A reader has asked me to repeat the link to my poetry reading (for an hour) on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square last year as part of Antony Gormley's One and Other: 'live sculpture' project:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that the 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.] R.N.T
Meanwhile...
Here’s another poem from the Taber archives, discovered in an old exercise book last year and revised but not substantially. The original was dated February 1964 at a time when homosexual relationships were illegal here in the UK. I would have been 18 years-old. Regular readers will know what a rough time I had during those dark, closet years. I guess it is why I empathise fully with people - especially young people - who feel unable to be openly gay for whatever reason.
I still feel guilty about being in and out of the closet for years before I finally came out to stay. It was hard to shrug off all that ugly baggage I was made to carry during my younger years. Sadly, even tragically, it is no easier now for gay men and women world-wide who grow up in a gay-unfriendly environment.
During those awful closet years, I never spoke out against homosexuality as some do (to cover their tracks perhaps?) but was acutely aware that it wasn't enough....
IMAGINATION, THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY
I see him almost every day
yet dare not let him see how
I’m lusting after him
Sometimes he’ll chat to me,
his every casual word churning
my stomach
His voice tickles my tongue
then trickles down my throat
like juice from a pear
Sometimes we shake hands
and it’s enough to put my mind
in a frantic spin
Oh, to strip off his all clothes
and feel hungry fingers tugging
excitedly at mine!
Gladly, I’d let the glory of sex
with this god from over the way
be the death of me
Instead, I can only fantasize
about my lips descending on his,
pinioning him
He’ll move on, perhaps turn
at his front door, wave, smiling,
sticking the knife in
Copyright R. N. Taber 1964; 2010
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