The Zen Of Counting Beans

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

Several readers have asked why I usually include the link to my Wikipedia entry on each blog post.  Well, apart from providing more info about myself and my work for anyone interested, feedback suggests that it also encourages readers to take me more seriously as a person as well as a poet given that poetry on a gay theme is rarely given either a good press or high profile.

I post most of my Gay Awareness poems on my general blog as well. One reader contacted me a few years ago to say I am ‘compromising the very integrity of poetry by using it to suggest that being gay is remotely respectable or can ever be acceptable in civilised society.’ Someone else has called me ‘a nobody with literary pretensions.’ On the other hand, most feedback appears to confirm that because the Wikipedia editorial team take me seriously, readers - especially gay readers who live in a gay-unfriendly environment - are more likely to take heart for knowing that the more serious sentiments expressed in my poems are not taken lightly by blog readers worldwide.  Now, anyone may disagree with them, of course, but at least they get a public airing. Oh, and if I manage to ruffle a few feathers along the way so much the better...

Having said all that, I just hope readers enjoy my poems and try to leave space in them enough for the reader to find his or her own way.

Meanwhile...

I am often asked to repeat this poem; it last appeared on the blog in 2010.  ‘Miles’ got in touch to say he had searched the blog archives but could not remember the title and the tags he tried came up with too many poems! Oh, dear. Well, here you are Miles, and I hope it cheers you up as it did me when originally inspired by a reader whose happy-ending tale is  related in the poem.

  

THE ZEN OF COUNTING BEANS

"I’m gay,"I told a mirror on the wall;

the mirror said nothing, nothing at all,

eyes staring at me filled with tears;

I felt older, much older than my years

and went downstairs

"I'm gay," I told the family at dinner;

No one said a word and only a clatter

of stainless steel on best crockery

broke a silence I thought must surely

last forever

"How can you be sure?" Mother said;

Dad sniffed and snorted, shook his head;

Bro swore aloud and Sis ate her greens;

I fought emotions way beyond my means,

and counted my beans

"You're sure?" Mother wanted to know;

I could only nod, put on as brave a show

of self-confidence as any ham,

suggest it’s no big deal, just how I am,

and why give a damn?

"Well," said dad, "what will be, will be."

(grabbed a handkerchief, sneezed noisily);

"Could be worse," Mother supposed;

Bro tossed a wink, now more composed,

and Sis praised the potatoes

Dinner proceeded much as it always had

and beans never tasted so good

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]