From Roger’s friend, Graham
Good morning,
I intended to include an extra poem yesterday for this, Roger’s
LGBT+ focused blog. It ties in with the art theme. Sorry, it slipped my mind
so herewith, below. (You may be aware that there’s a general interest blog in
parallel and I’ve been duplicating postings. Although I hope to include
additional, more bespoke content for this blog if time permits.)
This blog address uses the unspaced words ‘aspects-of-a-gay-mans-life-in-verse’.
And I know Rog used to share candid
thoughts about day-to-day life. On health and mobility difficulties and other various
opinions, frustrations, hopes and fears, etc. So I’ll try to continue along
that thread. (I’m not a poet but I have an appreciation for poetry, so
hopefully that will suffice.)
Looking outside, a pair of wood pigeons sway in a nearby treetop.
The wind breathes life into a row of conifers like a puppeteer. Yellow lichen
dusts a rooftop like flecks of peeling gold leaf. Beyond, a brackish river of intermingling
muddy blues and greys. Along the arc of the riverside, distant warehouses
strewn like discarded toys. An armada of clouds sail gracefully east. I wish
I could hitch a ride; stow myself away. A sense of incompleteness runs through
my quietude like a flaw in the sapphire sky; a striation of cloud stretched out
to the horizon by winds of time. I make coffee, gather papers, read notes, go
to the bathroom... An automaton almost; performing routines without knowing why.
Empty, refill, repeat… It must be time to feed the birds; bring myself to life once
more…
For this next gay-interest poem I should explain that in the
UK there’s a wonderful charity called The National Trust (https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/).
They preserve stately homes, places of historic or cultural significance, and
much more. In fact I filmed some of Roger’s videos at one of the country estates
which they maintain, see: ‘Stourhead, a Hymn to Nature & Live Art (Two
poems)’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQlJAu8Rwuc&t=17s).
Or ‘Ode to Apollo’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMIb7ysvJwU&t=65s).
There’s other vids too. Apologies for the low picture quality – it was old
technology!
Bye for now, Gx
* * * *
A NATIONAL TRUST OUTING
On my way downstairs, I paused
to look at a portrait on the wall
and it winked at me, opened
its mouth and said (laughingly),
“Yes, I too was gay in my day
although the word not invented
nor times quite ready to receive
the unseemly likes of a common
painter and his patron lover – so we
had to lie, indulge in subterfuge
No one had the faintest idea,
certainly not the family (wife and
children included) or that ogre
Establishment whose inner circle
I was free enough to tread, so long
as I dared not bring it into disrepute
by word or deed. Oh, I loved them
well enough, indeed. But it’s not for
love of those I pose – radiating,
I suspect, an inner happiness?
Ah, yes, you understand. It is my
lover’s brush, exploring mind
and soul, touching what makes life
real (no trappings and trimmings
comprising Society’s notion – of
propriety or political expediency,
nor even an image of home fires
burning) – but Love, in all its
rampant glory, telling my story
here and now, for whomsoever might
care to consider, critically, a glow
in the cheek, lift of the eyebrow,
crook of the knee, hands pointedly
showing off slender fingers, touches
invariably missed in critique, put down
to art’s mystique, few appreciating
the intimacy between lover and lover,
bouncing off each other, long after
the oil runs dry, spoils of eternity”
In my own time I descended,
feeling befriended
Copyright R. N Taber 2004, 2006. From the poetry
collection ‘The Third Eye’.
No comments:
Post a Comment