De Profundis OR Mind-Body-Spirit, On the Mend

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

“Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.” – James Baldwin

May 2010 saw the resignation of David Laws from the coalition government; it was very sad, for him personally and the country. The latter was told that he broke the rules regarding MP’s expenses in order to protect his privacy. Apparently, he had claimed rent for an apartment owned by a man with whom he had been in a relationship since 2001. He had not declared the relationship.

Now, I have suffered from depression all my life and poetry has been literally, a life-saver, as was the case when I came to write a first draft of today’s poem in 1983; I was feeling suicidal at the time.

The title -meaning ‘Out of the Depths’ is taken from a love letter written by Oscar Wilde while serving time in Reading Gaol.

I wasn’t in despair about being gay, having come to terms with that some years earlier, but I was feeling acutely disappointed in myself and my inability to get my life on an even keel. Eventually, I would do just that, and writing this poem helped considerably, but it would take a few more years yet and a troubled ocean to cross... in more ways than one...to Australia. Regular readers will know the tale so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice to say, I managed to rise above the worst and get my life in better shape.

While shopping yesterday, I overheard a group of people discussing how ‘scary’ the pandemic, and how they feel close to despair of life ever returning to the way it used to be before Covid-19 and its variants struck. I suspect thee are many such folks out there, among blog readers too, who feel much the same way. I (know I do, at times.)

My hope is that the poem may yet help you, as it did me, to rise above our fears and rediscover the Poetry of Love, Friendship and Motivation...

Yes, Oscar Wilde was gay, and anyone can find themselves in despair, for whatever reason, any time, any place, anywhere... so, can deny it or dare judge anyone else for being so driven, whatever his or her sexuality?

DE PROFUNDIS or MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, ON THE MEND

I lay floating an ocean of misery,
willing myself to drown,
while dolphins kept me company
and Apollo lingered on

Sharks, they kept a hungry distance,
an albatross winged by,
while waves lent a gentle cadence
to twilight’s lullaby

Went into freefall to the ocean floor,
and would have stayed,
but Apollo demanded of me more,
while the dolphins cried...

I let them have their way, if reluctantly,
screaming out for motivation,
searching the finest Poetry of Mortality
for the Threshold of Reason

No inner voice answered me, although
I strained to hear,
then twilight let a cloud pass through
and I found a poem there

Body of straw in that ocean of misery,
willing myself to drown,
I read an ode to life, love and a history
of peace, after wars hard won

It told, how few things in life come easy,
including death...
Such is the fickle nature of humanity
and ways of Godmother, Earth

I felt a poet’s passion take hold of me,
heard its voice in a seagull’s cry,
swimming me across an ocean of misery
to walk kinder shores, head high

I woke in tears still drenching my pillow,
began (slowly) to recover;
at chinks in the blinds, winks from Apollo,
reassuring me the worst was over

Copyright R.N. Taber, 2010; rev.2022

[Note: The poem’s title means Out of the Depths. An earlier version of the poem itself appears as the Dedication poem (to Oscar Wilde) in my collection, Tracking the Torchbearer, Assembly Books, 2012; it has been only slightly but significantly, revised. This post-poem also appears on my other poetry blog today. I only post poems of  particular interest to gay/ LGBT readers here as the the blog archives will confirm.] RT