G-A-Y, Seeds in the Wind

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

There are a number of documentaries on You Tube about homosexual behaviour in animals; the link below will take you to my favourite video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYdcvRe7ox8

Nature’s heterosexual majority, it would appear, is far more accepting and understanding of various species’ native traits in this respect than many among its human counterpart of its own.

Is it any wonder then that as a gay teenager and young man long before gay relationships were decriminalised here in the UK, I found not only comfort but growing sense of spirituality in nature sadly (still) lacking in any religion regarding potential subscribers who happen to be gay.  (Members of the Church of England hierarchy who maintain that it is OK to be gay so long as we are not having sex have to be living in cloud cuckoo land!)

G-A-Y, SEEDS IN THE WIND

I’d let squirrels swinging upside down
on a washing line
into certain secrets I preferred to keep
from family and friends

I‘d tell next door’s cat touching base
with its favourite haunts
how it’s a shame many humans so love
pass judgement on others

I’d hold forth to a vixen watching cubs
venturing into the open
on humankind’s fetish for hypocritical
hearts and minds

I’d confide in the sun, moon, and stars
that many Earth folk
might well be happier for engaging less
in one upmanship

I’d commune with nature and company
about divided societies
more likely to fight over any differences
than respect them

Finally, I got around to telling the wind
I am gay and to pass it on;
if all nature can live with that, humanity
can take or leave it

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Pushing Boundaries, a Positive Force for Change

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

'You must be the change you wish to see in the world.' - Mahatma Gandhi

Being a gay schoolboy in the late 1950’s, on into the so-called ‘liberal’ 60’s and beyond meant learning to live a double life; one life for myself, another for everyone else. Even during my young manhood, I was in and out of the proverbial closet for years until finally coming out to stay in my 30’s. My only excuse for not standing up to be counted sooner was having been browbeaten by years of having to listen to gay people being maligned by just about everyone around me. I was a psychological mess, and physically exhausted by it all.  It took my mother’s premature death at 59 and a nervous breakdown three years later to bring home to me the obvious but sometimes elusive truth that life is too short to be lived at second hand.

There was no epiphany. I had known I am gay since I was 14 years-old. Yet, a sense of evolution excited and encouraged as much as it scared me. From potential human being, I became the real thing; from living figment of a fertile imagination, I metamorphosed into active participant in that process of positive thinking demonstrated since the beginning of time by the common art of Carpe Diem. Oh, yes, and along the way, I also discovered poetry...

I know many gay people who are not out to all and sundry for various reasons; the important thing is that they are out to themselves. How we choose to live our lives is our own business, no one else's ...if only in so far as no one else is directly affected, for better or worse, by what we say or do.. At the same time we need to be honest with ourselves, honesty in the sense of self-awareness being the greater force for change (for the best or better, real or potential) however long it may take us to find the most appropriate way/s (for anyone, given any socio-cultural-religious differences) to express itself.  

In short, we all deserve to live as people, not shadows; where that means making a few compromises along the way, so be it, just so long as it is the individual - no one or anything else -  that remains in control.  Once we start kidding ourselves, we might as well be shadows.

PUSHING BOUNDARIES, A POSITIVE FORCE FOR CHANGE

My world, it was a shadowy place,
closet with the door barely ajar,
a galaxy where neither sun, moon
nor stars were encouraged to come out
and shine

I ate, drank and breathed shadows,
body and mind all but crushed
by temporal divisions, pulling me
this way and that, yet underestimating
the spirit

All but dead, it stirred, a rebel voice
now toeing at the closet door,
now kicking it wide open, the better
to enjoy all the womb-like nourishment
of aspiration

My world, it was filled with the light
of an imagination nurturing hope,
addressing vibrant stirrings of new life
metamorphosing self-pity into barefaced
willpower

Sun, moon, and stars now shine on me
as on anyone once bound to Earth
by its umbilical cord, cut according
to its nature by a stoicism championing
humanity

Now, my only darkness, that of sleep,
no fear that my sexuality requires
I (ever) make apology for its being gay
as I wake to your steady breathing, sweeter
than birdsong 


Copyright R. N. Taber, 2016

Placing the 'I' in Humanity OR Opening Up to Nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
  
Some years ago, I met up with a long-time acquaintance who had just lost his partner of many years to a (much) younger model. He was in pieces, and we spent some time over a few beers, mostly complaining about the fickleness of human nature.

About six months later, we met up again. This time, he was far more positive about life and even had a sprightly spring in his step. “I went for a walk in the countryside one day, and had an epiphany,” he told me. “Nature is as nature does, for better or worse. Now, the worst does not necessarily rule out the better so there is always something (or someone) to look forward to, whatever the circumstances. It’s obvious, really, but I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. We have to stay positive, young Roger.” [I was in my early 50’s at the time and he would have been in his mid-70’s.]

'Death has a thousand doors to let out life: I shall find one.' - Philip Massinger, English dramatist, 1583 –1640

Philip Massinger, copper-engraving portrait by Charles Grignion the Elder (Wikipedia)

PLACING THE 'I' IN HUMANITY or OPENING UP TO NATURE

All doors closed on me
when you left me for another,
plunged into a lonely dark,
harder to bear than any closet
for having found and lost
a raison d’être in you, creating
joy out of sad dreams  

Some said it was just deserts
for being openly gay in a world
where (yes, even these days)
gay people are seen as betraying
a native heterosexual ethos,
compensating for our weaknesses
by demanding equality

All doors closed on me
as love stabbed me in the heart
and left my remains to rot
in an open coffin of everyday life,
existence no more or less
than the stream of consciousness
credited an android

In spring, I walked woods
where bluebells nodded knowingly
for understanding my pain,
rabbits darting frantically here,
there, and everywhere,
seemingly with little more purpose
than random thoughts

I would have closed my ears
to birds singing sweet songs in trees
whose new leaves asked
no more or less than my eyes open
to the potential of rebirth
in a world where life is not measured
out in silver teaspoons

Having found an open door,
I felt a faint heartbeat grow stronger,
body, mind, and spirit
coming together like a jigsaw puzzle
until just one piece missing,
and that mattered less than my resolve
to find it and complete me


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

An LGBT Pocket History

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

I have no idea when I wrote today’s poem. I recently discovered it (undated) in a pile of potential rubbish for the next recycling collection.  (Hopefully, I have not since reworked and given it a different title.) I suspect it was written sometime during the mid-late 1990’s.  Whatever, it is as relevant now as it was then. Who knows where a chance encounter with a stranger may lead, and if there is a clearly a mutual attraction, why not GO for it…?

A (straight) friend once commented, 'There is something very comforting about sex. Whatever, it has to be the best form of creative therapy invented..." Who am I to argue?

Whether a person is gay or straight, much the same principle applies although - yes, even in this 21st century of ours - it can be a tougher decision for any gay person who, for whatever reason, feels unable to go public about his or her sexuality.

AN LGBT POCKET HISTORY

Meeting by chance, noon sun

like an acid drop in a stormy sky;

crow, pausing in mid-flight

to stare. Ghosts in the wind, lonely

and eager for romance, though

time deny the finer fruit that only

lovers share

Highlights in the hair, a sparkle

in the eyes, frantic lips on mine,

world ceasing to turn for us;

ghosts all around us crying, ‘YES’

and each kiss, the spoils of a motley

that’s a waking dream, ours if we

but dare

Defying bigotry’s menacing look,

I gladly take your arm, find shelter

in a barn, madly returning

each caress as ghosts, warned off

in times past for their sexuality,

warm up for what promises to be

a brave new century

Bed of straw, magic of clowns

ringing in the ears, we’ll play out

life’s circus, confront our fears,

our heaven the laughter and tears

of other people’s ghosted years,

reaching for clear skies, further even

than the crow flies 

Winging history’s cruel divide,

gay and proud…

Copyright R. N. Taber c1990’s

You-Me-Us, a Life History

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

For centuries gay men and women have seized the day and followed their dreams, often with tragic results in societies always on the lookout for a scapegoat for its own shortcomings.

Yet, we persevere, resolved to take our natural place in the world order and achieve equality with those among the heterosexual majority who would still – even in this 21st century – persecute us for our sexuality.  True, in some parts of the world gay people have greater legal and social support than ever before; not so, alas, where there is neither cultural nor political will to deprive society of its scapegoats.

Wherever anti-gay attitudes prevail, we can but continue to seize the day, challenging various socio-cultural-religious and political attitudes where appropriate while following our dreams as far as contemporaneity permits, as we have done throughout history.

This poem is a villanelle:

YOU-ME-US, A LIFE HISTORY

Among leaves by a timeless stream,
denying war its say…
we kissed, true lovers with a dream

Heartbeats joining in earth’s hymn
to life, we found our way…
among leaves by a timeless stream

Passing cloud like summer ice cream
celebrating a heavenly day,
we kissed, true lovers with a dream

Songbirds, relaying nature’s scheme
of things, kept enemy fire at bay
among leaves by a timeless stream

Daunting though odds against us seem
(shrapnel in history’s clay)
we kissed, true lovers with a dream

Come leading bigots, first to scream
abuse for or being gay...
Among leaves by a timeless stream,
we kissed, true lovers with a dream

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2009