Conversations

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

Apologies to new reader, Y F, - who tells me he is bisexual - for not adding gay-specific poem-posts to my gay poetry blog as often as I add general-interest pieces to this one. (Similarly, there is both general (fantasy) and gay fiction on my fiction blog.) As I have said here before, though, I find it hard to write any poems these days, given a continuing battle against various health issues, including the kind of mental stress that years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer has imposed in recent years; as if having to contend with the ever-present threat of Covid-19 and variants hasn’t imposed stress enough on all of us… 

Writing as well as reading poetry is not only great creative therapy, it is a welcome distraction from our own trials and tribulations as well as those dominating various world landscapes...! The same can be said for any form of creative therapy, of course, whether it be arts forms, dressmaking, gardening... whatever... and can achieve a far greater sense of well-being than any medicines.

Now, email feedback suggests, Y F, that many LGBT readers now get in touch to say they dip into both poetry blogs, so if you have an interest in poetry for its own sake, you might want to do the same as well as browsing the archives of either or both blogs? 

On the principle that a poem is a poem is a poem - regardless of content - this post-poem will appear on both poetry blogs today. Now and then, the occasional reader will complain when I do this, but it can do no harm, surely, to remind some heterosexually biased readers that a person is a person is a person too…? It is a sad indictment on the 21st century that anyone should need reminding, and good to see many straight young people, from all walks of life, opening their hearts and minds to the LGBT ethos.

Hopefully, among future generations, far fewer gay men and women, boys and girls - regardless of race or religion - will need to live a lie in order to sustain all-important family ties; the family ethos, too, should be about love and trust, should it not? Or how else can we, as civilised human beings, hope to learn from and respect one another…?

CONVERSATIONS 

People ask me if I am happy
to be gay, wouldn’t I rather be ‘normal’,
less of a curiosity…?
I ask them, “I am as I am, it’s me,
so why expect mind-body-spirit to reason
any differently…?”

People ask me why I choose
to be gay, wouldn’t I much rather win over
society than lose?
I tell them, “This or that society
has ever harboured bigots, their prejudices
pass over me…
Sexuality is no lifestyle choice,
but a way of giving such life forces as inspire
heart and soul - a voice…”

People ask me if I am happy
with a voice as likely as not to be sneered
at by so many…?
I ask them, “Is it any fault of mine
if they are ignorant of ways of personal space
other than their own…?
Why should anyone’s sexuality
matter to others, all of us sons and daughters,
a common humanity…?”

People ask me how I can justify
crossing lines set in stone by world religions,
yet dare invoke spirituality?
I tell them, “God is Love., you see,
and no love was ever set in stone, would side
with any bigotry…
Love and let love, each to our own,
and may we forgive who would judge us harshly
lash out at us or disown…”

People ask me if I am happy
to be gay, wouldn’t I rather be ‘normal’,
less of a curiosity…?
I ask them, “I am as I am, it’s me,
so why expect mind-body-spirit to reason
any differently…?”

Copyright R N Taber, 2022