On Record

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

From time to time I have contributed non-rhyming (only) poems to Scars (US) Poetry Publications. This year I am contributing my poem Carriers (Blog entry, May 2011) to their 2012 Literary Datebook; a spiral-bound datebook, with poems people have submitted as well as poems chosen from 2011 issues of their CC&D and Down in the Dirt magazines:

http://Scars.tv/2012datebook/2012datebook.htm

or find Scars at: http://scars.tv/ and explore their site.

Meanwhile...

Several readers have said they have been unable to find my new fiction blog. You will find it at:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/

The first novel I serialised was Dog Roses, a gay-interest story about a young man and his family coming to terms with his being gay; the second, Like There’s No Tomorrow is about a woman who returns every year to the hotel in Brighton where her daughter disappeared without trace some 20+ years earlier. [You will find synopses for both novels among chapter headings on the right of your screen.]

Meanwhile...

Today’s poem and some of this post appeared on my general blog last month. Reader ‘Luc’ has been in touch to suggest I repeat it here ‘...sooner rather than later...because several of my gay friends loved it.’ Unfortunately, he doesn’t say why; constructive feedback is always particularly welcome. [It is nice to know if someone likes a poem and interesting to know if they don’t, but such knowledge is next to useless to the poet without knowing why.]

We all have a force for love on the inside looking out for us. Whether or not we pay it much attention, it records everything we do, good or bad, for better or worse, frequently referred to or conveniently overlooked among the higher or lesser profiles recorded in history’s much doctored pages.

Gay love is no exception; a fact of life with which I dare say the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority will persist in taking issue, although I’ll never understand why anyone should care to expose their ignorance of the human condition to all and sundry. Could it be these foolish people are under the misapprehension that it makes them look good in the eyes of God and Man, I wonder? The rational mind boggles, while any sense of spirituality in anyone of any socio-cultural-religious persuasion is its own defence against even the world’s worst stereotypes and lies.

This poem is a kenning.

ON RECORD

I fly where eagles dare,
tread where hungry lions feed;
among all my enemies
it’s short sightedness I most
have cause to be afraid,
the oldest boast of living histories,
designed to weaken
if not the bring down the pillars
of its communities

I swim with dolphins
to lead humankind to safe shores,
away from sharks
sniffing for blood in deceptively
still waters,
good friend to any beguiled
by a killing tide’s moon
or innocently taking on high noon
without back-up

If I run with hares from foxes,
I’m less likely to mistake the fortitude
of tortoises for folly
than the less perceptive human being
is inclined to perceive poverty
for weakness, and taking pleasure
in the simpler things money
cannot buy as throwing the race
to its all-consuming finish

I decide if first is best or last least
who am its dearest, staying closest

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011