Something to Declare

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

As we are growing up, many experiences - and the emotional context in which we relate to them - are new to us; sometimes we guess how we are meant to behave, guess wrong and try to mask our confusion and any embarrassment by playing the fool (well, I did ) if only because it takes the heat out of whatever situation it is that we haven’t a clue how to handle. (Heaven forbid we should appear ignorant of the appropriate conventions!)

As we grow older, we (hopefully) find the self-confidence to express our own views and feelings without fear of being contradicted or even put down because we are more adept at holding our own in this or that situation, this or that point of view. We can dispense with masks, up to a certain point…at which we may well feel the need to retrieve one that has helped us out in the past if only for token reassurance.

I suspect most if not all of us all have a variety of alternative faces hanging in that wardrobe of the mind we call memory, one for every occasion. I do, although I binned the heterosexual mask with which I grew up more years ago than, at 70, I care to remember; my own face will have to do, warts ‘n’ all.

We are who and what we are, a complex mix of identities - including sexual identity - and that has to be as personal as anything gets. Half the battle, in my experience, is getting to grips with self-awareness; if needs must we remain in a closet, once alter ego has access instead of having to bang on the door demanding entry, it becomes much easier (rarely easy) to live with ourselves, and get a life.

SOMETHING TO DECLARE

I was never any good at school,

my schooldays were a sham,

I’d mess around and play the fool

because I couldn’t quite get to grips

with who I am

I had a working class education,

didn’t ever dare aim high,

couldn’t see the point of ambition,

so I’d mess around and play the fool,

content to live a lie

I had a real problem with identity,

couldn’t bear anyone to know

it was an awakening homosexuality

saw me mess around and play the fool,

put on a side-show

I’d have sex in sly, secret places,

even fancy guys in the street,

could sense revulsion in their faces

though never one sure, all-seeing eye

would I ever meet

There came a time as I grew older,

I wearied of playing the ham,

resolved to get real and be bolder

about letting on to this sorry old world

just who I am

I came out to just about everyone,

and it was scary, but, oh, so cool

to be free at last of secrets, have fun,

be a man, walk tall, and less of playing

the fool

In those days I never had much of a life,

my early years were a sham;

now, though. if I sometimes play the fool,

it’s because I’m relaxed, happy, content

to be who I am

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011; 2016

Finding Freedom

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

I was not always openly gay, having grown up as a youth and young man at a time when gay relationships were a criminal offence and considered a sin but most religions. 

Now, thankfully, the broader-thinking West at least has learned to accept that being gay is genetic and no more unnatural than being born. Sadly, though, not everyone among the heterosexual majority shares this enlightened view. Across the world, even in the so-called ‘liberal’ West, gay boys and girls, men and women, are growing up in a gay-unfriendly environment, encouraged to believe they are the lowest of the low for being gay.

It took me some time to stop feeling self-conscious about being gay, to understand (and act on it) that we must never let anyone put us down for our sexuality, least of all ourselves.

For whatever reason (whatever our colour, creed, sex or sexuality) many of us are often made to feel slaves to that fickle creature, 'Convention'; the inner self deserves better.

FINDING FREEDOM

I once walked narrow streets

in the bitter cold and dark of winter,

body, mind and spirit

crying out to be heard, trusted,

loved, and free

No one in those narrow streets

gave me a second look or seemed

to care that I was in crisis,

duped into believing I had no right

to even be there

I paused at a bright shop window

whose lights and colours turned me

into a patched-up clown

(minus wide smile) in a circus ring,

raining sawdust

Suddenly, a burst of wild applause

for my doppelganger clowning it up

in the window and loving

every minute, soaking up applause

like spring rain

I raised a smile, a chuckle, a laugh,

and continued along the narrow streets

that seemed broader now,

people nodding and smiling at me,

a common humanity

Apollo peeped from behind a cloud

as if to complement a metamorphosis,

welcome a lonely gay man

into the human race, its prejudices

melting away

Now, as I walk those same streets

in the bitter cold and dark of winter,

body, mind and spirit

rejoice for having found a voice, love,

and freedom

Copyright R. N. Taber 2014

Gay or Straight, Nothing To Prove

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

“The only problem I have with being gay,” a much younger Roger Taber once confided to a friend, is that you always feel you have something to prove.

“Bollocks!” retorted my friend with feeling, “Love, affection, friendship...these things have nothing to prove, they just are... What does being gay having anything to do with it?”

Now, is that naive or wise? I know which answer I go for...

This poem is a villanelle.

GAY OR STRAIGHT, NOTHING TO PROVE

What is it about love,

breaking our every fall?

Nothing to prove

In dark skies above,

listen for its mating call;

(What is it about love?)

Like hand to glove,

poetry to nature’s spell,

nothing to prove

Songbirds above,

taking us where we will;

(What is it about love?)

Where hunters have

well-honed eyes for a kill,

nothing to prove?

Take hand from glove,

watch it wither, as it will;

What is it about love?

Nothing to prove ...

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

Ode to a School Cap

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

There is probably at least one gay/transgender boy or girl in every school, struggling with their personal identity while unable to articulate on it and/or no one with whom they can share a growing 
sense of personal crisis. Yet, LGBT issues are rarely (if ever) openly discussed as part of a structured programme embracing social issues. 

Few schools approach teaching and class discussion about sex and relationships very well; among even among those that do, little (if anything) is said that is meaningful to a young person, probably struggling with an emerging sense of sexuality along with various other anxieties and frustrations every teenager has to endure.

Time and again, young gay people have contacted me to say there is no one they can talk to about gay issues. Yes, I can (and do) recommend support groups while offering as much reassurance and support myself as I can, also answering their questions with frankness and sensitivity. Even so, I am a stranger and, yes, it can be easier to talk to a stranger but it is better still to talk to a close friend or family member who can be there for you with advice and a hug 24/7.

It is absurd that in the 21st century, many gay people still feel there is a stigma attached to being gay that prevents them openly discussing it with family, peers or teachers. Meanwhile, homophobia persists among those who continue to take outdated, misleading and often offensive stereotypes that plague gay people - especially gay men - as read. [Leaders of the world's religions, please note.]

Yes, I know the less enlightened members of a predominantly heterosexual society continue to give lesbians a hard time. Even so, gay women are less likely to be accused a paedophilia than gay men (even though most paedophiles are heterosexual); they are less likely to be physically abused for their sexuality or verbally abused for spreading the HIV-AIDS virus (as happened to me only recently).

I guess the bottom line is that many if not most heterosexual men and women (especially men) still feel they should be appalled by sexual acts between two men. This has always been a mystery to me as I know straight couples who get up to all sorts in bed...

Is it any wonder that a significant number of gay boys choose to stay in the closet? Not only in the southern hemisphere either. I read not so long ago about two girls at a church school in the US who were excluded for being in a lesbian relationship.Faith schools need to get real about gay issues! Being gay doesn't make us any less of a human being, for goodness sake.

Male or female, it may be a lot easier to be gay than when I was young…but it sure ain’t easy, even now, half a century on…

I recorded this poem for my YouTube channel some time ago so am repeating the video here today as well (see below); especially for 'Joe' who asked why I never read poems on a gay theme there. [I have read several, but I don't think of myself as a 'gay poet', just a poet who also happens to be gay and will tackle any theme. You can access my YouTube channel at: 

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber

and this poem at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgU0lpyCQcs  read and posted on my 65th birthday, December 21st 2010.

ODE TO A SCHOOL CAP

On a pebbly shore observing the sea

about to snatch an abandoned deckchair,

I wonder…do you ever think of me,

snatching at my cap, fingers in my hair?

A breeze, come evening, laughing at us,

shadow fingers masturbating, a bliss

sure to catch us out under summer skies,

a passing cloud witnessing our first kiss

No one ever guessed why you went away

across a sea that calls me with your voice;

much as I loved you, implored you to stay,

each kiss but postponing a time of choice

Not ready then to tell the world I’m gay,

left letting its tides snatch my cap away

[From: Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

A Queer Thing

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

This is a very early poem that I published for the first time (anywhere) on the blog in 2009 after rediscovering and slightly revising the handwritten original. It was written during my teenage years while I was still at school, at a time when gay relationships here in the UK were illegal so I had to keep the secret and satisfy my awakening sexuality wherever and with whomsoever I could.

It was tough, yes, even traumatic. Yet, I managed to have some good times in that damn closet. Even so, any pleasure was always undermined by guilt. Those years left an emotional scar I have carried with me all my life. No young person deserves that. Those who continue to call for the persecution of gay men and women are a disgrace to humanity.

By the way, in those long-ago days, 'Queer' was a term of abuse. Although it appears to have become acceptable now, it is not a word with which I will ever feel comfortable.

Young people today should not have to go through what I had to endure all those years ago. Having to lie to my parents about where I was going and whom I was seeing put more pressure on me than any teenager should have to bear. There was no one I with whom could discuss my awakening sexuality. On the one hand, I felt ashamed because the law said I was a criminal while, on the other hand, I saw no reason why I should be stigmatised for my sexuality.

I did not choose to be gay; it is simply the way I am. No one deserves to be stigmatised for being born as nature intended. Sexuality has to be in the genes; there is no other explanation for gay men and women worldwide from such a wide variety of home backgrounds.

Being openly gay gives me a feeling of release and freedom, I'd have given anything for when I was a tormented teenager and young man. Parents and bigots world-wide, please take note!

This is an autobiographical poem, hence the reference to the appalling relationship I had with my father. Mention of the 'cottage' circuit refers to the way gay boys and men used to haunt rarely used/ abandoned/ off the beaten track public toilets for sex. [It was a secret 'community' of sorts and less sordid than it sounds, but we had no choice in those days.]

A QUEER THING

I am tired so of telling lies,
weary of waking up every day;
it’s bad enough having to face
going to school without having
to handle this queer thing

I am so tired of telling lies,
weary of waking up every day;
it’s bad enough having to cope
with my dad without having
to handle this queer thing

Why can’t I just tell everyone
I don’t like girls in the same way
boys are supposed to feel
and how there’s a boy in my class
with blue eyes and sandy hair
whom I’d so love to hold and kiss
but, of course, will never dare
'cause I’d be taken for a criminal?

I am so tired of telling lies,
weary of waking up every day,
blaming buses for being late
home from school after cruising
the cottage circuit

I am so tired of telling lies,
weary of waking up each day,
longing for Saturday night
when I can trawl smelly loos
and get some sex

The other night, I met a man
who took me to his house and bed
and taught me not to be afraid,
feel shame or guilt for what we did
though he could not see me again
and I mustn’t reveal our liaison
because he, too, was running away
from convention, a married man

I am so tired of telling lies,
playing a part (a good actor, me)
trying to behave naturally
while nature reaching, crying
for this queer thing

May a time come soon, I pray
I’ll wake up every day, not having
to lie about where I go, what I do
or who I am, no one minding
about this queer thing

Copyright R. N. Taber 1962; 2009