http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
For me, one of the hardest things about accepting that I am gay and then having the confidence to be openly so was coming round to believing that gay people can fall in love just like anyone else. While it sounds absurd, it was contrary to everything I had been told and the last thing a youthful Roger Taber wanted was to be denied that golden opportunity only love provides. My sexual experiences had been the result of closet sessions that were more the results of teenage frustration than anything else. It would take a few more years yet before I was able to reject all I had been told about same sex relationships for a load of bigoted, ignorant rubbish and start looking for love. I found it, but my partner and I we were only together for a few precious years and relatively few people knew about our relationship for all sorts of reasons.
Although I never fell in love again, even one-night stands took on a whole new dimension. I wasn’t interested in sex for its own sake any more. I needed to feel an attraction for the person even if a relationship was never on the cards. Oh, there were flings here and there that were promising but did not fill their relationship potential for various reasons.
I am just so grateful, not only for finding out at first hand what love is all about but also for finding the strength and commonsense to reject all the bullshit that home, school and Church had thrown at me regarding the whole gay ethic.
TEARS FOR FEARS
I used to dream so about falling in love;
People said it couldn’t happen ’cause I’m gay
and men don’t do love, only toys and sex;
hasn’t been, can’t be, won’t be any other way
for centuries, so what’s so different now?
Holy Books condemn love relationships between
two men, say it cannot exist (let alone last)
in all conscience and truth. Ah, but the romance
and resilience of youth will not be deterred
from taking its due as I found when I met you,
electric shocks searing through my body,
scaring me as your bright eyes bored into mine,
seizing on thoughts running wild in my brain;
among them, a dream of falling in love though
people say it can’t happen ’cause I’m gay
Ah, but your smile tells a different story,
inviting me to write my own history, tells me
I’m my own man and love refuses no one
if they dare take a chance on themselves,
work at it as I worked on my doubts and fears
in the face of your beauty, our desires,
wanting to kiss your lips, tear off your clothes,
embrace a nakedness filling my mind’s eye
with images of ecstasy, troubled heart set free;
Oh, joy! To be joined with you, find peace
and love, let them smother inhibitions, lies fed
by this tortured soul to an unforgiving heart
and make a start, at least, to live - by accepting
there is nothing to forgive, whatever they say
about us because we are two men and gay
Yet, I turned away, courage all but gone,
resolving to play safe though it mean a lifetime
spent alone. You had other ideas, caught up
with me, grabbed my arm, intending no harm,
only that we might share time together,
take a chance on each other, no matter we were
strangers contemplating potential dangers,
reason giving way to a greater need, our bodies
screaming against everything we'd heard
(ignorant bigots saying gays are better off dead)
and whatever happened to trusting others
(and ourselves) to decide what is right for us
seizing the moment, not letting it slip away
because we're scared of what people might say,
(stereotyping us) once they know we're gay?
One by one I got the better of my worst fears,
let them drop away in your eyes, like tears
Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]
For me, one of the hardest things about accepting that I am gay and then having the confidence to be openly so was coming round to believing that gay people can fall in love just like anyone else. While it sounds absurd, it was contrary to everything I had been told and the last thing a youthful Roger Taber wanted was to be denied that golden opportunity only love provides. My sexual experiences had been the result of closet sessions that were more the results of teenage frustration than anything else. It would take a few more years yet before I was able to reject all I had been told about same sex relationships for a load of bigoted, ignorant rubbish and start looking for love. I found it, but my partner and I we were only together for a few precious years and relatively few people knew about our relationship for all sorts of reasons.
Although I never fell in love again, even one-night stands took on a whole new dimension. I wasn’t interested in sex for its own sake any more. I needed to feel an attraction for the person even if a relationship was never on the cards. Oh, there were flings here and there that were promising but did not fill their relationship potential for various reasons.
I am just so grateful, not only for finding out at first hand what love is all about but also for finding the strength and commonsense to reject all the bullshit that home, school and Church had thrown at me regarding the whole gay ethic.
TEARS FOR FEARS
I used to dream so about falling in love;
People said it couldn’t happen ’cause I’m gay
and men don’t do love, only toys and sex;
hasn’t been, can’t be, won’t be any other way
for centuries, so what’s so different now?
Holy Books condemn love relationships between
two men, say it cannot exist (let alone last)
in all conscience and truth. Ah, but the romance
and resilience of youth will not be deterred
from taking its due as I found when I met you,
electric shocks searing through my body,
scaring me as your bright eyes bored into mine,
seizing on thoughts running wild in my brain;
among them, a dream of falling in love though
people say it can’t happen ’cause I’m gay
Ah, but your smile tells a different story,
inviting me to write my own history, tells me
I’m my own man and love refuses no one
if they dare take a chance on themselves,
work at it as I worked on my doubts and fears
in the face of your beauty, our desires,
wanting to kiss your lips, tear off your clothes,
embrace a nakedness filling my mind’s eye
with images of ecstasy, troubled heart set free;
Oh, joy! To be joined with you, find peace
and love, let them smother inhibitions, lies fed
by this tortured soul to an unforgiving heart
and make a start, at least, to live - by accepting
there is nothing to forgive, whatever they say
about us because we are two men and gay
Yet, I turned away, courage all but gone,
resolving to play safe though it mean a lifetime
spent alone. You had other ideas, caught up
with me, grabbed my arm, intending no harm,
only that we might share time together,
take a chance on each other, no matter we were
strangers contemplating potential dangers,
reason giving way to a greater need, our bodies
screaming against everything we'd heard
(ignorant bigots saying gays are better off dead)
and whatever happened to trusting others
(and ourselves) to decide what is right for us
seizing the moment, not letting it slip away
because we're scared of what people might say,
(stereotyping us) once they know we're gay?
One by one I got the better of my worst fears,
let them drop away in your eyes, like tears
Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018
[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]
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