Smiling Through

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

“There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen

“ What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity.”- George Eliot

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This post-poem also appears on my general blog today. Although many  LGBT readers visit both poetry blogs,  feedback suggests that there are still others who are not quite ready to accept that poetry is all-inclusive, to some degree or another. Whatever, I suspect I am not the only reader who has felt the light go out of their world and let someone's smile turn it on again...

Now, as regular readers will know, I have been treated with hormone therapy for my prostate cancer over a period of a good ten years now; one of the side-effects can be - as it is so for me - regular depression and/or a rising sense of panic whenever even small things go wrong. 

I suspect it may seem worse for older people like myself who live alone, which is maybe why we appreciate acts of kindness so much, as it helps (considerably) to alleviate these symptoms; someone able to spare just a few minutes to talk to you and help calm you down can make all the difference.

Since the pandemic, everyone has been under stress. Here in London, acts of kindness are noticeably in far shorter supply than they were previously. For example, fewer people are willing to pause to help ole Rog when clearly in difficulty or offer a seat on a crowded bus or train, so I have to stand, leaning on my walking stick for support. 

 Whenever anyone does offer me their seat, I thank them, throw them a huge smile, and the light in their eyes suggests it is as much welcome to them as their offer of a seat is to me.

As in many old sayings, there is much truth in the one about kindness bringing its own reward. 

Hopefully, we have seen the worst of Covid-19 and its variants, although there remain hard times ahead as the financial crisis finds so many people struggling to make ends meet.

All any of us can do is keep looking on the brighter, lighter side of life and take comfort in the knowledge that there is always light at the end of even the longest tunnel.

No, never easy, but... we have a choice?

SMILING THROUGH

This heart grew heavy,
loaded down with sadness, a sense
of feeling adrift,
barely keeping afloat for sailing
stormy waters,
struggling to make sense of a life
searching heart-and soul
for that familiar surge of a lively inspiration,
now gone quiet, all but a vacuum

Mind-body-spirit
struggling to rise above such despair
as strikes fear
in the hearts of those of us anxious
to make sense
of a You-Me-Us simply drifting along
having all but lost sight
of who we are any more, not as once we were,
birds of a feather, so happy together

Lately, even the smiles 
on our faces tell lies, trying to disguise
a You-Me-Us fallen apart
over tard times without our noticing,
taking us for granted,
failing to see how we rarely any more
as once we would
fondly reminisce about how we met, fell in love,
caught up in the magic of stars above

So… it came to pass,
we agreed a trial separation needing time
to think us through,
search the remains of who we once were,
try  and see a way clear
to bring You-Me-Us together again, fill 
the Black Hole
we found ourselves a lonely, grieving while apart,.
anxious to reconcile mind-body-spirit

Yes, we courted anew, years falling away, tears too,
a shared heart-and-soul smiling through

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2022

Seeing is Believing, True or False?

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

Years ago, after school, two friends (we’ll call them A and B) were caught kissing behind the bicycle sheds at the back of our school playground by a teacher working late. On being asked for an explanation, one friend said, “We love each other, sir.” 

After a long, ominous silence, the teacher asked “Do your parents know?” The culprits shook their heads. 

“Are you going to rat on us, sir?” Boy A asked, swallowing hard. 

“Somethings need to come from the horse’s mouth,” was all the teacher said, albeit sternly, before dismissing them. 

The two friends thought they had got off lightly, but no such luck it, not least because society was such that it would be years before either felt able to come out of the closet and tell the world they are gay, by which time they hadn’t even kept in touch. 

The following weekend, A spotted B in the local park with another boy. A’s emotions, at fever pitch since the incident in the bike shed, erupted and he let rip with a torrent of abuse; it was only later that he realised it has been aimed at himself. 

Gay or straight, we all do and say things we regret. Boy A was jealous, of course, but the incident in the bicycle sheds only days earlier had scared him more than he cared to admit. It was not a good time then to be gay, and issues on the home front made it impossible to follow the teacher’s good advice and tell the family that, at 14 years-old, he had already discovered his true sexuality.

It was a gay friend who told this story about himself, to me and several straight friends some time ago. All of us admitted we recognised ourselves in it, having suffered mixed emotions in similar situations, not least that love-hate peculiar to jealousy.

 Gay or straight, whoever and wherever, what are any of us but human when all’s said and done?

‘Love sees sharply, hatred sees even more sharp, but Jealousy sees the sharpest for it is love and hate at the same time.’  -  Arab Proverb

SEEING IS BELIEVING, TRUE OR FALSE? 

I am, to any life force,
its own worst enemy, that light mist
descending on a wintry
season of the heart mistaken for spring,
taken in its stride by mine host,
a vision of summer haunting the heart
that’s sure to thrive on its heat
if only for letting the power of illusion
fire passions of self-deceit

Like a rose, its thorns
forgiven for the beauty of its having
been nurtured by the love
of Earth Mother, with no small input
from yours truly, anticipating
showcase summers, a rose garden
of our own making,
pledging our love, oblivious to any threat
by storm clouds gathering

One evening, gone jogging,
I chose to take a longer route than usual
for no reason but a whim
to chase pigeons into a sunset, no matter
it put me to such shame
as would be my undoing in showing me
someone picking a rose
and giving it to you with a kiss that drove me
where no sane person goes 

No lovers but old friends had I chanced upon;
jealousy, my hurt-rage-loss-prison

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2020

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

 

 

Where Unicorns Roam

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

Firstly, many thanks go to those readers who send comments. I never publish comments, but read them all. Please remember that if you would like me to reply, send an email to the usual (above) address. Many comments are not genuine and include spam links that can spread viruses; others are just links to advertising. I did not want to be accused of publishing only the good comments so decided at the outset that I would publish none at all. Quite a few readers email me, though, and I have struck up some great email exchanges since starting the blogs and made wonderful new friends worldwide. Occasionally, some of these have visited London and we have met up to put the world to rights over a few beers or a meal. It has been a lovely way to meet people.

Meanwhile…

Now, several readers have asked where they can buy the novels serialized on my fiction blog. Many thanks for asking, but after a good many false starts, I gave up trying to interest literary agents or publishers and decided to post all my unpublished works on the blog rather than have them doing nothing and going nowhere on my computer. It is my intention to publish them as e-books (along with 2^nd (revised) editions of my poetry collections) at a later date. Meanwhile, anyone is welcome to dip into the fiction blog and see if there is a storyline that catches their interest.  Staying on top of various health problems make such demands on my time these days that I’m afraid I have yet (if ever) to finish writing Redemption, Book 3 of what was intended as a gay-interest crime trilogy, Blasphemy-Sacrilege-Redemption.

http://rogertaberfiction.blogspot.com/

Meanwhile...

It has been my experience that homophobes are often more angry with themselves than with the gay people they profess to deplore. More than once, when I was sexually active, I enjoyed close encounters with guys who had a great line in chat-up, but whose conversation on parting would go something like this:

HE (apologetically) I just can’t live that way, end of story. I’m getting married to a great girl who loves me to bits, What’s more, she’ll be a great wife and mother and an asset to my career.

ME (wryly) If you don’t mind my saying so, you have a very cold blooded attitude for such a hot blooded guy.

HE (shrugs) That’s life...

I never knew whether to laugh or cry.

Now, I personally know several guys who are openly homophobic and privately visit gay cruising areas. [Well, not as openly now that political correctness has driven so much bigotry behind closed doors.] How do I know? Because I have a gay friend who also visits those same places. One day someone may well ‘out’ them, but it won’t be me or my friend if only because how they live their lives is none of our business any more than how we live our lives is any of theirs.

True, I have met married men (and women) who love their partners and children to bits and see no harm in same close encounters of the sexual kind on the side, and I’m not a judgmental person. Even so, I have to say it smacks of betrayal to me. During my youth and early manhood, I had to keep my sexuality a secret from family and friends. Living that lie nearly killed me. As it was, as regular readers know, it culminated in a severe nervous breakdown in my early 30s during which I attempted suicide.

Maybe if more bisexual or essentially gay men and women were to confide in their opposite sex partners from the start, there would be less heartbreak all round? I have met such couples, and it never ceases to amaze me just how much love is prepared to take in its stride.

Without honesty, though, what chance does even love have? I often wonder how many of us live in something of a fantasy world and half expect to encounter a unicorn around the next street corner ...

WHERE UNICORNS ROAM 

His body relaxed,

the tip of his tongue stroking my lips

as we made love,

exploring, adoring, each other’s bodies,

oh, so tenderly at the start

then letting rip with pent-up passions

of the heart

It was our first time

and he gave no hint it would be our last

as we made love

in a manner that was sheer poetry,

desire in perfect rhythm,

naked flesh feeding on the pleasures

of wet dreams

We became as one,

riding a feisty unicorn over leafy meadows,

majestic mountains,

to lush, heather-scented slopes

leading to the sea

where we lay, spent, on a sandy shore

content in its embrace

I stroked his hair

where its flames but flickered in the hearth

he had made of my heart

and I longed to rouse his heat in me

again, again, again…

even as each wild, exquisite flame died,

one by one

He stirred, kissed me

till my mouth felt bruised by the intensity

of that long goodbye,

though not as I sensed he'd have it be

but much the same as I,

lying in sun-kissed sand, as if love meant us

to be together

That kiss was magic, its spell cruelly broken,

his mind bent on marrying a woman

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010