Hi folks, from London UK

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

" It is our collective and individual responsibility to preserve and tend to the environment in which we all live." - Dalai Lama XIV

 "I don't believe in collective guilt, but I do believe in collective responsibility.” - Audrey Hepburn

Hi Folks,

No poem today, but I am working on one. Mind you, inspiration is flagging at the moment as I am still having to deal with a bad cold. I have started to feel better over the last couple of days, but inspiration doesn't seem to have taken the hint...😉 However, I remain coronavirus-free, so am still able to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life... well, most of the time.😊

I have been able to get out and about locally just for basic shopping, but while the Omicron variant remains rampant, it is scary, so I try to go as early as I can to avoid crowds. 

 Now,  while wearing a mask won't necessarily stop anyone catching  Covid BUT it will stop a person spreading it. At 76 years old and living with prostate cancer, I am vulnerable, so hate it when people get too close to me in a queue, especially if they are not wearing a mask. Unfortunately, many stores no longer have the floor markings to show how people can remain at least two metres apart.

If someone has genuine medical reasons for not wearing a mask, fair enough, but it does not excuse that person getting too close to others in a queue. This happened to me only yesterday. I was queuing at a supermarket checkout.  I asked a Muslim woman queuing behind me with her grown-up daughter not to stand so close to me in the queue; neither were wearing face masks. The woman took no notice, just glared at me and I hear someone say "Racist." I was angry, but managed to keep my temper and moved away as soon as I had finished loading my shopping bag.

Now, I am not a racist and if someone chooses not to wear a mask for any reason, that is up to them BUT where their not wearing a mask potentially and directly affects me, I reserve the right to protest. It seems to be a fairly common problem everywhere. While Omicron continues to spread and fill hospitals, social distancing remains important for all of us, especially with regard to those people who are not wearing face masks. 

Given that data appears to show that the vast majority of people who are critically ill in hospitals are those who have not been been vaccinated, I can no more understand the reasoning behind not being vaccinated that not wearing a face mask in shops, on public transport and in crowded areas. Such is human nature, I suppose, sometimes wise and wonderful, sometimes plain stupid. 

Celebrities from all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds have appeared on television to persuade others to get vaccinated against Covid-19; it beggars belief that a significant percentage of  populations in various parts of the UK  have chosen to remain unvaccinated against the coronavirus. Data suggests that the majority of the unvaccinated are from ethnic minority backgrounds. (No, I am not being racist it is a fact.) 

Collective responsibility is for the good of everyone and rejects discrimination of all kinds except on grounds of an individual's bad or criminal behaviour.. . well, doesn't it?

Hopefully, the coronavirus will pass sooner rather than later, but all the while certain people, from all walks of life, refuse to be vaccinated against it, the likelihood remains that is likely to be later rather than sooner. Don't the rest of us deserve better than that?

Now, whoever and wherever you may be in the world, I can but wish you all safe, well, and finding the inner strength of mind-body-spirit to nurture a positive-thinking mindset, whatever your personal  circumstances; never easy, I know only too well just as I know, too, that it's always well worth the effort.

Take care, everyone, and do drop by again soon. Meanwhile, you may enjoy browsing the blog archives?

Hugs,

Roger 

[Note: This post also appears on my general (poetry) blog today.] RT

Coming in from the Cold OR Gay in Shanghai

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

There is room for cautious optimism for LGBT rights in China.

Raymond Can Chi-Chuen is the first openly gay legislator in Hong Kong and Greater China although Hong Kong remains a largely conservative society.

(Photo taken from the Internet]

Runners of the Shanghai Pride Run in June 2016 wore rainbow shoelaces at the start of the race:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/17/its-still-just-about-ok-to-be-gay-in-china/

Meanwhile, Gay Pride perseveres, and let's we wish everyone involved LOTS of luck, love and peace.

https://www.shpride.com/2018/05/20/priderun/?lang=en

This poem is a villanelle  

COMING IN FROM THE COLD or GAY IN SHANGHAI 

In China, gay couples battle on

to regain equality as of old

across a present-day population 

Though an historical observation

bring us in from the cold,

in China, gay couples battle on 

What motive in non-recognition

of Human Rights, put on hold

across a present-day population?

Unable to marry, no legal adoption,

frozen out Society’s fold;

in China, gay couples battle on 

Far less financial-legal protection

(in a State’s deaf-blind fold)

across a present-day population 

Though we gay folks but human,

must we still suffer rejection?

in China, gay couples battle on

across a present-day population

Copyright R. N. Taber 2018

A Diplomatic Perspective OR Gay in Bulgaria

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

I have met people from all over the world in London, one of many reasons why I love living here even if is overcrowded and the air pollution is killing people. A few years ago I met a young man from Bulgaria who expressed open amazement at ‘how easy it is to be gay in London.’

“Is, Bulgaria very gay-unfriendly then?” I asked.  “Not openly no”, he told me, “and it is not illegal to be gay in my country. Even so,” he sighed, “It is not easy to be gay in my country either.”

Is it easy to be gay, anywhere, I wonder? Easier here, perhaps, or easier there…but easy…? 

More often than not, gay men and women worldwide invariably find themselves swimming against this or that socio-cultural-religious tide even in so-called ‘liberal’ societies while those that are less liberal turn a blind eye to homophobia or find ways to encourage it without appearing to abuse our human rights to extremes. Some societies, of course, are still living in the Dark Ages and make us out to be enemies of the people…especially where that particular epithet belongs to those in positions of influence and power who just love to work the moral high ground, especially when it pays off so well.

National Theatre, Sofia (Bulgaria)

[Photo taken from the Internet]

This poem is a kenning.

 A DIPLOMATIC PERSPECTIVE or GAY IN BULGARIA

I dare anyone to suggest
I discriminate against this person
or that, yet am brazenly
(if diplomatically) selective
about whom I serve
when push comes to shove
on such occasions
as there are reputations to me made
or all but broken

I dare, indeed, well able
to run rings around any opponent
whose first language
is not mine, for none so effective
as the rhetoric of reason,
designed to conceal motivation
while worthy enough
at face value to be well researched
for future reference

I defy anyone to find fault
with how I do my job, taking care
to keep within boundaries
obvious even to less moral citizens
found strutting our streets
as if they were foreign investors
taking us for a ride,
there are a variety of ways
to skin a cat

You know me, always on the case,
appearing to side with justice…


Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

Sexuality, all Caged Up and Demanding O-U-T

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

This is not a new post but one I deleted from my general blog after receiving several troll-type emails. I usually ignore these, but friends advised me to post it on my gay-interest blog instead while continuing to link to it from to it from my Google + site as previously. Then I though, why should I? So I have re-posted it on my general blog. At the same time, friends are probably right in suggesting it will be of more interest to gay readers...

Now, we talk about 'blind' instinct, but there is a native instinct that know us better than we know ourselves, and it is anything but blind; it has a clearer sense of what to do in situations where any brooding, thinking self hasn't a clue.

In February 1969, I sailed for Australia (as a would-be migrant) on the SS Southern Cross from Liverpool. While it was a huge mistake in many ways, it was also one of my better decisions.

In short, I was running away from the UK - and a family that had no idea of how much of a psychological mess I was in or of share their of blame for it - rather than going to Australia. 

Gay relationships ‘between consenting adults’ had been decriminalised in 1967  but it would be many years before society as a whole began to accept us, if grudgingly. I had left school five years earlier but saw myself as having no career prospects and was still a long way from becoming truly reconciled with my sexual identity. Apart from a growing sense of isolation, I felt hurt and angry. Significant though sexual identity may be, it is but a part of a greater whole. (Why should the greater part of me be made to feel it needs to apologise for what, after all, is no one else's damn business?)

While I will always have a great affection for Australia and the people I met there, I arrived with neither enough money nor qualifications to fulfill my dream, even in the longer term. During the six-weeks crossing, however, I’d had plenty of time to think and reflect on my motives. I found myself homing in on home truths that appalled me. Was I really such a coward?

So, yes, on the face of it, Australia was a disaster but I returned to the UK not (quite) with tail between legs but as different person, more self-confident than I had ever felt before and determined to shape my life in a positive way. In spite of a severe nervous breakdown in my 30’s, I like to think that, in general, I have succeeded.  (I have battled with depression all my life but any gay angst has only ever been part of the emotional equation albeit a vital one.)

It is up to all of us - gay or straight - to make the best of things, not the worst, and be positive about ourselves, each other and life in general even when the immediate future may be looking on the bleak side. That’s when the human condition comes into its own, now a pussycat, now a roaring lion. Mind you, everyone has lapses of self-confidence in self and in humanity from time to time, including me.

If the journey to Australia nearly 50 years ago was a nightmare, my stay there was an epiphany. My return to the UK marked the kind of new beginning the poet in me had been yearning for without any real sense of either the what or the how, only the why. Moreover, I no longer felt that gay-interest poetry is something for which I should feel any need to apologise; a poem is a poem is a poem just as a person is a person is a person ... regardless of gender and sexuality. 

Yes, it was a long way to go to find myself, true, but well worth it ...

SEXUALITY, ALL CAGED UP AND DEMANDING O-U-T 

Mouth gone dry, sweat
soaking the brow;
I am left wondering
why it should attack now,
this animal lust
for freedom, open spaces
far, far, away from city faces
and grubby streets

Mouth gone dry, sweat
soaking the brow;
I am left wondering why
it should strike now,
this hunger for adventure,
need to prove something
although what or to whom
remains to be seen

Mouth gone dry, sweat
soaking the brow;
I am left feeling excited
if scared of a caving in
rather than a pressing ahead
with some heady fiction 
well aware its return thread
so easily broken

Looking to play the hero
or merely wishing
to please myself for once
instead of always
putting head before heart,
doing the ‘right thing’
but right for whom after
all's said and done?

Rage, burning, a life-long
learning in flames;
passion, a feisty yearning
to escape this caged-up 
non-life, a Here-and-Now
parody of a lion’s den
where the mouth gone dry,
sweat soaking the brow

Who is it, this other 'Me'
writing up emotions
half killing me to admit
in these early hours
where conscience seeks
respite in its humanity
as if its poetry were indeed
a match for its sword?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004; 2017

[Note: The last stanza has since been added to the original version of this poem that first appeared under the title, ‘A Poet’s Diary’ in  The Third Eye by R. N. Taber Assembly Books, 2004; revised ed. in e-format in preparation.]

L-I-F-E, Stings of Irony

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

'…Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.' (Milton, Paradise Lost (Book I, lines 690-692)

Precious Bane is probably as well-known for the novel of that name by Mary Webb as its place in Milton’s epic poem. It refers to the love of money, which, as Webb’s heroine, Prue, records, blights love and destroys life; the title also refers to her deformity, a cleft lip which she comes to recognize as the source of her spiritual strength. [A cleft lip is sometimes referred to as a harelip  (as happens in the novel) considered insulting as it compares the deformity in humans to the normal cleft lip of a hare.] 

Now, I am not suggesting that my being gay is any kind of deformity although it has been put to me by various bigots that's precisely what is! Political correctness, for all its frequent abuse, means well. Moreover, for me, personally, it encourages the spiritual strength I take in being gay from both nature and the kinder, more discerning side of human nature. (Fortunately, the latter is in greater supply than the media’s focus on it is often inclined to suggest.) Over the years, though, I have been teased, bullied. verbally and physically abused for being gay just as, since a bad fall in 2014 at the age of 67. I've been on the receiving end of much the same more than once because I now need a walking stick.

In so far as political correctness is intended to put a stop to insulting comments and behaviour, it works well enough for the most part  ... at least to outward appearances.

Bad attitude is only half the problem. Too many people use the political correctness card to turn tables in their favour when it is they who are at fault. Time and again, various authorities (who should know better) side with guilty against innocent, perpetrator against victim rather than risk a bad press. Here in the UK, for example, there is far too much walking on socio-cultural eggshells these days; without being seen to do so, of course, although I often wonder just who it is in the driving seat that thinks they are fooling anyone ...

Wherever there is no legislation for political correctness, the darker side of human nature continues to flex its predilection for insults, prejudice and bigotry. On the other hand, of course, you cannot legislate for bad attitude which simply proceeds to do a good job of keeping out of public sight and hearing ... and is more than capable of  keeping up appearances where the media is concerned.

Whatever social card a person chooses to play - sexuality, race age, gender etc. -  in order to turn tablea and portray themselves as victim rather than perpetrator, justice needs to prevail, and be seen to do so.  I worked with the public for many years and endured more than my share of verbal abuse from people whose behaviour I'd make clear I wasn't prepared to tolerate so they would call my manager, play their card ... and nearly always get an apology while I would be made out to be in the wrong and look a complete fool. 

Oh, well, c'est la vie. We positive thinkers can but prefer to believe that forces for good will always get the better of those for bad (in the end, at least) if only to avoid drowning in a sea of cynicism.

L-I-F-E, STINGS OF IRONY 

Once, in another country,
we spoke of love and being gay
in a world where sexuality
has no need of political correctness
to leap to our defence

We lay beneath a willow tree
shedding tears for the likes of us 
having to justify even love
in the glare of a political correctness
meant to educate bigots

Oh, but so many excuses
(all perfectly legitimate of course)
playing political correctness
at its own game so none dare criticise
for fear of causing offence

Hypocrisy, no mean weapon
in upholding the various integrities
of socio-cultural traditions
passed off as icons through centuries
of human division and abuse

Ah, but who are we to accuse
those who may accuse us of offending
all they hold dear if only
because it makes them feel secure, safe
from all talk of LGBT rights?

Oh, yes, we may well speak up
where political correctness established
despite all its back-stabbing, 
self-styled ‘betters’ fronting and calling
on socio-cultural immunity

As for the world’s higher clerics
seeking handouts even among the poor,
no need for a satirical press
where actions speak louder than words
and both contradict each other

Around the world, ordinary people
whisper behind closed doors of being gay,
in love and free where sexuality 
can’t even call on political correctness 
to try and put the record straight

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017



…

No Standard Template

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

I have never made a big issue of being gay. If people ask me, I tell them, If they just want to wonder, well, I let them.

A person’s sexuality is nobody’s business but his or her own.

While I have often been told by other gay people that I should be more upfront about being gay in everyday life, why should I?   Yes, I ‘go public’ in my blog posts and poems, but that doesn’t mean I either want or need to thrust my sexuality in everyone’s face. No one has to read my blogs.

I hate it when religious-minded people shove their religion in my face all the time as if I am in the wrong for not sharing their faith. If I were straight, I certainly would not want a gay person banging on about being gay. Besides, there are plenty of other topics of conversation, and what possible interest can anyone have in another person’s sexuality…unless he or she wants to go to bed with them, of course…in which case, yes, being upfront is more than just OK.

We are all different, and everyone has his or her own way of going about their lives. We have no right to criticise simply because we would do things differently; just because someone is 'different' doesn't mean he or she is less worthy of our respect. (Oh, yes, most people would agree, but how many practise what they preach?) 

I have said before on the blogs, and will say again, our differences don't make us different, only human. As for repeating myself, well, as my old English teacher, Jock Rankin, used to say, if a thing is worth saying, it is always worth repeating.

NO STANDARD TEMPLATE 

Can I be gay, school pals debated,

when I don't strike a pose like gay folks

we see on TV who stick out a mile,
am nothing out of the ordinary at all?

Can I be gay, neighbours gossiped,

when it's plain to more or less anyone

I’m a pretty normal human being?
(Well, yes, sometimes a drama queen)

Can I be gay, work mates wondered,

although don’t fit any better-for-ratings

media script for doing my damnedest

to promote the everyday stereotypical?

I can't be gay, school pals insisted,

when I don’t dress the part or even strut

the local Gay Scene for...whatever
(but let's be clear, and never say never)

I can't be gay, neighbours decided,

as I’m rarely if ever seen camping it up,

would rather knock back real ales

than sip cocktails on a boys' night out

I can't be gay, work mates agreed,

as we’ve often chatted in the staff room,
even touched upon the latest gossip,

and never a hint of sexual persuasion

Whenever I hear on the grapevine

that my sexuality is cause for speculation, 
I reflect how small, narrow minds  

have no feeling for good conversation

Ah, but we are as we are, and that's it;
as for our being gay or not, so what...?

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; rev. 2018

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

Closet Heart

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

Gay people, of course, do not have a monopoly on secrets of the heart. For me, though, as regular readers well know, one of my darkest secrets was once my sexuality. I had acknowledged to myself that I am gay by the time I was 14 years-old. In those days, same sex relationships were a criminal offence here in the UK. Throughout my teenage years, I told neither family nor friends. I was not ashamed, just scared. 

It had so been drummed into me during my vulnerable formative years how being gay was something dirty if not perverted that even as a young adult, it would take a severe nervous breakdown in my early 30s before I’d find the self-confidence to come out once and for all. 

Those of us free to be openly gay should never forget that there are many, many gay boys and girls, men and women worldwide still suffering the awful fear, pain, and loneliness of a closet heart.

This poem is a villanelle.

CLOSET HEART

Secrets of a closet heart,

like claws of a trapped bear

ready to tear us apart

Under threat at the start,

nature’s soul stripped bare;

secrets of a closet heart

See truth’s unerring dart

sent flying through the air

ready to tear us apart

No sweet a fruit or tart

than words we cannot share;

secrets of a closet heart

Tools of a far subtler art

than Medusa’s stony glare,

ready to tear us apart

Endgame, a poison dart

(anytime, anywhere);

secrets of a closet heart

ready to tear us apart

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2014

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Dark Secrets' in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Book, 2010

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