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

Snowfall

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

Snow is a mixed blessing; fun for kids and skiers, treacherous on untreated roads. Life , too, can be a mixed blessing, fun and treacherous at the same time…

SNOWFALL

It snowed that December Day,

(I remember it well);

precious moments, frozen in time

(wasted on braving it out)

All smiles, jokes and laughter

(camouflage for pain))

among ashes heaped like snowflakes

on a once-upon-a-love-affair

We shook hands, shared a hug

(as old friends might);

snowflakes like kisses on our cheeks

(life’s heat fast turning cold)

We’d agreed needs must we part

(where first we’d met)

a shutting down of blinds on sunshine

as snowfall to any hint of spring

As you turned and walked away

I glimpsed tears falling;

for you, for me, for us, I’d ask myself?

No answers, only more snow…

For years, I’d put on a happy face

(if always hurting inside)

until a day a sparrow called me O-U-T

and I (finally) dropped the act

Yesterday, the first snow of winter

left me vividly recalling

that other snowfall, and two gay lovers

scared to come in from the cold

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

Growing Old with Pride

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

Readers often comment that I appear to be having a love affair with rhyme.

Is it ‘a generation thing’ they want to know, perhaps because most modern poetry is blank verse, and all the more abstract for it. Well, maybe it’s ‘a generation thing’ and maybe not. Whatever, I find rhyme a useful tool in getting my meanings across without the reader having to struggle to understand various abstracts.  As far as I am concerned, there are no hard and fast rights or wrongs about writing poetry except for critics of the nit-picking variety.

I do write blank verse occasionally, but I find rhyme - including internal and ‘hidden’ rhyme – brings me closer to the reader, and hopefully vice versa.

I will be 70 this year and get so fed up with people of my generation – gay and straight, male and female – heaving sighs of regret for all they haven’t done with their lives.  We need to harvest what we have done, memories of people and places collected along the way, and take pleasure in the trains of thought these generate instead of complaining about the quickness of time leaving us only too little of it to spare. Besides, it is never too late to start giving Time a run for its o'clocks...

A reader who says he hates rhyming verse also writes in now and then to ask, ‘why do you bother with the gay stuff?’ Well, why not, since I am gay?

Enough said…

GROWING OLD WITH PRIDE 

Much of life may have passed me by,

much of love left me (so) alone,

much of truth left me high and dry,

its flair for logic cut me to the bone

Much of time has seen dreams fail me,

much of space left me in freefall,

much of dogma done its best to nail me

to this tarred fence, that graffiti wall

Much of society, I’d prefer not to serve

much as a sentence without parole;

much of the world, we can but observe

turns on china plate or begging bowl

Much of my body has failed to treasure

harvest moons stumbled across,

much of my mind, to conventions told

a lion’s share of lies…at no great loss

Yet, for the life of me, adrenalin flows

for the loves it has known and live on

where a Joy of Being flowers and grows,

regardless of time, space, or reason

For much of me looking back with regret,

more of me lives for each new day;

more of me still, to nature, forever in debt,

not least for birthing me human and gay 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015