The Hunt, Metaphor for LGBT History

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

I have always thought hunting with hounds is a sick sport. Maybe that’s because I have a tried and tested empathy with any animal on the run; having been the victim of homophobic attacks in the distant past, I know how it feels. Some of us would get away by the skin of our teeth, of course, as I (usually) did, but not everyone escapes uninjured (or worse) and the trauma may well haunt a person all their life.

In some parts of the world (countries like Uganda and Iran, for example, to name just two) gay people have to hide their sexuality, yet are often sniffed out by bigoted forces and don't live to tell the tale. It is a tragedy that shames the civilised world. Sadly, it is as all too common a tragedy for unprotected species in the animal world as for gay people living in an intrinsically homophobic environment...or anyone else seen as fair game by those who choose to interpret this or that socio-cultural-religious take on life as justification for the unjustifiable.

[Hunters] take unbelievable pleasure in the hideous blast of the hunting horn and baying of the hounds… Erasmus (1466 - 1536)


THE HUNT, METAPHOR FOR LGBT HISTORY

I hear a horn,
the baying of hounds,
thundering hooves,
need to run and hide
if only I can

Closing in on me,
horn, hounds, hooves;
scarier still,
a stench of humans
laughing

I need to pause
but the only rest for me
will last forever
once laughter catches
up with me

My legs fail,
drag me to a sanctuary
of friendly bushes
but the frothing pack
sniffs me out

The lead hound
pauses, poised to leap
for my throat,
now strikes, and all
I hear is laughter

Copyright R. N. Taber 2011

Human Spirit, Wings of the Day

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

In my 70’s now, people often refer to me as being in the autumn (even early winter) of my years. Well, physically, yes, of course I am, but there is a spirit in me (as in all of us who know better) that beats its wings and sings its heart out just as if it were spring…

Gay or straight, we all get old; the trick is never, but never, let anyone make you feel old.

HUMAN SPIRIT, WINGS OF THE DAY 

Bursting into spring

come a skylark into song

at the first subtle hint

of a new day’s spreading

its wings

Up, up, and away

like that beautiful kite

we'd fly in a breeze

on daisy hilltops, spreading

news of us…

across cornfields,

and chuckling streams,

busy, smoky streets,

touching base with lovers

like us ...

Demanding heads

in sand look up, take note,

spread the word

to watch out for us settling

nearby…

listen to epic tales

ever worked and reworked

by history,

world taking us to its heart
or not ...

Sailing into spring

on a nightingale’s lullaby

come the first hint

of twilight at a day’s folding

its wings

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

S-T-E-R-E-O-T-Y-P-E-S, Faux Pas

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

I am often asked - as in an email only yesterday – to send a DVD of my poetry reading on the 4th plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square back in 2009. (My contribution to sculptor Antony Gormley's 'live' sculpture project that ran 24/7 over 2400 hours that summer.) Sky Arts refused to supply plinthers with a record of their performance on the grounds that the entire web stream is archived in the British Library.

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [For now, at least, this link needs the latest Adobe Flash Player  and works best in Firefox; the archives website cannot run Flash but changes scheduled for later this year may well mean the link will open without it. Ignore any error message and give it a minute or so to start up. The video lasts an hour. ] RT 3/18
   

I always love to hear from readers so feel free to email me at rogertab@aol.com  [NB If you use the 'Comments' link but would like a reply, please include your email address.]

Meanwhile...

Now, it is good to pause and look back every now and then if only to remind ourselves how things were and how far we have come...so long as we don’t stop moving forward, reminding ourselves, too, that not every man and women across this sorry world of ours enjoys the freedom of speech and lifestyle they deserve.

Once a (young) closet gay man, I used to have an affinity with caged wildlife. (I am 71 now and still do.)  It was as if I were locked in a glass cage through which everyone could see although whom they saw was not me at all. I guess that’s why I hate zoos. I am a conservationist, yes, albeit one who prefers to see wildlife monitored for its own protection while remaining all but as free as nature intended.

Oh, and to all those readers who regularly email me to ask why I persist in 'harping back' to hard times when LGBT people have never had it so good, I can only say (yet again) that it all depends whether or not you live and/or work in a gay-friendly environment.

Gay men and women are not the only ones to suffer stereotyping of course. Society is too fond of stereotyping anyone who doesn't appear to follow so-called 'conventional' patterns of behaviour, encouraged by a headline hungry media. It has to stop. This is the 21st century, for goodness sake!

"A forest bird never wants a cage." - Henrik Ibsen

S-T-E-R-E-O-T-Y-P-E-S, FAUX PAS

As a youth, I dreamed
I was happy, set free
from a sad, lonely cage,
killing me softly

As a youth, I dreamed
of a world living free,
of any cultural prejudices
treating me harshly

As a youth, I dreamed
of a day I’d run free,
finding another gay man
to kiss life into me

As a youth I dreamed
a world on my side,
glad (for all its bigotry)
I hadn’t yet died

Older now, I still dream
we all may be free
to fly cages like the one
that almost killed me

Copyright R. N. Taber 1973; 2017

[Note: Written summer 1973; rediscovered and revised, 2009; 2017.]

(Gay) Pride (still) Breathing New Life into Old Ways

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

[Update June 4th 2017]While our thoughts and hearts go out to all those affected by last night's terror attack in London, we are also reminded not to let anyone attempt to pull our strings, neither terrorists nor bigots. In a free world, no one wears strings. If we allow others to influence us, on our own heads be it. We need to be aware, though, that there are those who see influence as power and power, as we all know, is easily abused.] RT

Regular readers will know that I did not come out to the world (only a select few) until my late 30’s, not least for having been raised in a gay-unfriendly home and school environment.

A boy at my school who had been surrendering to a desire to kiss other boys, albeit on the cheek, was made to undergo electric shock treatment to ‘cure’ him of any ‘homosexual tendencies’’ this, alone, was enough to keep me in the closet! Among crowds, I felt like a ghost, walking unseen with an increasing sense of other ‘ghosts’ all around me. They visited me in my dreams, these ghosts, and I sought them out in my spare time, discovering old haunts where we would meet and comfort each other emotionally and sexually. In this way I discovered how to ‘cruise’ along with the best.

It took a bad nervous breakdown in my late 30’s to (eventually) remove the blinkers I had been made to wear all life and get real about my sexuality.

Gay-unfriendly legislation in some parts of the world and various socio-cultural-religious obsessions a with the heterosexual ethos means that there will probably always be closet ghosts: I sense them wherever I go, make eye contact with some and we exchange signals of recognition and wishful thinking, much the same as men and women do when attracted to each other, albeit  invariably but passing glances because, once out, no gay man or woman wants to share their life with some ghost in a closet; been there, done that, got the emotiona scars to prove it.

In my 70’s now, I still walk with ghosts, but none of the closet variety; any hauntings now are of an inspirational nature, voices in my ear across centuries of their being abused and misunderstood simply because the less initiated prefer to home in on one aspect of a person’s identity - his or her sexuality - failing altogether to appreciate the whole person. Words of wisdom in my ear, indeed, prompting me to look the world in the eye, unashamedly gay, and that’s my business, no one else’s; not an employer’s and certainly not a cleric’s. (The prevailing notion in some circles that being gay effectively undermines our ability to do a good job or any - related or unrelated - sense of spirituality is absurd; it always was, of course, but especially in a so-called ‘progressive’ twenty-first century.

Thanks to successive pioneers determined to give gay men and women a voice, G-A-Y can take its cue from O-U-T, refuse to be cowed by divided societies worldwide and feel proud to keep company with all gay-friendly souls...past, present and future.

Common humanity will yet get the better of socio-cultural-religious bigotry. 

(GAY) PRIDE (STILL) BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO OLD WAYS

Walking out

where few had walked before,

talking with those

with whom few had talked before,

sharing secrets

few ever get to share in a lifetime

of repression

Treading dreams

where many had dreamed before,

fed nightmares

no psychiatrist ever quite understood

because they know

only the theory, nothing of living

in fear of shadows

Ghost, a scrapbook

of would-be memories, fictions

I’ve sought to act out

in closets with doors I’d leave ajar

for light enough

to read minds by, assess potential

friends and enemies

Loneliness,

gamut run, nor safety in numbers

or (quite) free to talk

as we walk (as we do anyway) given 

public opinion

inclined to portray the same profile

hanging us out to dry

Returning

to places that defy any returning,

in memory

of exorcising demons once hell bent

on destroying me,

but I resisted, fought back, live

to tell the tale

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017

Poetry Live

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

[Update) March 25, 2017: Not everyone who visits the blog also visits my Google Plus page where I have been posting links to posts/poems from both blogs on a daily basis. A reader has  emailed to say he had heard about the poetry reading but had no details. Sorry about that! He also said he would still like to make a donation to Prostate Cancer UK as his late father had prostate cancer, and he is having tests for it himself. Sadly, cancer does not discriminate! Good luck, Ian, and stay positive!

If there is anyone else out there who enjoys my poems on the blog/s, please help if you possibly can. My page will remain a while longer; every little helps its team in supporting men with prostate cancer, gay and straight alike - and their families - across the UK

Well, the poetry evening is well done and dusted. Only about a dozen people came, but we enjoyed ourselves. (There's nothing quite like live poetry.) Everyone seemed to appreciate my choice of poems and we all got on well during a 30 mins refreshment break which was really nice as some people had only just met for the first time. If the arts are meant firstly to entertain and secondly to offer food for thought, feedback suggests the evening was a success on both counts.

For me, personally, it was hard work involving weeks of preparation but a labour of love so I'm glad I went ahead with it despite being a bag of nerves...which, thankfully, steadied once I got started. This year marks sixty years of getting my poetry into print, given that my first published poem appeared in my school magazine summer 1957. I have also been living with prostate cancer for six years (treated with hormone therapy).

I've recorded the poetry reading although I daresay some editing of the resulting voice file will be necessary.  (I hate the sound of my own voice so will leave that to my friend Graham who shoots and edits the videos on my You Tube channel.) Hopefully, blog readers will (eventually) be able to link to it.]

.....................................................

I did not have the confidence to read in public for years. However, after a few years of occasionally performing Open Mics at Farrago Poetry evenings in London, I found the self-confidence to accept invitations to give readings around the UK (2003-2014). Only weeks after a reading in 2014, I had a bad fall and have spent much of the last two years learning to walk again. I can get out and about quite well now with the aid of a walking stick, for which I am truly thankful as my left ankle had sustained a complicated fracture and I was warned I might never walk again. Oh, but I love walking and am stubborn enough to defy any harbingers of doom. Even so, I did not expect to give another poetry reading.

Now, this first poem appeared in Visions of the Mind, Spotlight Poets (Forward Press) in 1998 and subsequently in my first collection,  Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2001. It is an early piece, written in the summer of 1976 during which I gave an impromptu reading of it in Trafalgar Square to a friend (and several appreciative passers-by who paused to listen.)

POETRY LIVE

Words 

to music, out of words on

sun rising in the eyes 

of that ragged-eared mongrel

at George’s door
tongue lolling, nostrils a-smoke,

smelling us out

Words

to music, out of words on
letting carnival hot dogs
substitute for garden scents,
make easier the stink 

of various matter-of-fact slop-outs

in the gutter

Words

out of choc-smeared mouths
in Bank Holiday sunshine;
kids in glad rags spilling
on the streets like bin bags;
shirtsleeves copper seems anxious
to get chatty 

Poetry

Copyright R. N. Taber 1998; 2017

I never dreamt that 30+ years on I would be reading a selection of my poems in Trafalgar Square, this time to a global audience via web stream as my contribution to Sir Antony Gormley’s ‘live’ sculpture project, One and Other (2009) sponsored by Sky Arts. To view, click on:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T    [NB: Sept 19, 2019: Today, the British Library confirmed that the link blow to the 4th plinth reading in 1999 is no longer available as the video is incompatible with an updated IT system. However, I am assured that the video still exists, and B L hope to make it available to the public again one day. Fingers crossed, and watch this space.] RNT

L-I-F-E, Stings of Irony

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

'…Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane.' (Milton, Paradise Lost (Book I, lines 690-692)

Precious Bane is probably as well-known for the novel of that name by Mary Webb as its place in Milton’s epic poem. It refers to the love of money, which, as Webb’s heroine, Prue, records, blights love and destroys life; the title also refers to her deformity, a cleft lip which she comes to recognize as the source of her spiritual strength. [A cleft lip is sometimes referred to as a harelip  (as happens in the novel) considered insulting as it compares the deformity in humans to the normal cleft lip of a hare.] 

Now, I am not suggesting that my being gay is any kind of deformity although it has been put to me by various bigots that's precisely what is! Political correctness, for all its frequent abuse, means well. Moreover, for me, personally, it encourages the spiritual strength I take in being gay from both nature and the kinder, more discerning side of human nature. (Fortunately, the latter is in greater supply than the media’s focus on it is often inclined to suggest.) Over the years, though, I have been teased, bullied. verbally and physically abused for being gay just as, since a bad fall in 2014 at the age of 67. I've been on the receiving end of much the same more than once because I now need a walking stick.

In so far as political correctness is intended to put a stop to insulting comments and behaviour, it works well enough for the most part  ... at least to outward appearances.

Bad attitude is only half the problem. Too many people use the political correctness card to turn tables in their favour when it is they who are at fault. Time and again, various authorities (who should know better) side with guilty against innocent, perpetrator against victim rather than risk a bad press. Here in the UK, for example, there is far too much walking on socio-cultural eggshells these days; without being seen to do so, of course, although I often wonder just who it is in the driving seat that thinks they are fooling anyone ...

Wherever there is no legislation for political correctness, the darker side of human nature continues to flex its predilection for insults, prejudice and bigotry. On the other hand, of course, you cannot legislate for bad attitude which simply proceeds to do a good job of keeping out of public sight and hearing ... and is more than capable of  keeping up appearances where the media is concerned.

Whatever social card a person chooses to play - sexuality, race age, gender etc. -  in order to turn tablea and portray themselves as victim rather than perpetrator, justice needs to prevail, and be seen to do so.  I worked with the public for many years and endured more than my share of verbal abuse from people whose behaviour I'd make clear I wasn't prepared to tolerate so they would call my manager, play their card ... and nearly always get an apology while I would be made out to be in the wrong and look a complete fool. 

Oh, well, c'est la vie. We positive thinkers can but prefer to believe that forces for good will always get the better of those for bad (in the end, at least) if only to avoid drowning in a sea of cynicism.

L-I-F-E, STINGS OF IRONY 

Once, in another country,
we spoke of love and being gay
in a world where sexuality
has no need of political correctness
to leap to our defence

We lay beneath a willow tree
shedding tears for the likes of us 
having to justify even love
in the glare of a political correctness
meant to educate bigots

Oh, but so many excuses
(all perfectly legitimate of course)
playing political correctness
at its own game so none dare criticise
for fear of causing offence

Hypocrisy, no mean weapon
in upholding the various integrities
of socio-cultural traditions
passed off as icons through centuries
of human division and abuse

Ah, but who are we to accuse
those who may accuse us of offending
all they hold dear if only
because it makes them feel secure, safe
from all talk of LGBT rights?

Oh, yes, we may well speak up
where political correctness established
despite all its back-stabbing, 
self-styled ‘betters’ fronting and calling
on socio-cultural immunity

As for the world’s higher clerics
seeking handouts even among the poor,
no need for a satirical press
where actions speak louder than words
and both contradict each other

Around the world, ordinary people
whisper behind closed doors of being gay,
in love and free where sexuality 
can’t even call on political correctness 
to try and put the record straight

Copyright R. N. Taber 2017



…

Ode to My Love

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

Regular readers may recall how my partner died many years ago after only a short time together. As it turned out, I never met anyone else with whom to share my life. Even so, I have some good friends and have met some wonderful people whose life stories – happy and sad alike - have inspired many of my poems.

Sometimes people ask me how I can face growing old alone. Well, yes, I live alone but that does not mean I am alone. I have plenty of company, not least my poems.  Besides, love, in all its shapes and forms, sustains and inspires me just it has always done, especially whenever I am feeling low or start feeling sorry for myself for whatever reason.  Friends, places, nature, they haunt my memory and invariably come to my rescue to help me rise above whatever may be troubling me at the time.

My long-ago love is never far from my thoughts and our love continues to guide me through the complex maze we call life. He brought out the best in me and it is that which prevents me dwelling on mistakes, letting wishful thinking distort all the Here and Now has to offer me and (hopefully) I, it.

The great thing about love is that it doesn't discriminate against anyone for their colour, creed, sex or sexuality. Sadly, many human beings do, resulting in lovers the world over having to resort to subterfuge, sometimes being rejected by disapproving family and friends on grounds of certain socio-cultural-religious-principles that love (quite rightly) does not recognise.

Time and again, life calls on us to learn and move on from our experiences, good and bad. We can but do our best. At the same time - as I have said many times on the blogs, and doubtless  will again - it is always worth remembering that moving on doesn’t mean leaving anyone behind, especially those we have loved.

ODE TO MY LOVE

I so love you for a smile on your lips, 

the laughter in your eyes, the way 

your hair blows in a summer breeze,

how tears fall like a gentle rain

from heaven whenever we watch 

soap television

I so love you for a song in your heart, 

how it echoes all around, 

sweeter sound even than skylark 

or nightingale, lifting my soul 

on wings of a prayer given thanks

for your being here

I so love how you flare like a candle 

in the wind whenever 

we quarrel, making up before 

the day closes, recharging 

our bodies, the more joy and power 

to each other

I so love how you shoulder hardship,

brave and true, my hero;

though folks tread roughly

on our dreams

you’ll keep us safe, hold my hand, 

quick to reassure

Who could ask for more...?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002; 2016

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appeared under the title ‘Ode to my Love’ in First Person Plural by R N Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]