through

Time and again, broken promises
litter the earth;
Time and again, sons and daughters,
friends and neighbours…will
pick up the pieces

Time and again, we’ll give thanks
all over the world;
Time and again, our brave men
and women must wish…we
would try harder

[From: Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, 2007]

The Rhetoric Of Blame

Today is Remembrance Sunday. Let us remember with thanks, respect and admiration all those (gay men and women too) who have given their lives for peace, nor only the dead but also the wounded and their families who have had to pay - and are still paying - the cost of war and price of such peace as we can hope to find…in more ways than one.

World War I was meant to be the war to end all wars…then we had World War II…and what is the so-called War on Terror if not World War III? It is a terrible indictment on the 21st century and that war remains as contemporary an issue as it has ever been.

[Note: I first posted this poem on my general blog in 2007. Having been asked to repeat it today, I have decided to duplicate the posting on both blogs. Why two blogs? Well, let's face it. Many straight people have no interest in accessing even a poetry blog blog that's written especially with gay readers in mind, more often than not out of a misguided sense of principle.]


THE RHETORIC OF BLAME

So young they stood on the edge of war,
strutting courage and dreaming of glory,
no idea of the carnage gone before,
rewriting, in blood, their nation’s story

Heads high, happy to answer duty’s call,
emblems of faith in the wind, flags unfurled,
no one suspecting how many might fall
or prayers unanswered around the world

Victory, when it came fell on time’s sword
at the eleventh hour, day, month, 1918;
no action-replay, we gave God our word,
only to break it again and again…

We speak of peace, while finding excuses
for a blame game, gambling all our futures

[From: Accomplices To Illusion, by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]