A Covid Christmas

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

Here in the UK and many homes around the world, people will be wondering how best to spend Christmas, where we should risk seeing family and friends, much as we would love to, while Covid-19 remains active.

No matter how we choose to celebrate Christmas, whether for religious reasons, being with family and friends, or both, it is, like any religious festival, a time for taking stock of any discrepancies between where we are in life and where we hoped or expected to be. 

Religion may well help us find answers, while many who follow another religion (or none at all) invariably face the same questions. 

Most of us are left to find our own answers in our own way, whether guided by Divine inspiration or not. Regular readers may recall the old aborigine I met in Australia; in so far as he pointed me in a direction I had always wanted to follow, but which had been closed to me for various reasons, he was a life-saver. It meant returning to the UK and many things (and people) I had been running away from, but, in time, I would find such peace of mind as I’d felt impossible since leaving school barely five years earlier. 

“I feel so alone,” I remember whingeing. 

“Well, you are not alone now,” he chuckled, “… and two heads are better than one, so let’s see if we can’t set you on the right track, yeah?” I nodded, and he did.  

Every Christmas, I drink a toast to that old man. He is probably long dead by now, but his presence is as real to me as it was all those years ago. That is the wonderful magic of memory; no one ever dies who has been meaningful in our lives. Better still, it allows us to pick and choose, reject unwelcome guests and join together with those who have brought light into our lives.

Many of us will be alone this Christmas, but the Gates of Memory are open 24/7. Besides, there is also telephone. zoom and other technologies to help us out as and when ….

 A COVID CHRISTMAS 

Outside, world looking grey
even where sounds of children’s
laughter breaking through
weary faces and muted voices,
reliving such yesteryears
as mind and spirit better able
to redeem a host
more anxious to explore than exploit
Earth Mother 

Outside, a diversity of masks,
driving home the necessity to care
as much for the well-being
of others as any twinned selves
struggling to put caution
before desire rather than throw
either to the wind …
if only to be seen doing the right thing
by humankind 

Inside, a diversity of humanity
making its way down Memory Lane
among fairy lights
and Christmas trees, choir voices
singing songs of praise,
families and friends making merry,
putting aside any misery,
as only such togetherness has succeeded
in all its history 

Outside, Covid-19 hell bent on having a say;
inside, Christmas continues to have its way

Copyright R.N. Taber 2020

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

Spirit of Autumn

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2014. 

I will be publishing fewer posts/poems on the blogs for some time while I concentrate on updating previous editions of my collections and preparing a new one. Again, I will Having been unable to interest any publishers/ agents in a mix of general and gay -interest poems, I will probably self-publish the latter but only have 200 or so copies printed; new editions of previous collections will only be available online and I will le everyone know when they are available to be uploaded. 

People often tell me they find autumn a sad month because it means winter is closing in, but as I have often pointed out on my blogs… after winter, spring.

Better, surely, to look forward to spring than dread winter? 

In the meantime, let us enjoy autumn for all its glorious colours and the sense of eternal optimism these are surely meant to inspire in us, an optimism that well may fail us from time to time...but, as my late mother once said, there is an eternal springtime of the loving, hopeful heart sure to inspire and help us through all the seasons of life, even the hardest of its winters...if we will but keep faith with it. When I pointed out that I was not a religious person, she simply responded to the effect that no religion has a monopoly on love and hope since we are all born with a potential capacity for both. How far we choose to apply it, she would argue, has more to do with human nature than religion. (My mother was a Christian, but like all the more remarkable religious-minded people, whatever their religion, she closed her heart and mind to no one.)

SPIRIT OF AUTUMN

Autumn leaves ...

Drifting by my window

like dreams I have nurtured

with love and care

in the garden of my life

where some flowered

in their season while others

were battered by wind and rain,

never to be seen again

Autumn leaves ...

Whirling by my window

like dervishes in a frenzied

dance of life and death,

sustained by a rage to seize

the day, come what may,

on the battlefields of my life

where I have risked all to prove

a born capacity for love

Autumn leaves ...

Clinging to my window

as Apollo clings to the last patch

of blue before sunset,

bids nature and human nature

rest easy on hard won laurels,

so-brief enough reprieve before

more rude awakenings to a world

falling on its sword

Autumn leaves ...

Ripped from my window

like pages of memory best left

to whims of wind and rain

while I enjoy each dreamy leaf,

petal and blade of grass

found in the garden of my life

whose choirs heard singing each day

of my pride in being gay

Autumn leaves, tears of Earth Mother

for any that cannot see beyond winter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014; 2020

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

An Autumn Kindling

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog in 2011.

Strange, isn't it, how some snatches of idle conversation stay in your head for all time while we can often barely recall the substance of the most earnest debate?

When I was a kid, some 70 years ago, overheard someone remark to my mother how she loved spring because ‘it’s the month for falling in love, and you’re never too old for that.’ My mother agreed, but added, ‘Love doesn’t have a season, silly. It’s an anytime, anyplace, anywhere, anyone thing.’

She knew a thing or two, my mum. 

AN AUTUMN KINDLING

Autumn is a sad time, some say,

yet it’s a glad time of year for me,

recalling how one cold October

brought us a gloriously sunny day

when we paused, total strangers,

to watch squirrels in a tree at play

The tree, it was a pretty evergreen,

its shiny leaves smelling of summer,

recalling how one gorgeous June

I’d met a stunningly handsome man,

misread a one-night stand as love,

swore how I’d never go there again

The squirrels were a sight to see,

seemed unconcerned by our laughter;

we caught each other’s lively eye

and your smile, it stirred ashes in me

as near dead flames starting to flicker,

autumn wind blowing far less coldly

We chatted for a while, took a photo

of the playful squirrels on our phones

till they scampered way out of sight;

nothing else for it now but part and go

our separate ways, yet we lingered,

and in your eyes, I saw my fire’s glow

Winter days are cheerless, some say,

yet they’re a glad time of year for me,

recalling how one golden October

blessed us with a glorious autumn day

when we paused, we total strangers,

to watch squirrels in tall pine at play

The tree, oh, the prettiest evergreen,

its shiny leaves smelling of summer

and already re-working my life history,

telling the squirrels all about two men

getting very cosy and warm if shyly,

and plainly intending to go there again

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011; 2020

G-A-Y, Charging Up for Change

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blog a few years ago under a title I have only recently revised. (Regular readers will know that I struggle with titles and often revise them at a later date, hopefully for the better; it is, after all, a reader's lead into the poem and I have little time for poets who settle for 'Untitled' unless it directly relates to whatever sentiments the poem expresses.)

Among other themes the poem tries to convey is how positive thinking can overcome even our gravest reservations, especially, perhaps, when it concerns self-awareness. Coming out to ourselves can be as hard, as if not harder, than looking the world in the eye as an openly gay person. Besides, rarely can there have been a time in many of our lives when positive thinking was tougher or more essential as in seeing us through the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic right now.

 Readers sometimes ask me how I cope with being gay and growing old on my own without a partner. (What has being gay got to do with growing old?)

Well, I have some good friends so I don’t feel so alone, and my Muse may be fickle but she can be inspiring when she likes. Besides, I live near Hampstead Heath so there’s always plenty of trees and bird life to sustain me whenever I feel the need, whether or not any human company on hand.

Some years ago, I met a couple of macho-looking guys whom I had been watching surfing earlier in the day. Later, we got chatting back at the hotel; it turned out they were gay and had been partners for several years. Another guest joined us and mentioned that he would soon be retiring from a job that had been his whole life and how he was dreading it. How, he wanted to know, does a person cope with all that time on their hands? One of my surfer friends commented, "You fill your life with all the things you love, I guess. Take us, we live for each other, surfing, and our jobs,' he told us,"so retirement won't be a problem as we'll still have each other and surfing. If a time comes we can't surf, we'll still have each other so no problem." The other guest was sceptical while I was filled with even more admiration (and a hint of jealousy) than I had been for their surfing skills.

Now, it may well be too late for me to find love again, but maybe not. I will be 75 on the next winter solstice, but earlier this year, before the Covid-19 pandemic struck, I met a couple about my own age in a gay bar celebrating their anniversary. When I asked just how long they had been together, both grinned from ear to ear and told me how they had met in that same bar just two weeks to the day. They were so happy, their years falling away even as we chatted. I might have been in the company of lovers in the first flush of youth. My surfer friends came to mind ...

As with many of my poems written in the first person, the poet-storyteller is Everyman with whom the reader may or may not choose to identify to the extent I do as I let imagined experiences take me wherever …

Whatever, never, but never, say "never".. 

G-A-Y, CHARGING UP FOR CHANGE

Friendly fingers ruffling my hair,
Apollo’s belated kisses

bringing blushes to my cheeks
as I slumped by the sea, let your tears

drip rainbows on my heart

if low, grey clouds all but refusing

to be titillated

I’d thought your feelings for me

were as mine for you,

but your, stunned expression

when I took a leaf out of Apollo’s book

had me pinioned to a crab’s back,

scuttling over sand pebbles mocking

all human despair

Sea horses prancing all around,

daring me choose one,

head for lost horizons shrouded

in a shadowy mist harbouring pirate ships

and slavers crewed by ghosts

last seen flailing among sharks’ fins

alerted by bad blood

Friendly fingers ruffling my hair,

your belated kisses

bringing blushes to my cheeks

after you caught up with me, let your tears

drip rainbows on my heart,

low, grey clouds capitulating to Apollo’s

surprise breakthrough

Two gay men, couplet for heroic verses,

charging up for change on white horses

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2020

A Poet's Shrewsbury

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

The poet, Wilfred Owen, was born on this day in 1893. Owen, a homosexual (the word ‘gay’ was not used in this context in those days) is probably one of the best known of the World War 1 poets. His name appears on the Great War Memorial tablet inside Shrewsbury Abbey.

A poetry reading in 2007 took me to Shrewsbury where I engaged with a lovely audience in a local bookshop. I did not get around to including my poem in a collection until this year and have to say I feel more than a shade self-conscious about posting a poem of mine alongside mention of such a fine poet as Wilfred Owen.

Wilfred Owen (1883-1918)

Photo: Shrewsbury Abbey

‘Symmetry’ in the grounds of the abbey is sculpture, by Paul de Monchaux commissioned by the Wilfred Owen Association (Owen went to school in Shrewsbury) to commemorate the poet’s life and work; it was unveiled in June 1993. The line "I am the enemy you killed" engraved on one side is from Owen’s poem, ‘Strange Meeting’ The design is meant to convey the symmetries in Owen’s poem as well as the trenches of 1917 and the Sambre-Oise canal in 1918.

Photo: ‘Symmetry’

On 4th November 1918, the British 32nd Division crossed the Sambre-Oise canal at Ors, in the face of strong opposition. Wilfred Owen was killed on the towpath on this side of the canal about one kilometre to the north of the bridge.

Photo: Western Front Association plaque for Wilfred Owen by the Sambre Canal, Ors, France. 

Regarding my poem, I should mention that Laura's Tower is a folly built on the summit of Shrewsbury Castle motte around 1790 by Thomas Telford for Laura, the daughter of Sir William Pulteney, as a summerhouse. It is of an octagonal design in red sandstone with conical copper roof. The river Severn flows by

…Photo: Laura’s Tower

Mount House, birthplace of Charles Darwin

A POET'S SHREWSBURY

Follow the market trader’s cry

across old Shrewsbury town

where the fickle Severn flows by

Discern in history’s cloudy eye

scenes of Parliament v Crown;

follow the market trader’s cry

At Laura’s tower, dare lift high

the hem of Nature’s gown

where the fickle Severn flows by

Swans over the English Bridge fly

with dive-bombing precision,

follow the market trader’s cry

See sunset’s flames lick at the sky

as if the grand abbey burning down

where the fickle Severn flows by

Ponder a war poet casting the die,

Darwin giving heaven cause to frown;

follow the market trader’s cry

where the fickle Severn flows by

[Shrewsbury, August 2007]

[This poem appears in Tracking the Torchbearer by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2012 and on my general poetry blog in October 2012 where it has been visited many times; feedback suggests it has helped foster a more gay-friendly attitude among some readers.]

Making Peace with Christmas

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

This post is from my general poetry blog archives for December 2012.

Now, I have never minded being on my own at Christmas and my kinder ghosts make sure I never feel lonely. I enjoy doing my own thing, in my own time, and in my own way. It’s selfish perhaps, but it is a delight not having to make an effort for anyone, but just be myself. Traditionally, I run the gamut of emotions from past sadness and regrets to being (eventually) reconciled with and thankful for the Here and Now…those ghosts dearest to me always making sure any demons don’t get a look in.

For those that can spend a happy time with family and friends, that’s wonderful, but being alone doesn’t have to mean being lonely; you don't have to be with anyone to enjoy fond thoughts, happy memories, favourite music or even just a feel-good movie/ programme on the radio or TV likely to inspire a sense of peace and love.

(Image from the Internet)

MAKING PEACE WITH CHRISTMAS

It was the night before Christmas
and the world was uncaring and grey
as I made my way home
from bright, cheerful, carols in The Square
knowing that when I turned the key
in my front door there’ll be no one there
just like so many Christmases before

I took my time along the road
and the first snowflakes began to fall
as I made my way home
joyful voices stinging, ringing, in my ears
remembering how once I’d turn the key
in my front door, and you’d be there for me
just like long-ago Christmases before

I passed a tree, its leaves glistening,
and seemed to hear your voice calling me
to hurry, hurry, home
if only to be warm and safe from harm
if oh, so, alone, shutting the door
on a world  making out that all things holy
embrace even the lonely

It was the night before Christmas
and the world was uncaring and grey
as I made my way home
from bright, cheerful, carols in The Square
knowing that when I turned the key
in my front door, the dearest of all my ghosts
would be waiting for me there

Love, lifting me so as it always does,
I made my peace with Christmas

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

Earth Mother, a Carer called Hope

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

This poem/post is from my general poetry blog archives for January 2012. Life can be tough, cruel even, but hope springs eternal, and is always on hand to help us rise above it all...if we let it. Yes, sometimes our hopes are dashed, but Hope always has a plan B; look for it within a human spirit's greater predilection for peace and love, common to us all whatever our race, religion, gender, or sexuality; we have but to seek-find-listen-hear...our choice, our life, our future so let it be a triumph for positive over negative thinking, yeah?

Regular readers will know that many years ago, when I was in my early thirties, I had a severe nervous breakdown and became suicidal. I overdosed on paracetamol and was unconscious for thirty-six hours. I awoke in such pain that I somehow found the resolve to make my way to my nearby GP’s surgery but only recall telling a receptionist I had taken an overdose before I passed out again to wake up in hospital the next morning. 

It was stupid thing to do. Yet, desperation rarely if ever recognises stupidity. 

In hospital, I felt guilty and ashamed for taking up a bed and the nurses’ time. The nurses were brilliant and could not have been kinder, which made me feel all the more ashamed of what, after all, is a very selfish act. 

Yes, selfish. Yet, desperation rarely if ever recognises selfishness either.  

For the first and only time in my life, I saw a psychiatrist who was actually very helpful. [I have seen several who have been a complete waste of time.] It would be several years before I recovered sufficiently to think about finding another job, and years more before I began to feel all but fully recovered.  I have looked upon every day since as a bonus. 

I survived all this with the support of some good friends and a faith in Earth Mother of which I had  had temporarily lost sight in a maze of feelings to which I could scarcely relate, and where I had lost all sense of identity. Various factors contributed to this sorry state of affairs, not least growing up in a gay-unfriendly environment although this was but one of many; a significant hearing loss no one appreciated, including myself as a child and an appalling relationship with my father played their part. Even so, I was an adult and needed to take responsibility for myself instead of playing the blame game and sinking into self-pity. I like to think I learned that lesson as time passed and I got a life. 

Anyone driven to despair, whether or not they contemplate suicide, will know that it is hard if not impossible at the time to rationalise either cause or consequences. It is an illness for which the only cure must come from within. Yet, so often, those in despair fail to find the strength they need to go that last mile. But if strength fails them, so too does human nature. Even these days, mental illness is regarded with suspicion and scepticism. 

I was lucky to have some good friends and Earth Mother looking out for me.  My despair had been a long slow burning fuse that was bound to ignite a powder keg of sheer chaos in me sooner or later. There were casualties other than myself, and I can only hope they, too, survived to continue making the best of life, people and circumstances; a philosophy that saved me and taught me a valuable lesson. 

So if you know anyone caught up in a downward spiral of depression and despair, please don’t give up on them, but lend a helping hand to being them back to mainstream life. There are no shortcuts, and the journey is likely to be a long one; in my case, years, and I’ve still a way to go yet. I have travelled a long way along that road, and am grateful for all the help I’ve had in making every step. But among all the good memories, there will always be bad ones that will try to pull us down and sometimes succeed however hard we resist. 

When I started to recover from my breakdown, many people thought I was ‘cured’; as if I’d had a bad dose of flu and was now okay. 30+ years on, I hear from and about other people in much the same position. So much for progress in real terms; that is to say in human terms...

Earth Mother image taken from the Internet

EARTH MOTHER, A CARER CALLED HOPE

I sat by the sea contemplating suicide
when a woman in green came and sat by my side.
stayed quite still, didn’t say a word;
my head, it rang with a gull’s shrill cry
as if echoing the heart’s screaming to be left to die,
no hanging on to this useless body

The woman in green didn’t look at me
but continued to exude that youth, life and beauty
I’d once loved, become my enemy;
following her gaze to a misty horizon,
I entered into a way of seeing altogether unknown
where the sea wore a green velvet gown

Grey hair streaked with a sunset’s glow
above eyes as teasing a blue as those I used to know
and pink lips urging me not to follow;
where once the sea, now a patch of grass
beneath an old tree on whose leaves of painted glass
nature would work its magic for us

Vanished, just as suddenly as it came,
knowing memories will keep murmuring your name
(sea of grass, leaves of glass, the same);
suddenly, I am bursting with a desire
to live (even love?) again, like an autumn leaf on fire,
its story all but told, waiting on another

I laughed aloud, forgetting the Woman in Green
and turned to explain, but she had already gone

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

The White Horse

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

A reader has asked me to repeat a poem on the blog that accompanies a video on my You Tube channel. Apparently, a friend showed her on a tablet, but she has been unable to access You Tube on her own PC for some reason. Always happy to oblige, the video appears below; readers who can access You Tube might enjoy some of my other videos. (All were shot by my best friend, Graham Collett, a graphic designer by profession.):

When I started my You Tube channel, my best friend Graham and I had no idea how to insert a voice file into the video. Consequently, early videos show me reading my poems while later efforts (as in this instance) have me reading my poem (or poems) over the video; most readers prefer the latter, so do we.  Graham works full-time, and I'm no photographer so opportunities for filming are limited. To be honest, we were not expecting much of an audience for a poetry channel so are well pleased that people continue to access and contact us about it. (See my email address in the blog heading.)

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

This video concludes Graham's snapshots of Wiltshire and a trio of poems I wrote for the occasion. The Westbury or Bratton White Horse is a hill figure in the escarpment of Salisbury Plain where Stonehenge stands. Approximately 2.5 km (1.6 miles) east of the village of Westbury, it is located on the edge of Bratton Downs and lies just below an Iron Age hill fort; its origin obscure, it is the oldest of several white horses carved in Wiltshire and was restored in 1778.

'A dog may be man's best friend, but the horse wrote history.' - Author unknown

Just as the White Horse endures, weathering nature and human nature in all its shapes and forms, for good or ill...so, too, will love and peace endure, weathering whatever storms that nay threaten not only its survival from time to time but that innate capacity for goodness and kindness comprising the quintessential human spirit.

LGBT folks are much abused worldwide - verbally and physically - but perhaps that is why we never take the kindness and respect of others for granted. Why, too, I suspect, we continue to have faith in human nature; most people act and speak up for its good side, one that will always get the better of its nemeses, among which prejudice against someone simply for their sexuality and/or the colour of their skin has to rate amongst the most vile. Mind you, there has always been ignorance in the world, and I dare say there always will be plenty of bigots around to prove it...

THE WHITE HORSE

A white horse lay on a hill,
watching the world go by;
bold and brave, it waits there still,
and no one knows quite why

This horse will never make a fuss
as we try for a closer look,
though it's sure to put teasers to us    
like pictures in a history book

In sun, wind and pouring rain
it doesn't make a sound
as the world turns and turns again
on Time's merry-go-round

At night, it rides the Milky Way
as wild and free as it can be,
till the first cold light of a new day
wakes all we slaves to reality

In days of war and uneasy peace
the Westbury horse waits on
druids, their like, and the rest of us
making our play for salvation

A chalk horse carved on a hill,
watching the world go by,
begs the question, dare, how, will
we ever know quite why...?


Copyright R. N. Taber 2012

Graffiti Art: Engaging with Shortcomings and Potential

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

Today's post/poem is taken from my general poetry blog archives for April 2012; few readers accessed both blogs then so I hope those whose interest has been  confined their interest to this one will enjoy it. I will continue posting archived poms from one blog to the other awhile longer, after which some readers may like to dip into the archives themselves as listed on the right hand side of any blog page.

‘Leo’ who describes himself as 'an aspiring poet' has asked me to repeat this poem, last seen on the [General] blog in 2010, because it ‘keeps me focused on the fact that there are more important things in life than wealth and ambition.’

I am happy to oblige, Leo, but bear in mind that there is nothing wrong with having wealth or ambition; it’s how a wealthy and/or ambitious person handles either or both that counts.

It is how we live and how far we try to compensate for our flaws (we are all but human) that defines who we are, not what we have or don't have; regardless of race, religion, sex or sexuality; such is the art of being human,

This poem is a villanelle.

GRAFFITI ART: ENGAGING WITH SHORTCOMINGS AND POTENTIAL

I have worked with rhythm and rhyme
as poets for centuries have done,
building bridges on a river called Time

Where they fell at some god’s first crime
on killing fields of the sun,
I have worked with rhythm and rhyme

For all those cut down in their prime,
let’s redeem the bloody deed done,
building bridges on a river called Time

Like a lotus rising from the world’s slime,
symbol of a spirited imagination,
I have worked with rhythm and rhyme

Let past and future, great players of mime
embrace audience participation,
building bridges on a river called Time

No dark toll where goat bells gaily chime
(echoes of the Parnassus run);
I have worked with rhythm and rhyme,
building bridges on a river called Time

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010

[Note: First published under the title ‘ A Poet’s Take on Eternity’ in Far and Wide: Forward Press Regional Collection, 2010]

Poetry, Rites of Way OR Engaging with Mind-Body-Spirit

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

This poem is taken from my general poetry blog archives for April 2014. At the moment, I am very unwell and not up to composing new poems; many if not most  readers seem to appreciate my posting poems from one blog's archives on the other so I will continue to do so for now rather than publish nothing new at all. To those open-minded poetry lovers who have always shown an interest in both my general and gay-interest blogs, all I can ask is that you bear with me while I work on a new poem.

Now, I am often asked why I write poetry. While I think of myself as a poet who happens to be gay rather than a gay poet, the gay input to my poetry is especially important to me. Hopefully, gay readers will enjoy relating to it, if only in part, while the less gay-friendly heterosexual reader is invited to put aside any outdated, misleading, and often offensive stereotypes that continue to attach themselves to the whole gay ethic in the minds of the less enlightened.  Much the same can be said of my approach to fiction; I haven't written many novels and none have been bestsellers although they sold well and while feedback was mixed, it was  mostly appreciative; as with my poetry, I have tried to reach a mixed readership, and enjoyed every minute of it. 

Now, although I enjoy socialising, I am also a very private person. I have never kept a journal because I hate the idea of anyone accessing details of my private life and thoughts when I am no longer around to qualify what I wrote. At the same time, my poems are journal pages of a kind; few are strictly autobiographical, but each and every one turns on the kind of person I am, warts ‘n’ all.

Many of my poems have been inspired by conversations with all sorts of people - men and women, gay and straight alike - who have told me about themselves as this bar, that bus queue…wherever. The subsequent poem is as much their story as mine. At the same time, how I chose to write the poem illustrates my train of thought upon hearing and often relating to what they had to say and mulling it over for hours, weeks, months, and even years. My fiction takes shape in much the same way although I, personally, find poetry both more expansive and inclusive. Any readers interested, may like to visit my fiction blog sometime, details at:

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

Writing poetry, like any creative process, exercises the inner eye in seeing even what is sometimes considered (by whom?) best overlooked. We all need to see and feel in order to try and understand; every artist wants to share his or her insight, feelings, and subsequent understanding - flawed though it may well be - with others.

Past-present-future, the poetry of yesterday-today-tomorrow, the stuff of dreams and personal space, seeing as through ... whatever.

Oh, and, by the way, I was born on a sloping dead-end street.

POETRY, RITES OF WAY or ENGAGING WITH MIND-BODY-SPIRIT

When this life ceases to be,

my spirit left to feed on eternity,

what will they think of me

who drank my wine at table,

doubted I was even able

to write at all or, at least, as well

as one might who always

kept Mount Parnassus in sight,

despite the English climate?

Oh, I dare say they were right,

but I’ve so enjoyed being a poet,

lapping up all criticism, praise,

scepticism, quips about simplicity,

a serious lack of intellectuality,

how gay-interest poetry undermines

a proud genre’s finer integrity,

compromises the very aesthetic

of its history and spirituality

I've heard it’s a cardinal sin

to lower the tone, let anyone in

on a poem, its place in the arts

intended to impress, access

only partly allowed or its mystery

all but solved, and that way

(surely?) anarchy lies. Whatever,

a poet will always have the edge

on Mr, Mrs, and Ms Average

Although but mortal, mind and body

expect more of the human spirit

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005; 2012

[Note: An earlier version of this poem was mistakenly published under its draft title 'Requiem for a Poet' in A Feeling for the Quickness Of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005.]

Zen of the Seeing Eye

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

Today's post/poem is taken from my general poetry archives for April 2012. As regular readers know, I have health problems which I dare say go with the territory once a person turns 70+. Many thanks to those of you who have emailed to wish me well. So far, so good, as I am managing my pain levels and even getting out and about a bit with the aid of my trusty walking stick.

You will notice that I have dedicated the poem below to a gay-friendly artist friend, James Howard; I have known him since he was born, and now he and his wife will soon be parents. Wow, how time flies!

Admirers of James' art work will doubtless be interested to know that he has now created a kind of video diary on You Tube about confronting and overcoming everyday anxieties that can so often spiral into depression:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOoZiZKZnPM&t=50s

or: http://www.luckyluckydice.com

Many readers who access my poems about mental health issues, and rising above them, may well find James' site worth a visit, as I did. (Let's face it, such is the degree of homophobia worldwide that anxiety is - or has been, at some time in our lives - almost second nature to many if not most of us.)

Now, I know this is a poetry blog, but...

Many thanks to those of you who have been in touch to say they are also enjoying my fiction blog:

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com

I am especially delighted that feedback on Dog Roses and Like There’s No Tomorrow has been so encouraging since I could not persuade a literary agent that they had anything to offer the reading public. Consequently, neither are available in print form, but I hope to upload them as e-books at a later date.

My latest crime novel - Catching up with Murder (Raider Publishing International, 2011)- is not a gay novel like Dog Roses or a gay-crime novel like Blasphemy or Sacrilege, but has a gay element in a story-line that frequently descends into black comedy. All my novels - published and unpublished - are serialised on my fiction blog which includes a second Fred Winter novel - Predisposed to Murder: http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.co.uk/

Meanwhile...

I used to travel the UK giving poetry readings during the course of which I was invited to some lovely places and met some lovely people. Wherever I went, people would be busy photographing various beauty spots and aspects of nature that particularly caught the naked eye.  I rarely took any photograph as I was always too busy soaking in the atmosphere of a place, feasting on a history that nature has carefully archived and begs to be browsed. My inner eye would seek and find the raw material for a poem that would let me convey my deeper impressions of a place to share with others.

Every artist sees with his or her inner eye, whether writer, painter, musician, sculptor, whatever; the audience - reader, listener, observer - is thereby invited to do the same. So enjoy your photograph albums, but put your inner eye to work as well as your camera wherever you go. That way, we keep the felt as well as visual experience of places we have visited in mind and spirit always.

ZEN OF THE SEEING EYE
(For James Howard)

My skin is white, my skin is black,
fairer shades of yellow, darker shades of brown,
like leaves in milky sunshine come a storm
rearing like raging horses in heaven’s angry sea
for its children under threat, like me,
taking my cue from nature, mentor and guide,
only temporarily kept from harm
in the eye of a storm, sanctuary a fragile
prism of silence

My skin is white, my skin is black,
fairer shades of yellow, darker shades of brown,
like colours in a pallet before art
stakes its claim and transcends virginity
into a subtle blend of modernity
and spirituality comprising multi-aspects
of temporality stirred to direct
its inner eye to look and see, seek and find
what moves the human mind

My skin is white, my skin is black,
fairer shades of yellow, darker shades of brown,
camouflage for ingenuity and invention
though conspiracy and deception sometimes
making inroads where defences weakened
by a brooding inability to make the world hear
what we have to say, restore its pride
instead of some knee-jerk running away to hide
here, there, everywhere

Be fair to me in what or whom you think you see,
creative with even the plainer shades of humanity

[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010]

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