Mixed Feelings OR Sexuality, Reason Not the Need

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blog in 2016 under the title 'Mixed Feelings'. Several readers have since pointed out that the title could be seen as misleading so I have added an alternative title, as I often do, to introduce the poem in the context in which it is mean to be read. I just hate it when people ask me why I am gay. I didn't choose to be gay, I am gay; it answers a need in me that defies any Q & A interrogation from anyone, including myself. Yes, at 70+ now I am no longer sexually active, but that is only due to my prostate cancer and doesn't make me a-sexual; I still have the heart and spirit of a gay man. 

By the way, many thanks to those of you emailing to ask how I am getting on with compiling a new collection of poems. Progress remains slow but sure. Years of hormone therapy for my prostate cancer having messed with my thought processes and want of a good night's sleep combined with the stresses we are all under due to the coronavirus pandemic ... well, they don't help. wry bardic grin But I plod on, not least because I have no choice but I genuinely enjoy writing up the blogs and compiling poetry collections, not only for the welcome distraction they provide, but because they encourage me to keep looking on the bright(er) side of life.

Now, some people are naturally bisexual while others can relate to the opposite sex but prefer their own, yet feel - for whatever reason - unable to be open and upfront about it. Such men and women are frequently criticised by gay and straight people alike, but … who are we to judge?

The Japanese have a saying ‘I no naka no kawazu taikai wo shirazu.’ (Literally: A frog in a well does not know the great sea.)  In other words, people are satisfied to judge things by their own narrow experience for not knowing any different.

Regular readers will know I do not subscribe to any religion, but I had a Christian upbringing and I reckon Jesus of Nazareth was spot on when he told those anxious to sentence a woman to be stoned to death for adultery as according to the law, ‘Let him among you who is without sin cast the first stone at her.’ (John 8:7)

Enjoying same sex relationships is no sin, of course, simply a part of the complex whole that makes us human, and no better or worse for that than anyone else.

"O, reason not the need ..." (Shakespeare, King Lear)

This poem is a villanelle.

MIXED FEELINGS or SEXUALITY, REASON NOT THE NEED 

A day-tripper I met on vacation one day
said he much prefers sex with a man,

confided a part of him will always be gay

Married, two kids, no regrets for a way

of getting on with life as best he can,

a day-tripper I met in Brighton one day

He said he liked me (what could I say?)

Saw no betrayal of wife and children,

confided a part of him will always be gay

He needed to let his heart have its way,

(mine, playing catch-me-if-you-can)

a day-tripper I met in Brighton one day

At my hotel, he kissed my doubts away,
shed no tears for his loving a woman,

confided a part of him will always be gay

"I reason not the need, I heard him say,
"because I know I'm a good person." 

A day-tripper I met on vacation one day

confided a part of him will always be gay

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016; 2020

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

More than Words can Say

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

In my early years, I had a problem with words and language, and still do sometimes; it is one of many reasons that my chosen form of creative therapy is writing, both poetry and fiction. Should any readers be interested in my fiction, just go to:

https://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/2016/05/news-updates-fiction.html

Now, I have been partially deaf all my life and need to wear hearing aids. Even today, some people see my aids and assume I am retarded or, at best, as thick as two planks. (Fortunately, I have a sense of humour.)  Today’s poem is posted especially for a profoundly deaf gay couple, one of whom celebrates his 50th birthday today; they have been together for 21 years this week.

Yes, life is an emotional rollercoaster and no, you cannot fully do justice to emotion in words. Believe me, though, when I say from personal experience that it helps one helluva lot to try ... !

Gay or straight, when words fail you, you can invariably count on your eyes to say it all ... for better or worse.

“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”  - Mark Twain

MORE THAN WORDS CAN SAY

I cannot hear
nor shall I wish my life away
but sign to you
how we mean more each day
than spoken words
can say

You cannot speak
nor do you wish your life away
but sign to me
how we live more each day
than spoken words
can say

In eyes of desire,
our love rising from the heart
like a fire
in winter till death us part
and for its second spring
we'll wait

Copyright R. N. Taber 1997

[Note: The poem was written to coincide with the US publication of Eyes of Desire 2: A Deaf GLBT Reader ed. Raymond Luczak, Alyson Books, 1997 to which I contributed an article.]