On Waking Up (or not) To Fact and Fiction

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

I will be 76 later this year and was very saddened, only recently, to hear that the grandson of an old school friend had died of a drugs overdose; he was just 23 years-old and had been an addict since his mid-teens. His younger brother had also experimented with drugs, but not to the same extent and a period in rehab saved him from becoming permanently addicted; he even went on to achieve a university degree, and is now happily settled with his partner and  a job he loves. 

I guess wanting to be free of any addiction is not enough, it has to be fuelled by a sense of purpose. 

Years ago, I asked a former drug addict what, for him, had been the attraction of drugs. I expected him to say for the thrill of it. Instead, he answered with one word, “Escapism.” I understood the principle only too well, having been an avid reader of fiction since early childhood by way of escaping from certain realities with which, for the life of me, I couldn’t get to grips, including aspects of myself that I didn’t have the experience to understand and made me feel uncomfortable; during my formative years, these included an undiagnosed hearing loss and untreated speech defect. Later, I would have to deal with being gay, a fact from which family and society attitudes in those days compelled me to run away for nearly twenty years. 

A brief stay in Australia in the late 1960’s was a form of escapism. I felt guilty and cowardly until I met an old aboriginal man with whom I shared confidences I had bottled up for years. “There is no shame in running away,” he told me, “Sometimes we need to run away to find out just what it is we’re running away from. Only then can we decide to tackle it head-on or keep running. Waste of a life, running away. It can only ever end in tears... or worse, much worse...” he added thoughtfully. 

Indeed, it can, and I owe that man my life because I was offered drugs only a few days later, by which time I was able to refuse, having made up my mind to clear up the mess I’d made of my life so far, and stop running. A week earlier, I may well have been desperate enough to choose one of the worst forms of escapism, not uncommon among those of us made to feel but ‘losers’ by personal circumstances that, as likely as not, would see us fail to rise above its growing pains. 

ON WAKING UP (OR NOT) TO FACT AND FICTION 

Bright and sunny my days
in the park where once I loved to play
among peers of yesteryear,
relieved just to put any worries on hold,
leave reality behind awhile,
relaxed and happy in the company
of friends, left to explore
brave new worlds of such inspired imagination
as lent us a temporary freedom 

Dark clouds threatening rain
would send us running hell for leather
to find any shelter on hand,
still concerned with keeping reality at bay
a growing anxiety taking hold
of a mind-body-spirit, too easily tempted
by mixed growing pains
to explore the potential of other makeshift worlds
by way of latch-key passwords 

The passage of time grown dark
and scary, the only sure relief on hand
at the prick of a needle,
lending me all the thrills of such yesteryears
as would have had me access
a kinder world than ill-met by sunny days
offering a temporary freedom
from stormy weather, mind-body-spirit left to fight
that incorrigible demon, hindsight 

Alone in the park where once I so loved playing,
just another druggie, no happy ending 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2021

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

Chasing the Dragon OR A Walk on the Dark Side

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

None of us, gay or straight, man or woman, are immune to the pressures this sorry world brings to bear, and if most of us manage to survive on better terms, each of us in our own way is no less responsible for those that go under.

Oh, but it could never happen to us? That’s what they all say before the light dims in their private space and they fall foul of predators cruising a twilight world most of us can barely imagine.

For those spending Christmas or any festive occasion on our own, it can be sad time... if we let it.

There are far sadder ways to spend what is a living nightmare for some people, and not just at festive times. Drugs and alcohol addiction, domestic and street violence, poverty, homelessness... they take their toll all year round, but especially perhaps when it seems (outwardly at least) everyone else has something to celebrate. It is much the same for a significant minority in many large towns and cities worldwide, and a poor indictment, indeed, on this 21st century of ours that (so far, at least) nowhere near enough is being done to give these people hope and the means by which to get a better, kinder and more secure life.

CHASING THE DRAGON or A WALK ON THE DARK SIDE

One night in December
dragons roamed London town
in a rainy mist curtaining down
on carols in the Square;
nine-to-five heroes making cheer,
fog lights in red-rim eyes
quizzing here; there, ghosts
of Christmas grabbing shelter
in a doorway, foot nudging
a cradle of rags that’s stirred,
snored, slept on, not worth
a second glance; so let’s lead
a merry dance through the streets,
wondering where those beasts
have gone whose scales turn brightly
in the forest nightly?

I saw no dragons, whose roars
of distress and pain blinding me
like acid rain; no end in sight
but light under a door, a whore
my saviour! Together, scared
of Christmas

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2011

[From: Love And Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001.]

I wrote this next poem a few days before Christmas in 1986 after I got chatting to a young rent boy in a café in Piccadilly Circus.

No, I wasn’t looking for sex, but we struck up an instant rapport. He told me how he had run away from home and wanted to earn enough money to enable him and his girlfriend to ‘get a life, like other people.’ At the same time, he hastened to assure me that ‘being up for rent is okay as far as it goes.’ He confided that both he and the girlfriend were mad about cricket and had plans to migrate to Australia. [Plans, I wondered, or pipe dreams?] He kept insisting his current way of life was only a temporary measure, but when pressed, admitted he’d been ‘doing business’ for a couple of years. What of his family, I asked, did they even know he was alive? He shrugged, ‘They never gave a toss about me, and I certainly don’t give a toss about them,’ was all he’d say.

He was sixteen years-old.

After I’d bought us several cappuccinos, he left. A well-dressed punter, shiny shoes and smart suit oozing affluence and a comfortable life if an unfulfilled one, had been covertly observing us from a nearby table for some time; finally, he had signalled an interest.

What kind of Christmas would ‘Danny’ have, I wondered? [Yes, I could have intervened on the youth’s behalf, but would probably have ended up the worse for wear, and he‘d neither have thanked me for it nor missed out on an opportunity to boost his savings for Dreamland. Besides, I’d gone with the occasional rent boy myself during my dark, closet years, so am no better or worse than that punter, except he was wearing a wedding ring and I never would.

As I watched him go, the idea for Danny, one of the chief characters in my gay-crime trilogy (Blasphemy-Sacrilege-Redemption) came into my head and refused to leave. [By the way, apologies to readers who keep asking when Redemption will be available as I have not been well enough to finish it; hopefully, it will be ready sometime next year although I’ll probably post it on my fiction blog, and then publish to Kindle rather than in book form.]

Few rent boys haunt Piccadilly Circus these days although there are plenty to be found in various cruising areas and bars across London as in most big cities. I never saw ‘Danny’ again, but only recently chatted to a homeless man who has been sleeping rough for years. He told me he is HIV+ (among other things) and had once been a rent boy ‘...when I was young and pretty. But as you get older, the looks go and so do the punters.’ Not all rent boys end up like this, of course, but a good many do.

I have often wondered why relatively few rent boys seem able to get their lives together the way many if not most female prostitutes used to here in the UK; before, that is, the illegal drugs trade got out of hand and cheap alcohol became so readily available. I used to know a prostitute (I’ll call her Lisa) who stayed on the game for years even after investing her ‘ill-gotten gains’ in property and becoming ‘all but respectable’ as she would say. She was a very kind person and great fun. Tragically, some bastard drugs pusher infiltrated her defences, and got her hooked on heroin. She overdosed while alone in her apartment one Christmas when she was barely into her forties.

We should not be quick to judge. It takes a stronger and more mature person than ‘Danny’ or ‘Lisa’ to avoid going into freefall. Sometimes, the more we aspire to a better, kinder life, the farther away it all seems...and when those better off than ourselves tell us to get our act together while we spend every waking moment trying to do just that...Well, who can wonder that some people succumb to despair?

No, this isn’t a 'Happy Christmas' post, but it does none of us any harm to give some thought to the darker side of life while we are tucking into the turkey and pulling crackers. The world has more than its fair share of Danny's and Lisa's. May they survive the winter, and let us hope the New Year will give them a chance to bring their hopes and dreams closer to fulfilment.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Come all ye faithful, ghosts
of near and far,
shades of swing and see-saw
haunting every bar

As joyful and triumphant,
as leather on willow;
(if such a good innings, why
tears on the pillow?)

Came ye to old London town,
prostrate before Eros
on a ticket to the Circus
one Christmas...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2011

[Note: A slightly different version of this poem appears in  Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]