Gay Is Beautiful

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

Readers keep asking me to repeat the link to my informal poetry reading in Trafalgar Square  in July 2009 when I read a selection of my gay-interest and other poems as my contribution to Antony Gormley’s One and Other ‘live sculpture’ project; 2,400 people from all walks of life did their ‘own thing’ on the 4^th plinth for one hour 24/7 over 100 days. The entire web-stream is now archived in the British Library. Make of my efforts what you will and (hopefully) enjoy:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he 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.] RNT

Meanwhile...

Some time ago, I rediscovered this simple poem in a ‘sketchbook’ of poems that I kept for years. I vividly recall writing it  for a young gay man (not ‘out’ at the time) who once cried on my shoulder, despairing that being gay is ‘something ugly’, having been told so (along with may of us) since he was knee high to a grasshopper. It may not be a great poem, but it did the trick and dried his tears. [What more can a poet ask?] Although working again by then, I was still recovering from a severe nervous breakdown several years earlier. 

Writing the poem also helped me find the confidence to come out to the world and stay out after years of playing at being a jack-in-the-box. Even so, it would be a few more years yet before I began getting poetry on a gay theme published in poetry publications worldwide although relatively (very) few compared to a growing number that would publish my non-gay material. Sadly, but significantly, that trait continues to this day.

By the way, that young man is now married (isn’t a civil ceremony a wedding in everything but name?) to his partner of 20 years and they expect to live happy ever after.

Call me sentimental but...oh, how I just LOVE a happy ending!

  

GAY IS BEAUTIFUL

Gay love is no less beautiful

than any other loves to be had

that make life so wonderful,
on our side through happy-sad,
a fairy tale ending or in tears

Gay life is no less beautiful

than any other lives to be had

that make love so wonderful

on our side through happy-sad,
mind-body-spirit of our years

Gay folks are no less beautiful

than Creation intended for us all,
to every human heart, its goal,
love's unique take on happy-sad
tailored to our hopes, our fears

Let common humanity take note;

we gay people, too, play our part

Copyright R. N. Taber 1984; 2009