Cornered OR Nil Desperandum

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

Asked how he was feeling at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, a neighbour replied that he felt “Cornered. I never know from day to day how that day will pan out and whether or not I will get through it in one piece, either physically or mentally, but...” he added with a shrug, “I can’t stop the damn virus, can I?  I just have to get press on and make the best of a bad job along with everyone else... I mean to say, let it beat you and, well, you’re done for, aren’t you?”

Did anyone ever speak truer words...? 

“Nil desperandum, - Never Despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it.” - Samuel Adams

CORNERED or NIL DESPERANDUM

The road is long, and crowded with faces
in queues at bus stops, fashion stores,
train stations, even for Covid vaccinations,
anything to give mind-body-spirit a lift
to such far-away places as we see in eyes
reflecting daydreams, general hubbub
given the old heave-ho just long enough to let
mind-body-spirit grab some peace 

The road is long, like a tale we’re making up
as we go along, no end in sight to make it
worth the effort, uphill, down dale, on frantic
city streets, lonely suburbs, leafy turnings, 
sneering passers-by enough to panic hearts
left vulnerable by years of fake news rejecting
accusations of intending more harm than good in
as many real as digital communities 

Yes, the road has been long, and I'm left asking
myself, whether I feel motivated enough
to continue my journey from here, where I stand
at the heart of No-Man’s Land or trust my feet
to find a suitable escape route, but what chance
of success where mind-body-spirit has tried
and failed to achieve anything along such lines a
heroic men and women in our fictions?

Time, perhaps, to consider the role models we
choose, we wannabe heroes, as we pursue
the humdrum and hubbub of everyday life all art
forms seek to encourage us to acknowledge
for fantasy and draw us in while it may, if only
during the kinder seconds-minutes-hours
of days that would leave us feeling all but defeated
humiliated, possibly broken-hearted? 

Ah, but artists, too, have role models into whom 
they breathe life, would give the Kiss of Life to any
relating more closely to near-death scenes than
any celebration of life, for all its pitfalls, resolving
to let peace, love, joy have stronger voices when
having to make choices affecting loved -ones
no less than ourselves, give humanity an opportunity
to get the better of its egocentricity

Come Here-and-Now’s demanding we let it pass us by,
time, perhaps, to be asking “Why...?

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

[Note: This post-poem also appears on my general poetry blog today as feedback suggests many gay readers choose not to access it and Covid-19 + variants has left most if not all mind-body-spirits batteries worldwide in need of recharging.. For gay-specific poems, see the blog archives,] RNT

 

Life Forces, Life Choices OR Home Truths, Darkness and Light

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

Sleep can bring rest and peace, but it can also create a disturbingly mixed bag of thoughts and possibilities that happen to be preying on mind-body-spirit at any given time. 

With any luck, the first light of dawn will bring to bring an awakening to reality, truth or whatever it is we recognise as being the ultimate source of the disturbance…or not, as the case may be. 

Such is the vulnerability of human nature that we don’t always recognise and/ or accept what goes on behind such closed minds as bearing little if any resemblance to our own … until sleep sets certain underlying life forces upon us that dwell in the subconscious, demanding we see and make choices… for better or worse. 

There were times as a child when I’d need the light on to fall asleep because I was afraid of the dark, not least for its offering no comfort and reassurance the way light does. Many adults as well as children are feeling much the same way now, especially in an everchanging situation and the failure of some governments - including here in England - to recognise the effects of changing its mind at short notice regarding what steps are best taken to control the spread of the coronavirus variant on ordinary people as well as businesses. 

Yes, vaccines are on the way and there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is a very long tunnel and we need more light now. Government may be’ led by the science’ but it would help us all to have some light shed on just what that science is, and who is advising whom on what… 

LIFE FORCES, LIFE CHOICES or HOME TRUTHS, DARKNESS AND LIGHT

Patches of blue
starting to spread across gloomy skies,
signs of sunlight
struggling to break through,
make a difference
to poor humanity, battling against
a coronavirus
threating to defeat even the most positive
among its thinkers 

Apollo, never one
to surrender to the Forces of Darkness,
better known
for retreating awhile to let the stars
buy us time
to bring all the Powers of Light
into play,
among them, life forces able to bring humanity
to its senses 

Come, light of day,
despatching nightmares into such free fall
as Fear knows
only too well, Hope getting a grip,
inciting Courage
to call its bluff, see off such bullies
as Jealousy, Bigotry,
Hate and Hypocrisy, make them drink of the milk
of human kindness 

See Apollo re-emerge,
in time to call the bullies’ bluff for giving
mind-body-spirit
time enough to reflect on various
alternatives - to
(far) better means to whatever it seeks
than being left
having to justify any solution for as good an answer
as any, right or wrong 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2021

 

 

Life Force, Second to None

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

It is news to no one that feel-good factors comes in many shapes and forms; romantic or otherwise, for a person, an activity, whatever … a life force second to none, always on hand in the Here-and-Now  to cheer and sustain us through thick and thin.

Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday here in the UK, a time to remember our debt of gratitude to the members of the armed forces who died in the two World Wars and later conflicts; in our minds also, inevitably this year, those across the world who have died fighting a very different kind of war, a very different kind of enemy, the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Someone's death is invariably someone else's tragedy too; remembrance  is one of the many faces of Grief, yes,  ut also a celebration of those who, for many of us, remain a 'living' inspiration.

LIFE FORCE, SECOND TO NONE

World, all but on its knees,
sickness and death paying home visits
just about everywhere …
No change there but for its assuming
the mantle of a coronavirus
striking a greater fear in us for its ability
to catch us unawares
snatch us from family and friends, no time
even for precious goodbyes 

Hospitals overrun with cases,
doctors and nurses working all hours
to save lives, risking theirs,
while reassuring anxious relatives
or having to break
the very news they have been dreading,
yet little time for such tears
as compounding fears confronting humanity
with its own vulnerability 

Battles fought, survivors recalling
loved ones lost with such mixed feelings
as remembrance inspires
love alone able to temper both pain
and grief, lifting hearts
with happy memories, the likes of which may
well never come again
yet enough to sustain a sense of joie de vivre
that, if we let it, lasts forever

Find any human heart’s capacity for endurance
sustained by love’s Spirit of Remembrance

Copyright R. N Taber 2020

[Note: This post-poem also appears on my general poetry blog today.] RNT

Flights of Tension to Fanciful Places

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

This poem remains in my general poetry blog archives for June 2015; it may not be one of my better poems, but it has a certain therapeutic value, for me at any rate. Many years ago, someone told me that the best cure for tension and stress is imagination. I had never thought of imagination as a form of creative therapy, but of course it is, and one of the best.

Oh, but haven’t we all been there at some time or another, past caring and simply wanting to shut the world out, slump in a comfortable armchair and forget about everything and everyone for a while …?

The trouble with slumping is that it has a nasty habit of temporarily removing life’s more attractive distractions from the inner eye and insisting it takes us down the darker side of Memory Lane, thereby making us feel even worse … which is where imagination comes in, and will  play its part
part to perfection ... if we but let it. We have but to close our eyes, think nice thoughts and let mind-body-spirit whisk us off to wherever it is we would rather be, and with whom ...

At the time I wrote this poem, I was in the early stages of recovering from and reflecting on a very bad cold when a good ‘slump’ is just about all I’d felt like doing. My cold all but forgotten, I was soon putting pen to paper ...

For many years, writing a poem has been my way of not letting a ‘slump’ get the better of me. The same can be said, if to a lesser degree, when writing fiction; while my novels have not been bestsellers, they have given me much pleasure, and feedback from my fiction blog/has been very encouraging. (Feel free to browse any time - for both my general and gay-interest fiction - at:  

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/

FLIGHTS OF TENSION TO FANCIFUL PLACES

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and all the people I’ve known,

wondering where have they gone?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and all the things I have done,

wondering where I went wrong?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and choices made from the heart,

wondering where fear played a part?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and lovers who promised to stay

but left within hours of a night or day

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and all the years wasted on regret

where I should have stood up to fate

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and every epiphany I’ve known,

wondering where did I go so wrong?

Slump in a chair, thinking about life

and growing older, weaker,

for knowing I could have done better

Slump in a chair, thinking about death,

and all the people I’ve known,

wondering if there’s a hell or heaven?

  

Slump in a chair, watching television,

soaking up soap opera friends ,

lost the plot, left wondering how it ends

Slump in a chair, fret about being alone?

Not this time (slam on the brakes);

will get my life back, whatever it takes

Copyright R N. Taber 2008

Snowfall

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

Snow is a mixed blessing; fun for kids and skiers, treacherous on untreated roads. Life , too, can be a mixed blessing, fun and treacherous at the same time…

SNOWFALL

It snowed that December Day,

(I remember it well);

precious moments, frozen in time

(wasted on braving it out)

All smiles, jokes and laughter

(camouflage for pain))

among ashes heaped like snowflakes

on a once-upon-a-love-affair

We shook hands, shared a hug

(as old friends might);

snowflakes like kisses on our cheeks

(life’s heat fast turning cold)

We’d agreed needs must we part

(where first we’d met)

a shutting down of blinds on sunshine

as snowfall to any hint of spring

As you turned and walked away

I glimpsed tears falling;

for you, for me, for us, I’d ask myself?

No answers, only more snow…

For years, I’d put on a happy face

(if always hurting inside)

until a day a sparrow called me O-U-T

and I (finally) dropped the act

Yesterday, the first snow of winter

left me vividly recalling

that other snowfall, and two gay lovers

scared to come in from the cold

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

Placing the 'I' in Humanity OR Opening Up to Nature

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
  
Some years ago, I met up with a long-time acquaintance who had just lost his partner of many years to a (much) younger model. He was in pieces, and we spent some time over a few beers, mostly complaining about the fickleness of human nature.

About six months later, we met up again. This time, he was far more positive about life and even had a sprightly spring in his step. “I went for a walk in the countryside one day, and had an epiphany,” he told me. “Nature is as nature does, for better or worse. Now, the worst does not necessarily rule out the better so there is always something (or someone) to look forward to, whatever the circumstances. It’s obvious, really, but I couldn’t see the wood for the trees. We have to stay positive, young Roger.” [I was in my early 50’s at the time and he would have been in his mid-70’s.]

'Death has a thousand doors to let out life: I shall find one.' - Philip Massinger, English dramatist, 1583 –1640

Philip Massinger, copper-engraving portrait by Charles Grignion the Elder (Wikipedia)

PLACING THE 'I' IN HUMANITY or OPENING UP TO NATURE

All doors closed on me
when you left me for another,
plunged into a lonely dark,
harder to bear than any closet
for having found and lost
a raison d’être in you, creating
joy out of sad dreams  

Some said it was just deserts
for being openly gay in a world
where (yes, even these days)
gay people are seen as betraying
a native heterosexual ethos,
compensating for our weaknesses
by demanding equality

All doors closed on me
as love stabbed me in the heart
and left my remains to rot
in an open coffin of everyday life,
existence no more or less
than the stream of consciousness
credited an android

In spring, I walked woods
where bluebells nodded knowingly
for understanding my pain,
rabbits darting frantically here,
there, and everywhere,
seemingly with little more purpose
than random thoughts

I would have closed my ears
to birds singing sweet songs in trees
whose new leaves asked
no more or less than my eyes open
to the potential of rebirth
in a world where life is not measured
out in silver teaspoons

Having found an open door,
I felt a faint heartbeat grow stronger,
body, mind, and spirit
coming together like a jigsaw puzzle
until just one piece missing,
and that mattered less than my resolve
to find it and complete me


Copyright R. N. Taber 2016