Footprints in the Snow

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

Today's entry is from my general poetry blog archives for December 2011.

‘Karin and Tomas’ have asked me to repeat 'my video links'. They do not say which one/s so here is the link to my You Tube channel and the link to my (very informal) poetry reading on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square as my contribution to Antony Gormley's One and Other 'live sculpture' project  in 2009. [The You Tube clips are only a few minutes, but the One and Other video lasts an hour.] I hope you will enjoy them, and will be able to watch in an Internet cafe since you appear not to have a home computer

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library confirmed today that he video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT

Meanwhile...

Many gay-friendly heterosexuals I know seem to think I am exaggerating when I tell them that gay men and women worldwide still feel threatened; even here in the West. Perhaps they should take more of an interest in their fellow human beings. Mind you, that isn’t easy when the media all but ignore gay issues except when occasions like World AIDS Day demand they pay some token attention.

I recently received an email from the U.S. based All Out organisation regarding recent anti-gay activities in Russia and Nigeria, but there will be gay people from all countries and of all religious persuasions that will have little to celebrate this Christmas or during any of the world’s religious festivals.

Last week, pressure on the Russian government prevented a vote on its anti-gay bill from taking place. All Out members around the world amplified the voice of Russian activists, forcing world leaders to speak out against this law that justifies hate and discrimination. Russia’s gay men and women remain hopeful, but the fight is far from over; the bill may still come back.

Unfortunately there's no time to celebrate. The Nigerian Senate has just followed Russia's bad example, passing a bill this week which would make it illegal to publicly support LGBT rights. Simply showing up to a gay bar could land you in jail for 14 years, regardless of your sexuality.

www.allout.org/nigeria

Nigeria is already an incredibly dangerous place for LGBT people, and this latest piece of legislation will only further push the Nigerian LGBT community deep underground.

Here’s a BIG HUG from me for gay people world-wide unable to openly stand up for their sexuality for whatever reason.

Now, Christmas is looming fast. As regular readers will know only too well, I do not subscribe to any religion, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect anyone, anywhere, whose religion plays a very important part in their lives. Besides, all religious festivals are times when people, especially families and friends, come together in peace and love. Well, that is how it is supposed to be although it has been my personal experience that peace and love are sometimes in short supply; celebration is by its very nature infectious, and there's nothing wrong with that so long as people remember to live by whatever it is they are celebrating long after the festivities are done and dusted.

And what of those who spend Christmas alone? Well, I personally can honestly say I have spent many a wonderful Christmas alone; yet, never really alone because I am surrounded by the ghosts of Christmases and other ‘together’ times past who never fail to invite me to spend a happy, peaceful if reflective time with them. Moreover, I consider myself a son of Earth Mother, and she is never far away.

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW

I woke one morning to find
snow in the ground;
where my garden used to be,
a vast, white sea,
waves whipped up by the wind
like a frozen Tsunami threatening an island
of woebegone leaves

Footprints across this icy sea
beckoned me;
soon I was following them out
of the garden gate,
where once chirpy fields were,
to winter’s unfeeling whims now laid bare,
trees, like icebergs

The footprints halted suddenly
where daises used to be
you’d made into a chain for me,
each flower a memory,
and we’d promised that spring day
our love would last forever, always find a way
to bring us together

Distant bells ringing joyously,
a snowman smiling at me,
fair Apollo’s coming out to smile
on lovers going that last mile
for one another even in bleakest winter,
all confirming the daisies are with Earth Mother
for safekeeping

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Softly, Softly, Sexuality OR Gay in Moscow

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

[Update April 24 2017]: A conversation with a Russian born gay woman married to an Englishman recently confirmed how, tragically, many basic freedoms are being denied in Russia. New laws brought in by Vladimir Putin's government in 2013 have targeted basic human rights.

The result is a Russia where people are increasingly gagged from talking about their political beliefs, stopped from expressing their gender and sexual identity, and banned from involvement with any non-governmental rights groups.]

As regular readers may recall, I had a Russian boyfriend some years ago if only for a short while. He was studying in London and we kept in touch after he returned to Russia, but only briefly and I never heard from him again. Hopefully, he has been able to live the life and love of his first choice unlike so many gay people worldwide who - for one reason or another -  have felt obliged to settle for second best.  There re too many gay men and women all over the world having to live in fear simply for a sexuality that is as much a natural part of them as any limb.

February is LGBT History Month in the UK (October in the United States) and I have published several poems on the blog in an effort to show solidarity with gay readers worldwide living - as I did as a teenager and young man - in a predominantly gay-unfriendly society. Even here in the West, though, while society may, on the whole, be less anti-gay, homophobia remains very much alive and kicking if more closeted due to legislation in defence of political correctness.

LGBT History Month is also as good a way as any of getting across to the less enlightened heterosexual what it means to be gay, a good excuse - if excuse were needed - for schools and parents to discuss the subject sensitively and intelligently with older children and young people. Unfortunately, too few parents or schools (ever) do this, thereby - if only by default – allowing misleading and offensive stereotypes  still attached to gay boys and girls, men and women, to spread (worldwide) unchallenged and unchecked.

Bigotry and prejudice are, by their very nature, reluctant to get real. We can but remain hopeful that the 21st century,as it progresses, will eventually leave a more positive impression about gay people upon even those majorities across the world where gay and other significant minorities continue to suffer various socio-cultural-religious injustices. 

This poem is a villanelle.

SOFTLY, SOFTLY, SEXUALITY... or GAY IN MOSCOW

In the shadow of the Kremlin,
eager for public debate,
Russia’s gay men and women

Still (by many) considered a sin,
same sex lovers date
in the shadow of the Kremlin

Where politics rarely lets us in,
human rights running late,
Russia’s gay men and women

G-A-Y asking society to listen,
unafraid to talk straight
in the shadow of the Kremlin

Subjected to various injustices
approved by the state,
Russia’s gay men and women

Hypocrisy, demanding religion
take Putin’s part…
In the shadow of the Kremlin,
Russia’s gay men and women


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016

Where the Road is Bare, Plant Trees

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

Many years ago, I had a Russian boyfriend. (I would love to visit Russia. Yes, in spite of President Putin’s anti-gay stance. One day, maybe…) His name was Anatoly and he was studying here. He answered to Nat although I’m not sure even he knew how this had come about. He was not only a genuinely nice guy but also good looking and a brilliant cook. In short, he was every gay man’s dream of a partner and way out of my league, or so I thought. Yet, somehow Nat and I became more than friends during his stay here.

Nat is the only boyfriend I’ve ever had who loved poetry. (Yes, even mine.) I missed him a lot when he returned to Russia and hoped we would stay in touch, but Fate had other plans for us. About three years later, I received a brief note that has been forwarded from several different addresses to say he was getting married to ‘a girl called Anna.’ It was just as well he hadn’t put an address or I would probably have caught the next plane to Moscow.

While my poetry is a diary of sorts. no one but me will ever know which poems are based on my own life or on observations of other people’s lives or just wishful thinking on all our parts. It is not surprising then that, as I browse my poems, faces, places and circumstances spring to mind that may be directly related to the poem or simply passing at a tangent to it. So now I find myself thinking about Nat and wondering what happened to him, hoping he is happy, but concerned that a hot-blooded young gay man should have chosen to marry. Has Anna made him happy? Do they have children? I will probably never know.

None of us are perfect nor do we live perfect lives. Yet, it is in those very imperfections that the roller coaster ups and downs of everyday existence lie. Whether or not we are feeling quite up to the ride is another matter…

As I grow old(er) I find myself looking back on the past and regretting much of it for one reason or another.  After all, where has my life brought me but to this growing old alone…and me with such a capacity for love?

Oh, but a pointless exercise, this negative stuff, I agree. Better by far to engage in some positive thinking, be glad for the parts regret cannot reach and try to be that person regret could never touch. Easier said than done, but methinks well worth the effort or old age is likely to be even less of a picnic than old bones would have it…

WHERE THE ROAD IS BARE, PLANT TREES 

Smoky haze on a lonely road,

rogue leaves falling one by one

like faces in a Hall of Mirrors

reflecting such multiple fractures

of times past, hints of joy

and laughter mangled by tears,

as those I have loved and lost

gazing anxiously through my fears;

a merciless naming of parts

(success, achievement…) heads

turned by the darker side

of fulfillment, tiny flames licking

at what we care to call 'soul’

Smouldering seasons lost

to wisps of smoke, scalding caresses,

half-truths let drift with a smile;

familiar faces rallying at such times 

of need as this, reassurances

once betrayed and tossed aside,

now returning to haunt

the self-centred manipulations

and errors of judgement

that brought us here, fuelling a pyre

of purpose-built paranoia;

time to put life’s illusions to rout

and its angrier fires out

Look, and find a hunchback called Pain

planting trees on New Memory Lane

Copyright R. N. Taber 1999; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared in the anthology Duende, Poetry Today [Forward Press] 1999 and subsequently in Love and Human Remains, Assembly Books, 2001.] 

Epiphany at the Cliffs of Time

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

Now, regular readers will know that, after gay relationships were decriminalised here in the UK in 1967, I used to wonder how I would ever find the strength and self-confidence to shrug off the shackles of my closet years. They were, after all, formative years.

I had realised I am gay when I was just 14 years-old (possibly, albeit subconsciously, even earlier) and there I was, nearly 22 and suddenly I was legal! I should have jumped out of that damn closet and let the world know how awful it had been in there! Instead, I prevaricated, and was in and out like a Jack-in-the-box until my mid-30s when a severe nervous breakdown may have taken me to some indescribable Hell and back, but saved the day. Somehow, I came through it all in one piece and eventually clawed my way back into mainstream life, seriously bruised both mentally and emotionally, but clear where my path lay.

Meanwhile, 30+ years on, in countries like Russia, Iran and many African countries like Nigeria, Uganda and the Cameroon, gay people are living in fear of imprisonment, torture, and death. Our hearts go out to them all and our hopes for a better, safer, kinder future. May their leaders bypass their egos and look deep within themselves to find and act upon a sense of humanity and justice sooner rather than later.

One day… perhaps, thanks to those who have the moral courage to stand up and speak out  for LGBT men and women worldwide...at any cost.

EPIPHANY AT THE CLIFFS OF TIME

At the end of my tether,
hope at its nadir,
closer and closer to free fall,
at the Cliffs of Time

I feel only an emptiness,
no sense of peace
on the knife edge of identity.
at the Cliffs of Time

Suddenly, the spell is broken,
(who has spoken?)
waves of words rushing me
at the Cliffs of Time

Now, a lively light's exposing
all a mind's supposing,
a sketchy, existential life-art,
at the Cliffs of Time

Sick despair, failure, self-pity,
but rearing shadows
calling me, pointing fingers
at the Cliffs of Time

Selfies, but sneering, goading
my sexual identity
among fickle clouds gathering
at the Cliffs of Time

Yet, above it all a voice urging
I fear not, the tide’s
for turning, clouds reinventing
the Cliffs of Time

Ah, but I know well that voice;
it is Choice, ready
to call any bluff that's reshaping 
the Cliffs of Time

Am I or am I not better placed
than flotsam and jetsam
answering only to a tide's whim
at the Cliffs of Time?

Crying, 'Yes!' I'll dare turn away
telling the world I’m gay,
having (finally) found my voice
at the Cliffs of Time

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Mind-Body-Spirit, in Safe Hands

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

This week, St. Petersburg is pushing forward a law that would make it illegal for any person to write a book, publish an article or speak in public about being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and calling it "homosexual propaganda". St. Petersburg's Mayor Poltavchenko, President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are all pushing for a law that is more than an abuse of Human Rights; it is an insult to humanity. 

The poem last appeared on the blog in March 2010. As the UK is currently experiencing a very cold spell, you can hardly blame me for recalling a memory/poem to keep me warm... Moreover, I am dedicating it to all our brothers and sisters across the whole of Russia and beyond; any suggestion that someone should ever be persecuted for their sexuality is a stain on civilisation, but especially to the extent we have seen in parts of Africa, in Uganda for example.   

It just goes to show shows how bloody minded and ignorant some world governments can be. Come to that, I don’t recall reading or hearing anything about this sickening proposed anti-gay legislation in Russia here in the UK...

To all my Russian blog readers, a BIG HUG, and good luck! Мы думаем о Вас всех (I hope that is how you say, We are thinking of you all.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, IN SAFE HANDS

You dived under my top,

tongue on nipples aching with desire;

hands at my jeans would not stop,

my whole being on fire

I longed to respond, could not

(for too long told it’s wrong, obscene)

as you invaded me with your heat,

pulled my jeans down

My heart tore like an express

along twisting tracks of denial, regret,

embracing years of loneliness, pain,

on a rack of ages-old guilt

Slowly, I let go all hype

imprinted on my heart, soul, brain;

rose above the stereotype,

learned to live again

Once mere pieces of clay,

we discovered sex, no truths held back;

though some protest, as they may,

let them to their own lives look

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2018

[Note; this poem first appears under the title 'Fast Tracking' in Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]