Your Place or Mine...?

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

As regular readers worldwide will know, I’ve been living with prostate cancer for 5+ years now and am doing OK. Hormone therapy continues to keep my PSA low and the cancer at bay. However, I will be 70 this year and time is not on my side.

One of these days (hopefully not for a good while yet) the Grim Reaper will pay a visit, and my blogs will eventually disappear from the Internet.  Now, the blogs are the only record of my revised poems as well as many others that have not been published and are not included in my collections. I am considering publishing them as e-books to Kindle Direct Publishing. If any blog readers think they might be interested in buying (inexpensive) e-editions, please let me know as the degree of response will determine whether or not I proceed. I would have to open a separate bank account and if the chances of at least breaking even financially are not looking too good, there is no point.

In the past, I have self-published my poetry because no publishers were interested in my gay-interest material which I have always insisted on including. [Why should p[poetry on a gay theme be seen as something quite separate from poetry on any other major theme?) Yes, I have about broken even but, no, I will not be publishing any more print editions.

Should I feel sufficiently encouraged to go ahead, I may well try and publish the serialized novels on my fiction blog to KDP as well. [Incidentally I am still working on Mamelon 2.]:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/ 

I don’t allow comments on the blogs because too many people flood blogs with irrelevant, even silly comments, but if you would like to express support, please email me:

rogertab@aol.com

A reader recently emailed me in Russian and the translation button would not work. Can he or she please try again as I will always read and respond to emails.

Meanwhile…

For the unattached, cruising bars can be fun, and it can also be the kind of devastating if not drunken experience likely to send a person’s self-esteem into free fall.

The trick is to never stop believing in happy endings whatever happens...or doesn’t happen, as the case may well be.

YOUR PLACE OR MINE…?

I was in awe of his beauty,

sure he’d want  nothing to do with me

so tried my luck elsewhere

Stood beside him at the bar,

bought him a beer, but he turned his back

(someone else’s luck)

A tipsy queen chatted me up,

followed my line of vision, raised eyebrows

shooting me down

In vain, I tried to block us out

of mind and spirit, self-denial no match

for a body in flames

Couldn’t keep away from him;

white singlet, shorts, a body to die for,

but always busy flirting

No one else firing my fantasies

or even a make-do ‘bird in the hand’ in sight,

just slaves to stereotype

Walked home that lonely night,

too preoccupied with wishful thinking to hear

footsteps catching up with me

Same hair, eyes, lips, body to die for,

but an altogether different, almost shy persona

quietly, earnestly, asking me…

‘Your place or mine…?’

Copyright R. N. Taber 2013

In the Footsteps of Ghosts

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

Now, regular readers will know by now that I have a passion for trees. My all-time favourite tree is the weeping willow about which I have written more than once, especially when writing love poems; beauty and tears (of joy as well as pain)…as good an icon as any for lovers the world over, gay or straight, especially perhaps where they are confronted by this or that socio-cultural-religious divide…?

We are all Children of the Earth, no exceptions.

Many of us, too, go through life following in the footsteps of ghosts, whether consciously or subconsciously; Leonardo Da Vinci, Oscar Wilde, Tchaikovsky and Walt Whitman to name but a few.

Interestingly, I once met a gay-unfriendly music lover on a train who was visibly shaken when I alerted him to the fact that Tchaikovsky was gay. Needless to say, he did not change his seat when I mentioned that I, too, am gay; we became good friends.

This poem is a villanelle.

IN  THE FOOTSTEPS OF GHOSTS

Earth Mother ever in the know,
willow’s altar candles burning bright
for first (gay) kisses long, long ago

The heart, a tear stained pillow
for a love that knows wrong from right,
Earth Mother ever in the know

Songbirds, their blessing bestow,
humankind girding its loins for a fight,
for first (gay) kisses long, long ago

As the world’s lovers come and go,
so, too, new songs and poems to write,
Earth Mother ever in the know

Memories, stars on a grassy pillow
perpetuating landscapes of day and night
for first (gay) kisses, long, long ago

Where time goes, prejudices follow;
love, though passes into dawn’s leafy light,
Earth Mother ever in the know,
for first (gay) kisses long, long ago

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

Continuum

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

I am so pleased that some straight as well as gay readers have taken the trouble to email me to say they have enjoyed my gay novel, Dog Roses, never published but serialized on my fiction blog.  (A love story, but don’t expect roses all the way.):

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2011/07/dog-roses-chapter-one_14.html

Thanks also to readers who have been in touch to say they have enjoyed my gay-interest novel Catching Up with Murder despite (or because of?) its frequent forays into shades of dark humour. [Yes, this one did get published.]

You have no idea how encouraged positive feedback makes me feel, especially now while I am learning to live with prostate cancer. By the way, the hormone therapy continues to do a good job of keeping the cancer at bay, but makes me very tired so I need to rest more often. I must also accept certain limitations even if it’s not in my character to do so...!

The novel is serialised on: 

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/catching-up-with-murder-chapter-1.html

Meanwhile...

I often dream about my late partner. Once, I woke up at dawn, sat down with a cup of tea (oh, but how English!) and wrote this poem.

CONTINUUM

Where bold trees kiss the sky,

we dared fly, you and I,

cage birds freed to sail sunsets,

wish on stars until dawn

when I wake to find you gone,

but the loving goes on

As flowers in spring sunlight

inspire a painter’s heart,

you inspire mine to sail sunsets,

wish on stars until dawn

finds me wishing all alone here

for the loving we’d share

In passing dreams of summer,

we’d always be together,

we kin to Apollo, sailing sunsets,

winging stars into dawn

till I wake to find you gone,

but the dreaming goes on

Against autumn’s rich tapestry,

we’d plan for eternity,

toss frail mortality into a sunset,

among stars, into dawn;

no hint of a body grown cold,

only kisses of red and gold

Among trees dressed in snow,

you pass and I follow,

quit this lonely body for sunsets

and stars until dawn…

when I wake, and you’re gone,

but the loving goes on

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Reconstructing the Here-and-Now

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

Regular readers will be aware that this blog is meant for everyone; those who have yet to explore their sexuality or remain closet (whatever their reasons) as well as openly gay people.

For any gay man or woman, boy or girl raised in a gay-unfriendly environment, that first kiss from a kindred spirit redefines the person we are as opposed to the person we may well have been encouraged to think we are by well-meaning if ultimately divisive, even destructive socio-cultural-religious ‘mentors’ demanding we always do as they say if not as they (always) do…

RECONSTRUCTING THE HERE-AND-NOW

Your fingertips brushing mine;

my whole body quivering

like a leaf in a passing breeze,

as I sense in you an affinity

with such anguish tormenting me

for years

Your knee pressing against mine,

my whole body striving

to yield its secrets like a flower

opening up to sunshine

after spring rain, ultimate drying

of tears

Your hand finding a way into mine;

my whole body longing

to surrender to its consuming heat

as I sense in you an affinity

with such desires so-tormenting me

for years

Your embrace, only half hoped for,

only half expected…

crushing my loneliness into pieces,

joining them together again

to create a whole new picture of love

and peace

Your mouth pressing against mine,

my whole body exploding

its shame and self-consciousness

like a wild puffball flower

fair fragmented into oblivion on our 
quick breaths

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015