https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
Today's poem received mixed comments when it first appeared on my gay-interest and general blogs in September and December 2009 respectively. To those people who said that for a gay man to marry a woman (or for a lesbian to marry a man) and live a double life is indefensible, I can but suggest they ask themselves why any of us - gay or straight - sometimes feel driven to do what we do.
It was no uncommon years ago for gay men and women to marry and, to all intents and purposes, lead a conventional life. Sadly, although many of us have moved on here in the UK, others haven’t and still cannot confront what they have been told is a grave flaw in their nature…homosexuality.
Call it gay, queer, whatever…our sexual identity is an integral part of who we are. Deny it and to no small extent we deny our very selfhood. I ask you, is that any way to live? Oh, everyone has their reasons and socio-cultural-religious influences cannot be underestimated especially in less enlightened parts of the world (and I do not exclude parts of the so-called ‘liberal’ West).
Is it not high time various religions, cultures and societies world-wide started to get real about homosexuality and settled their differences instead of constantly harking back to oral and written traditions as if they were written in stone?
As I have said before, moving on does not have to mean leaving anything or anyone behind. It’s called (real) progress and has its roots in a common humanity; if that covers a multitude of sins, be sure they are being revisited on a 21st century that hasn’t even completed a decade yet!
World leaders are always pointing to the value of redemption and salvation in a religious and/or political and/or economic context if only to their own advantage …so how about they start putting some flesh on the bones? (Consider the likes of Martin Semper and Robert Mugabe, for a start.)
No one should be made to feel inferior because he or she is gay or transsexual. If they feel forced to live a lie because their world and its Big Brother continue to breed bigots, we should all hang our heads in shame. Living a lie, for many people, is tantamount to slow torture if not death.
‘Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’ - John Donne.
MATCHBOX MAN
September, nineteen sixty-four,
drugs, sex, rock ‘n’ roll,
no computers, just typewriters,
homosexual relations illegal
On the night before his wedding,
a friend came to me and said
he so didn’t want to get married,
would be (far) better off dead
He needed a shoulder to cry on
(mine had always been there);
I could but do as I’d done before,
share the load of his despair
He slipped under my bed sheets,
a sheepish grin drying his tears
as we made love, slamming shut
the matchbox holding our fears
I hoped he might change his mind
but he was hell bent and didn’t,
just like he hoped I’d stay around,
and must have known I wouldn’t
October, two thousand and nine,
saw Bill in a gay bar going out,
chatting to a rent boy, slamming
the same old matchbox shut
[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]
Today's poem received mixed comments when it first appeared on my gay-interest and general blogs in September and December 2009 respectively. To those people who said that for a gay man to marry a woman (or for a lesbian to marry a man) and live a double life is indefensible, I can but suggest they ask themselves why any of us - gay or straight - sometimes feel driven to do what we do.
It was no uncommon years ago for gay men and women to marry and, to all intents and purposes, lead a conventional life. Sadly, although many of us have moved on here in the UK, others haven’t and still cannot confront what they have been told is a grave flaw in their nature…homosexuality.
Call it gay, queer, whatever…our sexual identity is an integral part of who we are. Deny it and to no small extent we deny our very selfhood. I ask you, is that any way to live? Oh, everyone has their reasons and socio-cultural-religious influences cannot be underestimated especially in less enlightened parts of the world (and I do not exclude parts of the so-called ‘liberal’ West).
Is it not high time various religions, cultures and societies world-wide started to get real about homosexuality and settled their differences instead of constantly harking back to oral and written traditions as if they were written in stone?
As I have said before, moving on does not have to mean leaving anything or anyone behind. It’s called (real) progress and has its roots in a common humanity; if that covers a multitude of sins, be sure they are being revisited on a 21st century that hasn’t even completed a decade yet!
World leaders are always pointing to the value of redemption and salvation in a religious and/or political and/or economic context if only to their own advantage …so how about they start putting some flesh on the bones? (Consider the likes of Martin Semper and Robert Mugabe, for a start.)
No one should be made to feel inferior because he or she is gay or transsexual. If they feel forced to live a lie because their world and its Big Brother continue to breed bigots, we should all hang our heads in shame. Living a lie, for many people, is tantamount to slow torture if not death.
‘Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’ - John Donne.
MATCHBOX MAN
September, nineteen sixty-four,
drugs, sex, rock ‘n’ roll,
no computers, just typewriters,
homosexual relations illegal
On the night before his wedding,
a friend came to me and said
he so didn’t want to get married,
would be (far) better off dead
He needed a shoulder to cry on
(mine had always been there);
I could but do as I’d done before,
share the load of his despair
He slipped under my bed sheets,
a sheepish grin drying his tears
as we made love, slamming shut
the matchbox holding our fears
I hoped he might change his mind
but he was hell bent and didn’t,
just like he hoped I’d stay around,
and must have known I wouldn’t
October, two thousand and nine,
saw Bill in a gay bar going out,
chatting to a rent boy, slamming
the same old matchbox shut
[From: On The Battlefields Of Love by R N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]
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