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

At Freedom's Call

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

This post appears at the request of a young man living in Europe and afraid for many friends back home in his native Uganda who live in constant fear or persecution, prison and worse. I have expressed his fears better in other poems, but this is the one he chose because, as he puts it so succinctly,  'everyone has a right to love, no exceptions...'

Gay Rights have come a long way in the West since I was young, but we still have a long way to go before everyone achieves sufficient maturity and sense of fair play to recognise that we are just ordinary people with a positive a contribution to make to contemporary society as anyone else. [Religious fundamentalists and intrinsically homophobic clerics please take note...and grow up!] Uganda, of course,  is just one of many African countries where the repression of and attacks on gay people are a public disgrace to humanity. What makes it all so much worse is that this attitude is encouraged and promoted by radical evangelicals who claim to speak for God. Well, that just goes to show how dangerous ignorance can be since the New Testament and Holy writings associated with other religions assure us that God is Love and love does not discriminate in this way, certainly Jesus of Nazareth never would. I may be non-religious, but I feel very strongly that the way some 'middle management' religious leaders take it upon themselves to misinterpret central aspects of religion for their own bigoted ends.

We are all, each and every one of us, entitled to be free of the shackles of various socio-cultural-religious prejudices  worldwide.

Here's looking forward to the day when gay people around the world are free to express their sexuality without fear of persecution from the less enlightened among the heterosexual majority.

AT FREEDOM’S CALL

Once I played among green hills in summer,

listening to songbirds, watching them fly,

running free, hand in hand with my gay lover

our dream, like a kite, reaching for the sky

In purple hills, come autumn’s reds and gold,

I saw birds winging free of winter’s threat,

leaves painting pictures of we two grown old,

our dream, like a kite, playing hard to get

Once I walked in white hills at winter’s call,

heard a robin sing in a tree stripped bare,

nor did it flinch or fly off at the first snowfall,

our dream, like a kite, returning us there

If summer short, autumn brief, winter dead,

be love’s eternal spring taken as read

  

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

Broken Rainbow

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

[Update; November 2017: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons in Uganda have no specific legal protections. Activists estimated in 2007 that the Ugandan LGBT community consisted of 500,000 people. The Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act  was passed on 17 December 2013 with a punishment of life imprisonment for "aggravated homosexuality". In August 2014, the Uganda Constitutional Court annulled the law. Nonetheless, LGBT people continue to face discrimination in Uganda. Households headed by same-sex couples are not eligible for the same legal protections available to opposite-sex couples. In February 2015 President Museveni signed the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill which called for repeat offenders to be sentenced to 14 years in prison and to make it a criminal offence not to report someone for being gay; the Bill was defeated in the Ugandan parliament and he has since said he will not pursue further anti-gay legislation.] 

In January (2011) you may have read or heard some media reports that a leading campaigner for Gay Rights in Uganda, David Kato, had been murdered. I (still) feel obliged to draw attention to what is happening in Uganda, not least because it upsets me greatly.

David Kato [Photo taken from the Internet]

Societies world-wide have a lot to answer for with regard to poverty, prejudice, peace, equality, HIV-AIDS...and more besides. At least some politicians do their best while others cruise along, content to play the blame game to distract attention from their own inaction. Yet others, we cannot help but observe, are plainly in politics for no other reason than their own egos.

Politicians in some countries - not just Uganda - put the 21st century to shame. The recent murder of David Kato in Uganda is more than a human tragedy; it is a crime against humanity and the likes of Giles Muhame (Managing Editor of Rolling Stone) deserve to be brought to book.

As if chronic poverty in Uganda isn’t tragedy enough, the persecution of gay people there continues to horrify the civilised world.

So what is the civilized world going to do about it?

This poem is a villanelle.

BROKEN RAINBOW

Under a broken rainbow,
tearful faces making their way
in this sorry world below

Find the seeds to sow
all those we’ve loved heard say
under a broken rainbow

Agreed, we’ve much to show
for packing prejudice on its way
in this sorry world below

By now, world leaders know
free speech needs to have its say
under a broken rainbow?

Areas (still) marked No-Go
for men and women who are gay
in this sorry world below

Where home truths fear to go,
political correctness has its way
under a broken rainbow
in this sorry world below

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009