Least Said, Soonest Mended

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

(Update May 11 2017): People with HIV are living around a decade or so longer than they did 20 years ago, according to a new report in the medical journal, The Lancet. While doctors and charities are calling the increase in life expectancy for people with the virus in Europe and the US a “tremendous medical achievement” they warn many are missing out on life-saving drugs as they have not yet been diagnosed as HIV positive . Meanwhile, HIV infection and AIDS among children continues to be a significant problem in developing countries. there is no room for complacency.] RT

It appals and upsets me whenever I (still) hear of people with the HIV virus being demonised for it. While no one can deny living with HIV is never going to be easy, medical research means that people can live with it for a good many years now with the appropriate medication. Those years would be made more bearable and far better spent by those affected if the disease were not (still) treated as a taboo subject by so many people worldwide.

Diana, Princess of Wales' commitment had an amazing effect in challenging attitudes towards people living with HIV and breaking down stigma and misconceptions.

Sexual responsibility is down to every sexually active person; male or female, straight or gay. It is pathetic - if typical of a universal ethos where everything is always someone else’s fault - that gay men are (still) expected to bear the brunt of the blame for the spread of the HIV-AIDS virus.

When I was active sexually (sadly, at 70, I am not if by medical necessity rather than choice) I would regularly get tested for HIV-AIDS and count myself fortunate that the results were always negative. It makes me angry when I hear people saying they won’t have the test because they would rather not know. Maybe they wouldn’t, but what about any partner to whom they could potentially pass it on? Nor is even using a condom a guarantee of sexual health since condoms have been known to leak; safer sex is a (very) low risk option, but there is no such thing as no-risk sex.

We are living in the 21st century! That prejudice towards people with HIV-AIDS should continue to raise its ugly head among the less enlightened in societies worldwide has to be one of the greater (of many) modern tragedies; not least because, in many cases, it goes unchallenged. 

‘Shame on the body for breaking down while the spirit perseveres.’ – John Dryden 

'Those that will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not are slaves.' Lord Byron

This poem is a villanelle.

LEAST SAID, SOONEST MENDED

Bigots claim we shame human history
(always, of course, knowing better)
we sinners, 'animals', for spreading HIV

Deserving no room at an inn or charity
(imagine, feeling much like a leper);
bigots claim we shame human history

First among equals, no local dignitary
above consigning us to rumour,
we sinners, 'animals', for spreading HIV

Grand Masters in the art of sanctimony,
(as but comprising the natural order)
bigots claim we shame human history

Turning a deaf ear to such hypocrisy
God forbid any get a cold shoulder,
we 'sinners', 'animals', for spreading HIV

Beware inhumanity posing as morality
where holier-than-thous join together;
bigots claim we shame human history
we sinners, 'animals', for spreading HIV

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2018

[Note: This poem was written in the early 1990’s and has been revised given that attitudes have changed (for better, for worse) since then as more  people have become better informed and less judgemental regarding anyone contracting the HIV virus; an earlier version appears under the title ‘Spelling it Out’ in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

F-A-T-E, Grains of Sand OR G-A-Y, True Grit

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

NB. Having published this post/poem this poem on the blog only a few days ago, I removed it after niggling reservations about the (original) tittle's persisted.

Now, I have met Christians who insist it is ‘nothing personal’ that I will go to hell for being gay, but ‘just a question of faith.’ I have also met Christians and those of other faiths who take the view that if we all were created by a God of Love, He is unlikely to make exceptions on such discriminatory grounds as sexuality...or much else, for that matter. Oh, and yes, I have also met gay Christians as well as gay men and women of other faiths, many of whom were cast from the fold like demons. So what kind of religion is it that demonises people for their sexuality?  

Regular readers know I do not subscribe to any religion, but take what I like to think of as a strong sense of spirituality from nature. At the same time, I utterly repudiate any suggestion that faith and sexuality are mutually exclusive. It may interest some of you to know that I came to that conclusion at the age of 10 while attending Sunday School. If I had the faintest idea then that I am gay, it was one for which I had neither the experience of life nor articulation to even begin to formulate. Like all children, though, I would overhear things. Rumour had it that a neighbour was a homosexual. My mother was shocked when I asked her what the word meant and said it was one that 'good' boys did not ask about. Naturally, I looked it up in my dictionary. 

Given that God created all humankind (as my Sunday School teachers would have me believe) it struck me as a grave injustice that anyone should be thought any less of simply for the way God had made them. This is probably why I felt no guilt when, at 14 years-old, I realised I am gay, and raged inwardly at everyone around me for years. (No one understood why, of course, or bothered to ask, so sure were they that their assumptions were correct, thereby missing the punch line altogether.)

Although I often write poems in the first person, few are strictly autobiographical. Even so, there are elements of autobiography in all my poems although just where is left for me to know and you to imagine…

F-A-T-E, GRAINS OF SAND or G-A-Y, TRUE GRIT

You were leaving a church,

a Holy Bible glued to one hand

as we exchanged glances,

all sense of body, mind and spirit 

like grains of sand descending

an hour glass, delivering us a world

we barely recognised as ours

You hastened on your way.

all but ran to the end of our street

while all I could do was try

to forget how you had affected me so,

scared you suspected

my returning a shy smile with a grin

exposed a maturing sexuality

I barely slept a wink all night

for thinking of you, me, and an ‘us’

never (surely?) any more then

than just wishful thinking on my part

for fear a secret I kept close

to this lonely heart have its way,

and all hell break loose

You skipped school the next day.

(the rumour was that you were sick)

and my pulse kept racing

for revisiting a subtly anxious glance

reflecting my own hunger

for a same sex relationship, love

but a welcome bonus   

I hadn’t subscribed to ideas of fate

till finding you by my side at the bell,

preparing to head off  

in the same direction, a freak shower

demanding our attention,

inviting us to make a decision,

make a mad dash for cover

Inevitably, we were soon engaged

in the kind of meaningless small talk

that means everything,

reading between lines and innuendos,

the suggestion we be friends...

while acknowledging so much more

without having to find the words

We were lovers but a short time,

(good mates the rest of our lives)

killing demon stereotypes,

exposing a world of prejudices,

religious dogma, bigotry...

as an any-excuses-better-than-none

mindset for abusing the rest of us

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Leap of Faith OR Peace in Our Time

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

Apologies for the length of this post, but it seemed a good idea to publish the poem here at the same time as answering a number of queries regarding my fiction. (Some of my novels will be of special interest to gay readers.)

Since I first learned to read at 4 years-old, I have been an avid reader, especially of fiction; it offered an escape from certain realities of home life, not least an appalling relationship with my father.  At the same time, I have always enjoyed poetry; my mother would often recite dramatic poems like The Highwayman (Alfred Noyes) and The Ancient Mariner (Samuel Taylor Coleridge) at bed-times as well as or instead of reading a story.

My first poem appeared in my secondary school magazine in the summer of 1955 when I was 11 years-old; ever since, I have always thought of myself as something of a poet. At the same time, my passion for reading fiction remained my chief raison d’être throughout my childhood, teenage years and young manhood; as I became aware of being gay in a society where gay sex was a criminal offence, so the greater my need for escapism. [My partial deafness was also a factor in my hunger for fiction, given that I was constantly mishearing and consequently being misunderstood; at times, my reality was kind of hell.]

The more I read, albeit more fiction that non-fiction, the more I felt an affinity with the darker as well as lighter experiences of its various protagonists; I would often identify with the former and take heart from their (eventually) overcoming the worst of times while the latter encouraged me to develop a wry sense of humour which would carry me through many a humiliation down to both my hearing loss and being verbally abused for being gay. 

A teacher at my old secondary school was something of a mentor. I had confided in him about my sexuality as he was one of the few people in my life that I felt I could trust. I also told him about the conflict within me between distancing myself from a Christian upbringing and my feeling closer to nature than I ever did to religion. "Whatever," he said with a wry smile, have faith in yourself, Taber. Learn to trust your better instincts and feelings, and the rest will follow. What doesn't seem right to some people, doesn't make it wrong, just so long as it feels right to you." On the whole, I hated my schooldays, but I had some of the best teachers a very confused teenager could wish to have.

I wrote the poem below while thinking about my first Gay Pride march and writing my first gay novel, Dog Roses. The book was never published except on the blog. No publishers were interested, but that did not matter because by the time I had finished writing the poem, I realised why I needed to write it in the first place; it was as if the poet in me was telling me to stop thinking about exploring human nature through fiction, but get on with it, give it a go. I have no regrets about leaving a permanent job for what would now be called a zero-hours contract so I would have time to do just that. (In those days, there was plenty of work available.) I have enjoyed every minute.

For anyone interested, my gay-crime novel ‘Blasphemy’ has been published on Google Play: 

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Roger_N_Taber_Blasphemy?id=mNlsDAAAQBAJ&hl=en_GB

- although I have also reinstated it (in two parts) on my fiction blog after many requests to do so, and will not be uploading its sequel, Sacrilege, (see my fiction blog in serial form) to Google Play. For more information about my fiction, see below and:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html

Someone once described the act of Coming Out as a leap of faith. How true that is. I took that leap  om my first Gay Pride march years ago, and never looked back.  It was was truly a leap of faith; faith in myself and that I was committing to a good life, one of which I had been in denial (to most people) for far too long. On that march I experienced a new sense of completeness and personal freedom that dispelled any lingering doubts as to whether or not being openly gay was right for me. For me, yes, but I can see only too well where others are coming from who may feel it's not the right move for them, especially any gay people living in a gay-unfriendly environment. Even so, there is no feeling quite like shedding the shackles of misinformed formative years...

This poem is a villanelle.

LEAP OF FAITH or PEACE IN OUR TIME

Find G-A-Y coming out for peace with pride

against the language of bigotry

till the language of hate has no place to hide

Wherever so-called ‘betters’ presume to decide

(and judge) on matters of sexuality,

find G-A-Y coming out for peace with pride

Challenging holier-than-thou types sure to side

against love perceived as immorality

till the language of hate has no place to hide

Among voices debating Convention as guide

and role model in a token reality,

find G-A-Y coming out for peace with pride

Questioning laws passed to incriminate, deride

and silence any significant minority

till the language of hate has no place to hide

Defining all humanity wherever cultures collide

in the course of world history,

find G-A-Y speaking up for peace with pride

till the language of hate has no place to hide

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

MY NOVELS

DOG ROSES; a gay man’s rites of passage

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

(Gay-interest)

BLASPHEMY: a novel

[Crime/Gay-interest] - Also available as an e-book on Google Play..

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/blasphemy-synopsis.html (Synopsis)

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Roger_N_Taber_Blasphemy?id=mNlsDAAAQBAJ

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2018/02/blasphemy-novel-by-roger-n-taber.html (Pt 1, blog)

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2018/02/blasphemy-novel-by-roger-n-taber-part-2.html (Pt 2, blog

SACRILEGE

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/sacrilege-chapter-1.html

(Crime/Gay-interest; sequel to Blasphemy, continues the adventures and misadventures of Laurence Fisher; only serialised on the fiction blog.)

LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/like-theres-no-tomorrow-synopsis_3445.html

(Crime/Mystery)

CATCHING UP WITH MURDER

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/catching-up-with-murder-novel-synopsis.html

(1st Fred Winter [crime/gay-interest] novel)

PREDISPOSED TO MURDER

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/predisposed-to-murder-synopsis.html

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2012/04/predisposed-to-murder-chapter-one.html
(2nd Fred Winter  novel)

MAMELON (Book One):

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/mamelon-fantasy-novel-synopsis.html

(Fantasy)

MAMELON (Book Two):

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/mamelon-2-chapter-one.html

MAMELON (Glossary of Names and Terms used):

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/mamelon-glossary-of-names-and-terms.html

:

Free Spirit, Free Choices (If only...!)

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

Now, each and every one of us has equal rights of way in life regardless of colour, creed, sex or sexuality. Never let anyone tell you differently. As for people like me who do not believe in a personified God, be sure any ‘Heaven’ connects with Earth Mother just as surely as spring follows winter.

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog a few years ago especially for ‘Helen and Max who emailed to say, 'We are devout Christians, but we love our gay son no less for his sexuality or our religion. God is Love, and to reject our son would be to reject Christianity...’ Oh, but how refreshing to hear of Christians being Christian!  There are plenty of them, of course, good people with open hearts and minds regardless of their religion, but we gay men and women seem to have more than our fair share of encounters with the worst kind.

Yes, there are many in gay-unfriendly cultures, communities and societies who are gay-friendly; on the whole, though, those same cultures, communities and societies still have a long way to go be before understanding - and being seen to understand - that sexuality is a fact not freak of nature. Bigotry and prejudice on the other hand...

Few choices we make in life are important as how we choose to live it. I once met a guy and his partner from Nigeria on holiday here in London. We were in a gay bar and they told me how it was impossible to be openly gay back home. I asked how they coped, and did they think there would come a time when they could be open about their relationship. One grinned and said, "Life is all about making choices, yes? Well, we've made one of the most important choices we will ever make. More to come, sure, but it's as they say, Rome was not built in a day..."

Free spirits, yes. Free choices? Well, I dare say life (like love) demands a payback time (sooner or later, in one form or another) of all if not most choices we make in its name.

This poem is a kenning.

FREE SPIRIT, FREE CHOICES (IF ONLY...!)

At the Gates of Heaven,
legends gave me no choice
but return, for better

or worse, make good mistakes

yet to be made, watch plans

fall apart still to be laid, chance

whatever good it takes

for anyone of my disposition

to make a right decision

At the Gates of Hell

a devil all but defined the art

of choice as heads he wins

tails I lose, my head on a block,

or neck on a line where blind

to eyes flashing warnings,

lips preferring to play lackey

to consensus, V-signs making

sense of bad decisions

At the Gates of Love

an angel gave me a choice;

seize the day, no excuses,

or play out sad mind games,

prefer the stars to the sun,

go baying for the moon alone,

never waking to a sharing

of body heat for fear its joys

but fade too soon

May mind-body-spirit yet find me

ways to live, love, and stay free

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Rights of Way' in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

Among Tales told by Seashells

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

Today’s short poem is deceptively simplistic; it was written in 2004 and was first published in my collection the following year. I say ‘deceptively’ because I had to reach deep within myself to work out why I was feeling so incredibly restless; at times dispirited, yet also optimistic, rather like someone clutching at straws in a deceptively calm sea, unable to find the strength to even try and swim… [How can I be sure it is how I felt? The poem reminds  me.] 

I suspect most of not all of us have a sense, at some time or another, of being tossed about on the eternal in-and-out, to-and-fro tides of time; it can be very wearisome, to say the least.

Well, all I can say is if we are but flotsam and jetsam in the Sea of Life, may it be along the ever gay-friendly shores of love…

Okay, it wasn't the love affair of the century, but we were together long enough to remind us both there life, love (and sex) for the over 60's, and how LGBT history, too, has a delightful habit of repeating itself...at any age...if we let it.

AMONG TALES TOLD BY SEASHELLS

Love hadn’t touched me

for many years;

I had let myself drift freely

on a blue sea of tears

I chanced to find peace

(or did it find me?)

searching for the likes of us 

on that same blue sea

Gone, tears of loneliness 

blue, only the sky;
body (left all but spiritless)

a light in the mind's eye

Ashore at last, for homing in

on the heart's outline

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005

[From: A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; revised ed, in e-format in preparation.]