An Empathy with Nature (2)

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

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” – Albert Camus

“Human nature is not a machine to be built after a model, and set to do exactly he work prescribed for it, but a tree, which requires to grow and develop itself on all sides, according to the tendency of the inward forces that make it a living thing.” John Stuart Mill

“The temple bell stops, but I still hear the sound coming out of the flowers.” - Matsuo Basho

“This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is the temple. The philosophy is kindness.” Dalai Lama

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” – Maya Angelou

The idea or metaphor of the human body as a temple isn’t exclusive to any religion, can also be found in various religious texts. One example is fasting, practiced in order to grow closer to some divine life force by distancing oneself from worldly dependencies, such as food and other pleasures.

Sadly, this very distancing can encourage a degree of separatism within various societies / communities worldwide, where the art of agreeing to differ is more likely to light the flames of aggression than any candles of peace among those members who are (understandably if not always appropriately) more concerned with driving home their own point of view than agreeing to differ. 

Our sexuality is an expression of who, not what we are; for sure, it is not an attack on the temple of the human body since we are born this way; it is not a choice. The only choice is whether or not we feel encouraged to express it and look the world in the eye as we do so.

As regular readers of both my poetry blogs (my fiction blog too) will know, I was in my early 30’s before I finally emerged from the closet that had been my prison since I first realised I was gay at the age of 14 years (during what were overtly homophobic 1950’s here in the UK.).

60+ years on, I’d have hoped for a much kinder world, any perceived ‘differences’ regarding gender, ethnicity, culture or religion seen as making a positive contribution to a common humanity and welcomed as such. It is good to see this happening, especially among young people around the world, many if not most of whom deserve better than the awful prospect of being made to feel rejected - intentionally or not - by kith and kin.

AN EMPATHY WITH NATURE (2)

Some abuse me, say I sin
whose faith would condemn me
to serve a life sentence
or finding my own way, not theirs,
accessing a sense
of spirituality reflecting the real me,
(yes, warts 'n all);
no copycat stereotype, me, for a spirituality
that lets me BE

Consider mind-body-spirit
a temple to life forces, both worldly
and divine? In the latter
we can trust its promises to fulfil,
by way of heart-and-soul in good time;
i any other we can but hope
our judgement not in error, or else
we have but ourselves to blame, no comfort
 in hindsight…

Given life, a learning curve
my kind would do well to climb,
grow wiser to home truths,
give its kinder voices a say for the sake
of a common good,
respect various differences of opinion,
in all corners of society;
no life force has a monopoly on the humanity
that lets us BE 

Call me Sacrilege, in this heaven-and-hell world
where Peace so needs to have the last word…?

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

[Note: This post appears on both my gay and general poetry blogs.] RT

  

Hello again, folks, from London UK

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

Hello again folks, from London UK

No poem today, but I am working on one, not only for you all but for me too. As with most people, the pandemic continues to taken its toll on yours truly. As if growing old and living alone was not enough to contend with, I find myself struggling to rise above the kind of depression that comes with battling various health issues - not least, my prostate cancer - on a daily basis.

At least I understand the nature of what I what I am up against and do so with a hopeful heart. Some battles are beyond understanding, prejudice being one of them. Prejudice against another human being is a sickness I find very hard to understand, and I am not speaking simply as a gay man.

Those who nurture feelings of racism, sexism, any kind of hate form against another human being simply because they don't like colour of their skin, their gender or the  nature of their sexuality... or whatever... is beyond all understanding.

Not for the first time, I received complaints about my last post along the lines that "... a gay-interest poem has no place on a 'supposedly' general poetry blog." That may well be true, but the motivation behind a poem is every bit important as the poem itself.

There are many men and women out there to whom the faith in which they were raided remains important to them even if they discover during puberty that they are of an LGBT+ persuasion, which most religious dogma condemns. Homosexuality and gender identity are no less a part of the human condition than any  mind-body-spirit that identifies with and feels a compelling empathy with the religion in which they have been raised.

Another reader has emailed to complain that "As you say you are not religious yourself, how can you, a godless person, justify a poem that is a religious allegory - of sorts..."

Hopefully I have explained if not justified the reason for the poem in the previous paragraph and other blog posts. As for my being a "godless" person, I have never claimed to be one, except in the way most world religions would have it. Pantheists believe that God is nature, not its creator. 

Anyone who has experienced as intimate an affinity with nature as with a God that not only doesn't discriminate along such prejudicial lines as some human beings, but neither sees any form of  bigotry as a "natural" element of any mind-body-spirit. Over the years, I have meat many people who share much the same experience, albeit I dare say they my well prefer not to see themselves as pantheists... or poets, for that matter.

 How a person feels, how he or she fills their personal space, that is where human choice lies, and it is only human to make  bad choices sometimes; these can never (quite) rectified, but the capacity to recognise  and change is also innate to mind-body-spirit and it should not require religion to state the terms of  a sinner's repentance or forgiveness. If we can repent and forgive ourselves, it is my belief that the greater, natural part of mind-body-spirit will rest easier for that and form the better part likely to engage with an empathic consciousness in life or death. 

      I'm not asking anyone to agree with me, simply trying to answer (to myself as much as anyone) why poetry helps me get through bad times and lets me feel a sense of spirituality as well as sheer pleasure in better, kinder times. Not an answer that will satisfy some if not many readers, I'm sure, but like everyone else, I can but try to get to the root of such thought processes that many philosophers and many a finer poet than I has attempted to reach for centuries.

Take care, keep well and nurture as positive thinking a mindset as you can,

Back soon,

Hugs, 

Roger

[Note: This post also appears on my general blog today since feedback suggests that some LGBT readers only dip into this blog

In the Blood

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

 

Today’s poem-post first appeared on the blog in 2016; it has since been (slightly) revised and given a new title.

 

What do you do if you’re gay and belong to a culture that is intrinsically homophobic?  This poem is based on a heart-warming conversation I once had with a gay Muslim man and his straight boyhood friend.

 

It is good to know that platonic love is still alive and kicking even in the face of the kind of socio-cultural-religious homophobia that has plagued us for centuries, and will continue to do so until LGBT issues are discussed in the classroom, opinions invited, compared and subsequently taken on board so that young people grow up familiar with the ultimate Fact of Life in so far as our differences do not make us different, only human; like it or not, we are all part of a common humanity and there  is no excuse for prejudice. As for those who object to their children having an all-round education on any socio-cultural-religious grounds, children are not fools nor do they deserve to be treated as such; better, surely, that they learn to respect human differences than be spoon fed bigotry and hate?

 

Yes, of course it matters what people think of us, but what matters far more is what we think of ourselves. Whatever our religious or non-religious views, we only have one life as we know it now, and it is our life no one else's.  Is it really so selfish to live it the way we want to live it, especially when love is our guiding light...and loving one person doesn't mean we need to leave anyone else behind... unless their take on love happens to be set in tablets of stone, in which case, so be it, their choice.

 

Many gay people are raised (as I was) to think the worst of the whole LGBT ethos so when they begin to personally relate to that same ethos themselves, they experience a crisis of conscience,never easy to deal with, and some of us never do. I did, but not after some very painful times with family and (some) friends. It took a nervous breakdown in my early 30's before I found the self-confidence to trust my own instincts and hold my head high for being gay. To my shame and regret, I even rejected a good friend for being gay during those early, fearful years. In my 70's now, I have tried to compensate for being such a coward then, but my closet days, they haunt me still.

 

No one chooses an LGBT orientation; we identify with it or we don't. Either way, the choice lies in what (if anything) we do about it.  Those who continue to oppose and demonstrate against LGBT issues amongst others on any school curriculum need to ask themselves if anyone has the right to deny anyone else the right to be themselves... and give due consideration to what Education is all about.

 

G-A-Y, IN THE BLOOD 

 

Out walking in the park,

saw someone who looked like you

pause to watch clouds drift by

like fluffy bits of snow, nowhere

to go and nothing better to do

than haunt us with memories, good

bad, happy, sad, and needing

to be saved to a desktop or lost

in that system commonly known

as the human condition

 

Out walking in the park,

someone who looked just like me

came right up to a friend,

wanting to know where he stood

on life, love, humanity,

‘taboo stuff’ like sexual identity…

and why shun a best mate

for being true to conscience,

before socio-cultural-religious ideas

that put people in boxes?

 

Out walking in the park,

someone who looked just like me

spoke up for being gay,

could understand concerns

about gossip and guilt

by association (yes, only too well)

but still had no regrets

about telling everyone his secret

about being buried alive in a closet,

body, mind and spirit

 

Out walking in the park,

on a day when a hostile gathering

of clouds were never inclined

to take my side, I failed miserably

in helping you come to terms

with my world, the likes of which

someone just like you

could not see was but an extension

of the friendship we had both known

since we were children

 

What happened, I wondered

to the best friend I'd looked up to

and adored for years,

as my eyes misted over with tears

for times shared, innocence lost,

doubting (then) he'd ever understand,

sharing his visible pain already,

a hard rain falling as if to obliterate

any tears as we went our separate ways

into the same sad world?

 

Out walking in the park,

saw someone who looked like you

pause to watch clouds drift by

like fluffy bits of snow, nowhere

to go and nothing better to do

than haunt us with memories, good

bad, happy, sad, and saved

to the desktop for posterity or deleted

by socio-cultural-religious interpretations

of what passes for humanity

 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016; 2020

 

[Note: The title is taken from an interview given by James Baldwin to mark the 15th anniversary of Stonewall; it is about being gay in America, but sadly still rings true among families/ communities worldwide: https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/06/22/james-baldwin-on-being-gay-in-america/ ]

 

 

Casual Chat in a Greasy Spoon OR Impromptu Confession

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

Some heterosexuals are (still) all but obsessed with the belief they cannot possibly contract HIV-AIDS because they are not gay. Yes, it’s unbelievable, but true. When it happens to them, they haven’t a clue how to handle it. The same can be said for some bisexual gay men and women of course; a lot of gay guys, too, live in a complacent little bubble of their own making.

I have written many poems about HIV-AIDS but it was today’s poem that first appeared on both blogs in February 2010 which caught a reader’s eye. ‘Rudi’ apparently had a friend in denial about recently been diagnosed HIV + while being treated in hospital for something else. Rudi said, ‘It’s like he can’t believe it could happen to a super fit heterosexual like him even though he sleeps around and doesn’t always use a condom. It has never occurred to him that one of his casual girlfriends might have been infected by another casual male partner...as if he’s the only one into casual sex!’ Rudi added, ‘They have tried to help him at the hospital, but he won’t listen. He has convinced himself there has been a mistake, and they are a bunch of incompetents.’

Playing the blame game is always a waste of time. Rudi’s friend eventually came to his senses, saw his GP and a counsellor and got medication/advice. Just because people can live for years with the HIV-AIDS virus these days is no cause for complacency and is wholly dependent upon the right medication and a mature attitude to sexual responsibility.

Even talking to a complete stranger in a 'greasy spoon' café is as good a start as any although why so many straight guys seem to think we gay guys should be any more comfortable with the idea of HIV-AIDS than they are remains a mystery to me. Maybe they think that, because we have lived with the possibility longer and perhaps more intimately, it is ingrained in our psyche; forewarned, so to speak, is forearmed? There may even be something in that, but living with HIV+ is no easy ride for anyone.

This is an autobiographical poem and the guy who told me he was HIV+ plainly thought I’d be ‘a good guy to talk to’ because he thought I ‘looked gay’ and ‘would know about these things.’ I tried to reassure him and gave him some good advice for which he was grateful, but squirmed a lot. We shook hands when we parted, and he told me in a well-meaning if also very patronising way, ‘It’s been nice talking to you. Hey, you lot aren’t so bad, are you?’ I took it to be a rhetorical question and summoned a diplomatic smile.

By the way, Rudi didn’t say if he is gay or straight [does it matter?] but did mention that he is tested for HIV-AIDS on a regular basis, but a lot of his friends ‘can’t be bothered’ and/or ‘would rather not know anyway.’  Good for you, Rudi, and I hope you manage to knock some common sense into those idiots.

This poem is a villanelle.

CASUAL CHAT IN A GREASY SPOON or IMPROMPTU CONFESSION

I met a guy in a café one spring day

(me wearing a bright pink tee);

he blurted, "I'm HIV+ but not gay."

I’d just sat down, and chose to stay

despite his open hostility;

I met him in a café one spring day

He said he doesn’t do nice, no way,

to my ‘sort’ especially;

he blurted, “I’m HIV+ but not gay.”

I fought hard to keep my hurt at bay,

as he was upset and angry;

I met him in a café one spring day

“It’s down to you lot I’m sick today,

you’re no fit company.”;

he blurted, “I’m HIV+ but not gay.”

Sex is no game, and takes two to play.

we agreed (eventually);

I met a guy in a café one spring day;

he blurted. “I’m HIV+ but not gay.

Copyright R N. Taber 2010; 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010. NB For anyone not in the know, 'Greasy Spoon' is a colloquial term for a small, cheap restaurant or diner typically specialising in fried foods.]

Falling in with Nature

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

Maybe it was the aspiring poet in me or simply because I have always been partially deaf, but even as a child I was easily contented with my own company, especially with my head in a book or communing with nature. While my mother was OK with this, my father was critical of what he considered to be unbecoming for a boy. Thankfully, my brother was more ‘masculine’ so that took the heat off me a bit. Needless to say, my relationship with my father was never a good one; there was no father-son bonding, probably due his being a product of a generation scarred both by war and even more misleading and misguided stereotypes than my own would see.

Children, of course, only come to understand such things in time. Meanwhile, they can but rely on adults to point them in the right direction; what is right for them, that is, not, the mentoring adult. Fortunately, my mother was cut from a very different cloth to my father and I survive to tell the tale.

I grew up with very mixed feelings about how I should approach the world, family life and (not least) myself. Perhaps that is why I love everything about the natural world; for all its unpredictability, it exudes relatively less than its human counterpart. On the whole, nature also suggests a greater sense - for me, anyway - of being on one’s side; at least, not against anyone simply because he or she has a mind-body-spirit of their own that may not be in sync with some socio-cultural-spiritual ‘norm’.

I grew up, too, believing that being gay was abnormal simply because it was ‘different’ and was never more glad of the sense of spirituality nature has always inspired in me. While my mother could not have cared less, the same could not be said for the rest of my immediate family nor even some people I looked upon as friends.

As a gay man in my 70’s now, I am so glad attitudes towards homosexuality continue to change for the better in many countries, even among the more discerning within intrinsically homophobic cultures. Alas, there is no room for complacency; more education is needed about how -, whatever our colour, creed, sex or sexuality - we are all part of a common humanity and all, each in our own way…different.

Reports of further legislation to re-enforce Equal Opportunities and Political Correctness may well suggest steps in the right direction in many respects, but you cannot legislate for bad attitude which, in turn, invariably stems from ignorance of the issues involved and/or a point-blank refusal to enter into any points of view other than one’s own. Enter, Education… if  only to show that what is often taken for liberalism is, more often than not, plain common sense in the absence of which any real (as in worthwhile) communication between certain people, peoples and cultures  is likely to prove but illusory.

As for my scepticism, that remains part of who I am, too, and most likely always will. At the same time, I am also a very positive thinking person; a contradiction, some will say, but then what’s one more contradiction in a world whose elected (or self-appointed) spokespersons  contradict themselves for much if not most of the time…?

Gay or Straight, Earth Mother is a friend and ally, but we (all) need to remember that - like most if not all of us - she will be pushed only so far before she will start hitting out if only in self-defence of all creatures great and small.

FALLING IN WITH NATURE

I’ve heard folks say I should get real,

and I do as needs must…

Yet, I love to talk to flowers,

let them know I am here for them

and care if they live or die

much as I, too, could have someone

care for me, watch out for me

as I make my way through passages

of time and space among crowds

jostling to be first in line for whatever

best is yet to come as rumoured

by those assumed to be in the know

if only because it would appear

they have the ear of someone said

to really count for something

in a greater scheme of things as full

of promise as sparing on detail

nor so much as a mention of any Plan B

lest investors in social conscience despair

of profit margins

I’ve heard folks say I should man up,

and I do as needs must…

Yet, I love to spread wings, fly

among (all) birds over cities, towns,

and dreary suburbs top heavy

with killer-by-stealth pollution,

escape to the countryside,

take off with ducks, swans and the like

on its waterways, nature’s answer

to frantic airport runways…

comment on city carbuncles, enthuse

about country cottages, get angry

about global warming, especially where

powers-that-be in denial refusing

to put it on various agendas just in case

they lose votes (or face) among any

who couldn’t really care less so long as

they don’t miss out on rewards of a (very)

pecuniary nature

I’ve heard folks take me for a sceptic,

and they would be right…

Yet, I’ll believe a sunset’s promise

of sunny (or stormy) days in the wings

before I’ll trust a politician’s word

that the shape of things to come is safe

if not (quite) secure in party hands,

preferring to take my cue from such cloud

and bird formations as nature inspires

from time to time by way of suggesting

we make appropriate preparation, less need

for reparation  the powers-that-be

may well have us make for what turns out

to be their (only human) mistakes,

ours, too, if only for hearing what we want

to hear than what mind-spirit

would  take us to task for, a falling in 

with the commoner (if only human) failings

of contemporary society

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017