Friday 19 May 2017

Only Human

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

A friend of mine is afraid to be openly gay because he is a Catholic. He deserves better from a religion to which he is devoted.

While Pope Francis is a BIG improvement on his predecessors, and a welcome one, the Catholic Church (among others) still has a long way to go as far as relating to LGBT people. For any socio-cultural-religious authority to suggest being gay is OK so long as we are not having sex is not only absurd, but also offensive.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, too, is among those who have made this unrealistic comment about same sex relationships; as an attempt to portray Christianity as showing a more enlightened attitude towards LGBT communities worldwide, it fails miserably. (Whatever else Jesus of Nazareth may or may not have been, he was no bigot. On the contrary, he was an open-minded, openhearted humanitarian from whom we could all learn a thing or two, regardless of colour, creed, sex or sexuality.)

I am not disrespectful of religion although I subscribe to no religion myself. However, is it not high time all the world’s religious leaders got real about the kind of world we live in and imposed less hypocrisy and guilt on followers struggling to reconcile their faith and sense of spirituality with how they live their everyday lives? Homosexuality has long been a thorn in the side of world religions, not least, I suspect, because it forces them to confront an intrinsic hypocrisy. 

Millions of gay men and women among active Christians and other religious-minded people around the world still feel they must remain in the closet, are made to suffer a lifetime of guilt imposed on them by a blinkered religion that cannot relate to a native sexuality and its natural need to freely express itself. Various closed-shop religions proceed to pass judgement on us; many have our blood on their hands.

Thankfully an increasing number of religious-minded people, gay and heterosexual alike, understand that having little or no vision beyond narrow boundaries that pass for dogma does humanity no favours. Religion should be an open door for anyone to enter (or not) as they choose; for those who choose to enter, it deserves better than to be transformed by its so-called 'betters' into an open prison.  

Some years ago, I asked a gay-friendly Catholic priest why he did not feel the same antipathy towards actively gay people as many of his fellow priests. He looked me in the eye and said, “Belief is a life force for good. Some people mistake believing in Belief for Belief itself, and then it becomes dead wood if not a liability.”

What about people like me who subscribe to no Belief?” I could not resist asking.

He shrugged and said, “All part of a bigger picture on the same canvas,” before adding, ‘Whatever, it is people who count, and by people I mean as individuals because we are all different. Lose sight of that, and no Belief is worth whatever Holy Books you may have thought you found it in. People deserve better…, he paused, “…and so does religion.”

Now, there was a priest I could look up to and respect even if I could not share his Belief.

Sadly, many if not most religious leaders interpreting and imposing a religious dogma that undermines the integrity of LGBT relationships still have no real understanding of the very message of peace and love it is sending out to followers worldwide. We are all of us (they, included) only human.

ONLY HUMAN 

Who will praise His Holiness,
above Earth Mother’s cries of protest
among gay victims of HIV-AIDS?

Let hypocrites gather en masse,
(keen to put their faith to a litmus test)
who will praise His Holiness

Will the Bishop of Rome confess
any blame for a kinder acolyte’s unrest
among gay victims of HIV-AIDS?

In the papacy, he’ll surely press
the devout to place unquestioning trust;
who will praise His Holiness

Oh, but among the lapsed, no less
anxiety to have consciences put to rest
among gay victims of HIV-AIDS

Among the lasting parables of Jesus,
a Good Samaritan puts compassion first;
who will praise His Holiness
among gay victims of HIV-AIDS?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010
  
[Note: This poem was also posted on my general blog at the time. I received a number of abusive emails, but am delighted to say that these were considerably outnumbered by emails from gay (and straight) men and women who feel their religion lets itself down by failing to openly acknowledge the integrity (including sexual integrity) of LGBT people worldwide.] 

Saturday 13 May 2017

Sexuality, all Caged Up and Demanding O-U-T

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

This is not a new post but one I deleted from my general blog after receiving several troll-type emails. I usually ignore these, but friends advised me to post it on my gay-interest blog instead while continuing to link to it from to it from my Google + site as previously. Then I though, why should I? So I have re-posted it on my general blog. At the same time, friends are probably right in suggesting it will be of more interest to gay readers...

Now, we talk about 'blind' instinct, but there is a native instinct that know us better than we know ourselves, and it is anything but blind; it has a clearer sense of what to do in situations where any brooding, thinking self hasn't a clue.

In February 1969, I sailed for Australia (as a would-be migrant) on the SS Southern Cross from Liverpool. While it was a huge mistake in many ways, it was also one of my better decisions.

In short, I was running away from the UK - and a family that had no idea of how much of a psychological mess I was in or of share their of blame for it - rather than going to Australia. 

Gay relationships ‘between consenting adults’ had been decriminalised in 1967  but it would be many years before society as a whole began to accept us, if grudgingly. I had left school five years earlier but saw myself as having no career prospects and was still a long way from becoming truly reconciled with my sexual identity. Apart from a growing sense of isolation, I felt hurt and angry. Significant though sexual identity may be, it is but a part of a greater whole. (Why should the greater part of me be made to feel it needs to apologise for what, after all, is no one else's damn business?)

While I will always have a great affection for Australia and the people I met there, I arrived with neither enough money nor qualifications to fulfill my dream, even in the longer term. During the six-weeks crossing, however, I’d had plenty of time to think and reflect on my motives. I found myself homing in on home truths that appalled me. Was I really such a coward?

So, yes, on the face of it, Australia was a disaster but I returned to the UK not (quite) with tail between legs but as different person, more self-confident than I had ever felt before and determined to shape my life in a positive way. In spite of a severe nervous breakdown in my 30’s, I like to think that, in general, I have succeeded.  (I have battled with depression all my life but any gay angst has only ever been part of the emotional equation albeit a vital one.)

It is up to all of us - gay or straight - to make the best of things, not the worst, and be positive about ourselves, each other and life in general even when the immediate future may be looking on the bleak side. That’s when the human condition comes into its own, now a pussycat, now a roaring lion. Mind you, everyone has lapses of self-confidence in self and in humanity from time to time, including me.

If the journey to Australia nearly 50 years ago was a nightmare, my stay there was an epiphany. My return to the UK marked the kind of new beginning the poet in me had been yearning for without any real sense of either the what or the how, only the why. Moreover, I no longer felt that gay-interest poetry is something for which I should feel any need to apologise; a poem is a poem is a poem just as a person is a person is a person ... regardless of gender and sexuality. 

Yes, it was a long way to go to find myself, true, but well worth it ...

SEXUALITY, ALL CAGED UP AND DEMANDING O-U-T 

Mouth gone dry, sweat
soaking the brow;
I am left wondering
why it should attack now,
this animal lust
for freedom, open spaces
far, far, away from city faces
and grubby streets

Mouth gone dry, sweat
soaking the brow;
I am left wondering why
it should strike now,
this hunger for adventure,
need to prove something
although what or to whom
remains to be seen

Mouth gone dry, sweat
soaking the brow;
I am left feeling excited
if scared of a caving in
rather than a pressing ahead
with some heady fiction 
well aware its return thread
so easily broken

Looking to play the hero
or merely wishing
to please myself for once
instead of always
putting head before heart,
doing the ‘right thing’
but right for whom after
all's said and done?

Rage, burning, a life-long
learning in flames;
passion, a feisty yearning
to escape this caged-up 
non-life, a Here-and-Now
parody of a lion’s den
where the mouth gone dry,
sweat soaking the brow

Who is it, this other 'Me'
writing up emotions
half killing me to admit
in these early hours
where conscience seeks
respite in its humanity
as if its poetry were indeed
a match for its sword?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2017

[Note: The last stanza has since been added to the original version of this poem that first appeared under the title, ‘A Poet’s Diary’ in  The Third Eye by R. N. Taber Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

Monday 8 May 2017

The Hunt, Metaphor for LGBT History

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

I have always thought hunting with hounds is a sick sport. Maybe that’s because I have a tried and tested empathy with any animal on the run; having been the victim of homophobic attacks in the distant past, I know how it feels. Some of us would get away by the skin of our teeth, of course, as I (usually) did, but not everyone escapes uninjured (or worse) and the trauma may well haunt a person all their life.

In some parts of the world (countries like Uganda and Iran, for example, to name just two) gay people have to hide their sexuality, yet are often sniffed out by bigoted forces and don't live to tell the tale. It is a tragedy that shames the civilised world. Sadly, it is as all too common a tragedy for unprotected species in the animal world as for gay people living in an intrinsically homophobic environment...or anyone else seen as fair game by those who choose to interpret this or that socio-cultural-religious take on life as justification for the unjustifiable.

[Hunters] take unbelievable pleasure in the hideous blast of the hunting horn and baying of the hounds… Erasmus (1466 - 1536)


THE HUNT, METAPHOR FOR LGBT HISTORY

I hear a horn,
the baying of hounds,
thundering hooves,
need to run and hide
if only I can

Closing in on me,
horn, hounds, hooves;
scarier still,
a stench of humans
laughing

I need to pause
but the only rest for me
will last forever
once laughter catches
up with me

My legs fail,
drag me to a sanctuary
of friendly bushes
but the frothing pack
sniffs me out

The lead hound
pauses, poised to leap
for my throat,
now strikes, and all
I hear is laughter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Tuesday 2 May 2017

Human Spirit, Wings of the Day


In my 70’s now, people often refer to me as being in the autumn (even early winter) of my years. Well, physically, yes, of course I am, but there is a spirit in me (as in all of us who know better) that beats its wings and sings its heart out just as if it were spring…

Gay or straight, we all get old; the trick is never, but never, let anyone make you feel old.

HUMAN SPIRIT, WINGS OF THE DAY 

Bursting into spring
come a skylark into song
at the first subtle hint
of a new day’s spreading
its wings

Up, up, and away
like that beautiful kite
we'd fly in a breeze
on daisy hilltops, spreading
news of us…
across cornfields,
and chuckling streams,
busy, smoky streets,
touching base with lovers
like us ...

Demanding heads
in sand look up, take note,
spread the word
to watch out for us settling
nearby…
listen to epic tales
ever worked and reworked
by history,
world taking us to its heart
or not ...

Sailing into spring
on a nightingale’s lullaby
come the first hint
of twilight at a day’s folding
its wings

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017







Monday 1 May 2017

S-T-E-R-E-O-T-Y-P-E-S, Faux Pas

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

I am often asked - as in an email only yesterday – to send a DVD of my poetry reading on the 4th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square back in 2009. (My contribution to sculptor Antony Gormley's 'live' sculpture project that ran 24/7 over 2400 hours that summer.) Sky Arts refused to supply plinthers with a record of their performance on the grounds that the entire web stream is archived in the British Library.

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18
   
I always love to hear from readers so feel free to email me at rogertab@aol.com  [NB If you use the 'Comments' link but would like a reply, please include your email address.]

Meanwhile...

Now, it is good to pause and look back every now and then if only to remind ourselves how things were and how far we have come...so long as we don’t stop moving forward, reminding ourselves, too, that not every man and women across this sorry world of ours enjoys the freedom of speech and lifestyle they deserve.

Once a (young) closet gay man, I used to have an affinity with caged wildlife. (I am 71 now and still do.)  It was as if I were locked in a glass cage through which everyone could see although whom they saw was not me at all. I guess that’s why I hate zoos. I am a conservationist, yes, albeit one who prefers to see wildlife monitored for its own protection while remaining all but as free as nature intended.

Oh, and to all those readers who regularly email me to ask why I persist in 'harping back' to hard times when LGBT people have never had it so good, I can only say (yet again) that it all depends whether or not you live and/or work in a gay-friendly environment.

Gay men and women are not the only ones to suffer stereotyping of course. Society is too fond of stereotyping anyone who doesn't appear to follow so-called 'conventional' patterns of behaviour, encouraged by a headline hungry media. It has to stop. This is the 21st century, for goodness sake!

"A forest bird never wants a cage." - Henrik Ibsen

S-T-E-R-E-O-T-Y-P-E-S, FAUX PAS

As a youth, I dreamed
I was happy, set free
from a sad, lonely cage,
killing me softly

As a youth, I dreamed
of a world living free,
of any cultural prejudices
treating me harshly

As a youth, I dreamed
of a day I’d run free,
finding another gay man
to kiss life into me

As a youth I dreamed
a world on my side,
glad (for all its bigotry)
I hadn’t yet died

Older now, I still dream
we all may be free
to fly cages like the one
that almost killed me

Copyright R. N. Taber 1973; 2017

[Note: Written summer 1973; rediscovered and revised, 2009; 2017.]