Saturday, 8 March 2014

Spring Fever OR War Games of the Heart


Readers continue to ask if a CD is available of my poetry reading on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square back in 2009 as my contribution to Antony Gormley’s One and Other 24/7 ‘live sculpture’. Sadly, no, but you can still catch it here, just bear in mind that the whole thing lasts an hour.

www.oneandother.co.ukparticipants/Roger_T

Now some readers have asked why I am repeating historical posts on Google Plus. On the whole, though, people seem to like having the opportunity to return to poems for which they don’t have time to browse the blogs. These will be a mix of gay-interest and general poems, a few You Tube video-poems thrown in for good measure from time to time, will usually remain on Google + for five days, and be repeated every so often in the hope of catching new readers and keeping regulars.

Now, spring is on its way. Well, hopefully so. Ah, but spring fever easily outlasts spring. Nor does it always play fair with its lovers.  If you ever go on the 'Gay Scene' you’ll know just what I mean. (Not that it's any different on the 'Straight Scene'...it isn't.)

I often write about living among friendly ghosts. Not all ghosts, though, are welcome, especially those hell bent upon reminding us of our mistakes. 

Me, I am but a sheltered flower these days…of the wallflower variety. But… who knows? If being in my late 60s places me in the autumn of my years, perhaps I may yet be in for an Indian summer…

SPRING FEVER or WAR GAMES OF THE HEART

We greeted love on a high,
my heart and I, acting our parts
for beech, sycamore, lark,
nightingale, lured by their call,
choosing to ignore the cuckoo’s
sweet if cocksure yell

We found secret beaches,
among the remains of rainbows;
caresses, kisses, promises
wrung to madness, high tides
sweeping us way beyond the salty
shingle of local gossiping

Ah, but we abandoned love
(without thinking) for other thrills,
seduced in crowded places
by winks and grins inviting us
to play cuckoo since all's fair in sex
and war games of the heart

Reunited among ashes of defeat, 
but much, much, too late...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002; 2nd (revised) e-edition in preparation.] 



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