Deserving Better OR Gay in Egypt

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

I have been reprimanded by a minority of readers of my general blog for posting anti-war poems that refer to members of the armed forces that are gay. [Do I care?] Now, my poetry may not stand up to comparison with theirs, but I will continue to write poems inspired by some of the finest UK war poets of World War 1; among them, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Vera Brittain.

I dare say the so-called ‘Arab Spring of 2011’ includes its share of gay people where sexuality has everything and nothing to do with a desire for peace or freedom.

Last year I chanced to meet a young Englishman who had fallen in love and begun a secret relationship while living and working in Egypt a few years ago. Tragically, his Egyptian lover was killed during the 2011 uprising. The English guy received a letter from him written only days earlier. He took the letter from the breast pocket of his jacket and let me read it. It was a love letter and very moving, all the more so in the circumstances.

It was that letter that prompted me to write this poem for lovers whatever their ethnicity or sexuality (as if it matters) parted by war the world over.

Cairo - Photo from the Internet

DESERVING BETTER or GAY IN EGYPT

All week together,

(a wonderful time together)

my gay lover and I

though it, too, must play a part

in his going to war

One afternoon together

(it rained, but didn’t matter)

my gay lover and I

swam the ethos of conscience

and going to war

That evening together,

(a so-romantic evening together)

my gay lover and I

faced up to the inevitable,

his going to war

That last night together,

(one glorious night together)

my gay lover and I

vowed our love would survive

its going to war

I still carry his letters

about the weeping landscape

of war, how he so feared

dying there, our time together

wishing us home

No medals won for its battle scars,

love’s one toast is, ‘Togetherness’

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011