Finding the Key OR The Amazing Tale of a Clockwork Mouse

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

I once knew a devoted couple, one of whom died of cancer. A few years later, my friend found someone new and they have been very happy together.  At a party, someone bitchily remarked, ‘How soon some people forget...’ 

My friend’s new love overheard, shrugged and said, ‘You never stop loving someone, but ghosts can’t even kiss. How boring is that?’

Beneath an awkward tittering, I sensed a general consensus that my friend had made a good choice.

One love can never be the same as another, and it is not fair on anyone involved to make comparisons.

As for me, my (only) partner and I had only a brief time  together and I never really fell in love again after he died, but I live for the love we had and have enjoyed my fair share of (real) kisses since. All the better, kinder, lasting life forces within me I take from that time we shared, even as I take my cue from nature's continuing predilection for renewal. I guess it took me awhile to realise that moving on doesn't mean leaving anyone behind.

 FINDING THE KEY or THE AMAZING TALE OF A CLOCKWORK MOUSE

I walked to the House of the Dead,

lifted the latch and went in,

saw a clockwork mouse on a table,

found the key, laughed as it ran

madly, freely, just as my first love 

and I had with each other

I lingered in the House of the Dead,

clockwork mouse for company,

let it run loose down Memory Lane,

breaking the circle trapping me

in the cancerous, cobweb confines

of a near empty room

I wandered the House of the Dead,

pausing in a bedroom one day,

made love with a ghost, implored it

to stay, but it left, fading away 

like a sunbeam, leaving only space

for a clockwork mouse

I departed the House of the Dead,

let the clockwork mouse go free

till it stopped short at Memory Lane

and saw no cause to turn the key

again, content to continue hopefully

into a slow, tearful dawn

Recalling the House of the Dead,

I see now where I went wrong,

overlooking the drive of life forces

running ever true and strong,

like shadows chasing sunbeams

all summer long

I return to the House of the Dead

now and then in restless dreams,

dance with a ghost on tricks of light

where nothing is as it seems;

of the clockwork mouse, not a trace,

only love in another place

Copyright R. N. Taber 2015; rev. 2020

G-A-Y, Magic Moments OR In the Wash

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

Today's poem last appeared on the blog in 2009. It has been requested today for 'Harry from Newport. While not strictly autobiographical, I can easily relate to it. It was inspired by a friend’s experience at a local launderette and I started writing the poem while my washing was chugging around in a machine there.

Now, various people, lovers too, enter and exit our lives like actors on a stage and sometimes we and/or they fluff our lines. Some of us get a second chance to get it right, others find themselves in another play altogether. While I’ve had boyfriends before as well as since I discovered and lost the love of my life, I have never been very good at relationships and always needed a lot of encouragement to make them work. Work at them though, I was always willing do. Although I have a string of failed relationships behind me, they also gave me some great times and put me in touch with some wonderful people, a few with whom I have stayed friends for years.

G-A-Y, MAGIC MOMENTS or IN THE WASH

One day, my lover told me he was leaving,
how he wished he’d never met me,
packed his bags and just walked away;
I spent months on weepy streets
trying to forget about us, cruising casual meets,
till  met someone at the launderette
who had never been there before, and asked
to share my soap powder

We chatted away on an old wooden bench
and soon I was dying to tell him
how I loved his smile as he related how he
and his girlfriend were new to the city,
(puppy brown eyes letting me down gently?)
but although we'd see each other there
on Sunday afternoons, come rain or shine
he never mentioned her again

It wasn't long before more than his smile
took on a whole new meaning for me
whenever we were together, magic moments
of the kind that may (or may not) mean
something or nothing, but hope springs eternal,
and we knew something special between us
deserved at least a fighting chance to find out
just where it is that fools rush in

My ex turned up one day, suggested we try
and get back to the way we were;
I let him hug and kiss me, but he’d guessed
it was too late, long before I confessed
to a magical launderette with a mind of its own
having put him out of my head for love
of another, though I had no idea he felt the same
or just wishful thinking on my part

He took the news badly and called me a fool
for throwing us away on a whim,
overlooking that it wasn't me gave up on us,
but him, plainly expecting me to fall
on my knees and kiss his feet, as months earlier
I well might, but absence hadn’t left my heart
growing fonder, rather it was beating all the faster
for freedom won if never sought

Just as he was leaving, my new friend arrived,
took in the situation at a glance,
grinned and shook my ex's hand, thanked him
for putting me his way, then kissed me
like he never had before, throwing me a wink
as my ex stormed out, slamming the door,
whereupon others we had barely acknowledged
applauded us, and let rip with cheer

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005. 2021

[Note: This poem has been significantly revised from the original as it appears under the title 'My Beautiful Launderette' in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005; another (unpublished) version that appeared on the blog in 2011 has also been slightly revised, 2021] RNT