Mind-Body-Spirit, no Open-and-Shut Case

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

Regular readers will know that I am a great believer in both free speech and agreeing to differ. The info on the link below appals me.

https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2019/05/islamophobia-definition-unfit-for-purpose-say-campaigners

I would no more support Islam than any other world religion, but neither would I ever reject anyone for their religion alone, however much I might dispute its dogma. Furthermore, I have met many Muslims, especially among younger people, who also would not presume to pre-judge a person by their religion or non-religion, as the case may be. 

Who we are - the person we are - is the sum of all our parts; taken individually, these same parts cannot be taken to represent us.

Now, I don't subscribe to any major religion because I have issues with many aspects of their various dogma. To suggest this makes me a bigot or racist is, to my mind, absurd. Similarly, I have issues with many if not all political parties. Do I deserve to be shouted down for saying so? I think not, even if human nature, self-obsessed as it is often found to be, might well argue otherwise.

Religion is not a side entrance to politics, which is exactly how it is being made to appear time and again on the world stage; Islam is no exception, nor should it be seen to be.

I have worked alongside men and women people from all walks of life and of various socio-religious-political persuasions and met others at poetry readings I have given around the country. 

I deplore bigotry in any shape or form; there are those, though, who have expressed reservations (to say the least) about LGBT people, usually couched in such a way that they cannot be accused of being overtly politically incorrect. People will often confide that, while they mean no offence, they are simply 'not comfortable' around us, although I have to wonder why, in that case, many of those same people have been ok with working alongside a gay poet and even attending his poetry readings ... ?

We are a common if diverse humanity, whose individual differences do not make us any more or less a part of it, whoever or wherever we are; our contributions to it may well vary in shape and form, but human history will be the best judge of that while (hopefully) passing on any lessons learned. 

Those among us inclined to put Mind-Body-Spirit in the dock from time to time, not least our own as much as anyone else's - will be only too familiar with open verdicts.

This poem is a kenning.

MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, NO OPEN-AND-SHUT CASE 

I am more than any religion,

politics, social standing in a world

preoccupied with the parts

comprising who we are rather than

the sum of these,

attacked for being unfit for purpose

by any who disagree,

appointed judge and jury by default

to human nature

I am more than stereotypes

love to make out, convey my all

to a world preferring

assumptions to finding out for itself

what makes us tick;

never a simple equation in archives

of human history,

ever tailored to measure according

to cloth and clout

I am more than you observe

on any street, in any public forum

where that other self

I choose to show to family, friends,

may well stay hid;

but give me the benefit of any doubt,

go the last mile, and let’s see

if a common humanity can’t reconcile

on common ground?

I am Personal Space, that life-secret

last heard of passing an open verdict

Copyright R. N. Taber 2020

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

Braveheart OR Mind-Body-Spirit, a Heart of its Own

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

Some parents are bullies, even those who genuinely think they have their child’s best interests at heart. Young people should be allowed to follow their own paths in life, not those mapped out for them by parents who see a chance of their own frustrated aspirations being realised in their children. ‘Bullies’ is no exaggeration. Until children reach an age when they are credited with a mind of their own by certain adults, they are pawns in what is sometimes a very nasty game, unable to establish their own rules of play. (It is not only LGBT boys and girls, men and women who need to break free of certain stereotypes nurtured during formative years.)

Thankfully, many of these young people rebel and assert themselves for the better in later years although it can be tough , and not all parents 'get it'. I’ve heard many a parent complaining about an ‘ungrateful’ child. (Perhaps they should have asked us what we want from life?)

My father was a psychological bully. I was less embarrassed about coming out as gay in my teens as  scared the atmosphere at home whenever he was around would get a lot worse. Consequently, I hdt in the proverbial closet, lonely and scared for much of the time.

I don't believe you should have children so they can be ‘grateful’ to you, but for the pleasure of nurturing them and seeing them grow into their own person, not a carbon copy of a disillusioned or misguided parent.

We don’t ask to be born on the back of our parents' sexual satisfaction and shared ego trip. So why should we be grateful and feel guilty when we resist the kind of emotional blackmail from parents who cry crocodile tears if we don’t fall in with their plans for us?

Good parents don’t have to ask or connive; we willingly give what we can because we love them. Sadly, a significant number only want children because their religion does not take over-population into account and/or  by way of  reserving an ‘insurance’ policy to cushion their old age.

Good parents everywhere deserve a BIG HUG, and more.

BRAVEHEART or MIND-BODY-SPIRIT, A HEART OF ITS OWN

I'd cower in corners of the mind

like a child besieged

by gremlins in an encroaching dark;

captive of human nature,

dragging on the chains of well-meant

parental expectations,

sum of their worst felt failures

and haunting imitations

Confronting limitations, I'd call on

the strength of Samson,

if only to risk  locks cut to the quick

by a well-meaning ambition

that’s not mine so (can no one see?)

unfit for purpose, better suited

to someone of a different mindset,

anyone but me ...

Finally, breaking free! May those 

thinking they know,

and only ever meant what's 'best'

for me pause long enough

 to reason why (and how) I fought

to be the person I am now,

for needing to make my own (adult)

choices (no one else's)

Copyright R. N. Taber 2001; 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in Love and Human Remains by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, (January) 2001 under the title 'Braveheart'; it also appeared on my general blog in 2011 and  remains in the archives there.]

You-Me-Us, Moving On OR Life Forces, Custom Made

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

The poem below first appeared on the blogs in 2011.

Now,  a reader asks if I will repeat the links to (a) my poetry reading on the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square back in July 2009 as part of Antony Gormley’s One & Other ‘live sculpture’ project and (b) my YouTube video of the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Hyde Park; they are:

http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100223121732/oneandother.co.uk/participants/Roger_T  [NB: Sept 19, 2019 - The British Library has  confirmed the video is no longer available as it was incompatible with a new IT system, However, it still exists and BL hope to reinstate it and make it available to the public again at some future date.] RNT 

For the Princess Diana Memorial, go to my YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_iX3LzGK4k&t=38s

Meanwhile...

Tragically for their friends and loved ones, many people have died during the current Covid-19 pandemic. A friend once asked how I coped with the death of my partner years ago. His own partner had just died and he was in pieces. I had only a brief time with mine, less than two years before he was killed in a car accident, while they had enjoyed nearly twenty years together; it makes no difference, the hurt is no less.

Having lost various people to whom I have been close over the years, I could only repeat what I have said on the blog many times, that moving on doesn’t mean leaving anyone behind. Trite, maybe, but true; my partner, my mother and other loved ones long dead remain a much-treasured comfort and inspiration. My mother died 40+ years ago, yet I feel as close to her in mind-body-spirit as I ever did, and count her among my favourite ghosts who revisit me time and again.

Whatever our socio-cultural-religious mindset, we can but move on after the deaths of loved ones while remain a part of our lives albeit in a posthumous just a we will when it is our turn to leave this world. Across the whole spectrum of that human consciousness we call history or (especially) family history, there is no leaving anyone behind; such is the continuum of life forces, not life as we know it, true, but a continuum no less. I have been called irreligious - at the very least - for this point of view, especially when I suggest it offers an all-embracing spirituality, but the human spirit is common to all of us and does not rely on (any) religion to manifest itself in whatever mysterious ways it chooses and with which we, in turn, choose to engage.

YOU-ME-US, MOVING ON or LIFE FORCES, CUSTOM MADE

Only for you, as immortal a song

as any human heart of may compose;

a hymn to a love, rich and strong,

as the fragrance of summer in a rose

Only for you such beautiful words

as any human heart can hope to write,

echoes in a wind, the song of a bird

an awakening of petals to dawn's light

Only for you, my heart is mending,

for recalling our promise to move on;

come love again, ours never ending,

much like lifelines on leaves evergreen

Moving on across the landscape of time;

my life, a love song, your death, a poem

Copyright R. N. Taber 2005, 2019

[Note: This poem also appears on my general poetry blog today. Not a gay-interest poem? Maybe not, but since when did love ever prioritise one human being over another? Sadly, I need to prioritise for much of the time as feedback suggests relatively few gay readers visit both blogs. An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Moving On' in A Feeling for the Quickness of Time by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2005]

You-Me-Us, Love and let Love

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

Today's poem first appeared on the blogs in 2014.

Oh, but roll on spring, a renewed zest for life, love, nature...always so much a part of us even as winter would have its wicked way with us. Winter, though, even as a season of the human heart such as Covid-19 has imposed on the world, cannot win; if spring simply hibernates, who says the spirit of spring ever hibernates...?

Now, love comes in all shapes and sizes and is just about everywhere you look from childhood through adulthood into our older years; we just need to keep our minds and hearts open, and have no stereotypical ideas about love’s 'ideal'.

Nothing and no one can live up to an ideal. But if growing up is all about getting real, it doesn't have to take anything away from the everlasting beauty of love...unless we let it.

As for gay love…Well, love doesn’t discriminate against us so by what right does anyone? Sadly, there have always been bigots - in one form or another - and no new, better, kinder world was ever built in a day ... we can but do our best to keep tackling chips on shoulders and hidden agendas in tablets of stone.

We may well happen to think a couple in love are not suited to one another for one reason or another, but it is not up to us to impose our feelings on them. However well-meaning any uninvited interference or intrusion concerning the affairs of others, even loved ones, we need to be there for them, not cold shouldering because they choose not to take our 'advice'.

Various socio-cultural-religious issues need to translate into love just as they were invariably intended before certain individuals and groups chose to impose their own interpretations. Similarly, personal integrity needs to embrace the wider implications of human love or what worth social, cultural, religious or political identity? (Yes, and sexual identity too.)

As I have said before on the blogs, our differences do not make us different, only human. We may nurse misgivings, even downright disapproval about the love two people plainly have for one another, but it is neither our business nor right to judge or reject them because they conflict with socio-cultural-religious values, traditions or stereotypes imposed upon us since birth.

The world changes and we need to change with it, clearly discriminating between human values and human vanity as we do so.

Dis I say it was easy?

This poem is a kenning.

YOU-ME-US, LOVE AND LET LOVE

Sworn to ride a dragon

across the world,

home course preferred,

winging our way across skies

a cloudy grey for the sun,

as joyfully (if often fearfully)

we, our seasons run,

whatever the damage done

by Man or nature

Let winds blow, rain gnash

its teeth at us, cyclones

crash into our poor defences,

smash every window, door,

sending cars flying, leaving us

but recourse to initiative,

mind over matter where hearts

dare disprove the universal cynic,

the wavering doubter

Sweet song of a nightingale

lights up our darkness,

heaping comfort on loneliness…

Come dawn, voice of a lark

homing in on us at the very edge

of history, encouraging us

to focus once more on a kinder

landscape than left worn and torn

by nature and Man

To myth, legend, and fairy tale,

I, Love bring certainty ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2003; 2013

[Note: An earlier version of this poem first appeared in an anthology, My Love, Poetry Now [Forward Press] 2003 and subsequently in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]

L-O-V-E, Survivors

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

Today’s poem first appeared on the blogs in 2016, ad has since been (slightly) revised.

Staying positive and trying to keep looking on the bright side of life has never been harder for many of us than now as the Covid-19 coronavirus continues to take its toll around the world. Essentially, I am a positive thinking person; even so, life has a nasty habit of contriving circumstances likely to make us think differently, circumstances which, for whatever reason, spot a chink in our psychological armour and send us into free fall ...

Many years ago, my lie took a turn for the worse (not the first time) and I had a bad nervous breakdown; unable to see a way through it, I attempted suicide. Fortunately, life forces I cannot begin to describe kicked in, and I started to see something of the wood through its trees. I recall telling a doctor, "I can't do this." His reply has stayed with me ever since. "Yes, you can," he said, "... just tell yourself over and over that you will get through it, and you will. Better still, focus on all the positive things you want to do that giving up now will never let you, and go with the damn flow, man, go with the flow." 

So … I went with the damn flow, and survived to tell the tale.

Good or bad, we make the world we live in and it is up to all of us to try and make it a better one.

Humanity's rage to live for love and the greater good will always defeat its enemies in the end.

Looking on the bright side of life may not always be easy, but human beings have a natural capacity for love, in all its shapes and forms, and the more we can focus on that the better. 

(Did I say it would be easy...?) 

This poem is a villanelle.

L-O-V-E, SURVIVORS

Though bigotry and hate thrive 

among the world’s power brokers,

it’s love that will see us survive

Always, people willing to drive

forces for good to the aid of others,

though bigotry and hate thrive

While terrorist-led plots connive

to mock this world’s peacemakers,

it's love that will see us survive

Open heart and mind ever contrive

to expose the worst attention seekers,

though bigotry and hate thrive

If life giving forces as bees to hive,

(a warning sting for potential takers)

it’s love that will see us survive

As sure to keep freedom's name alive,

as frustrate its would-be code breakers;

though bigotry and hate thrive,

it’s love that will see us survive 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2016, 2020

A Temporary Heaven OR Love-Hate, Hobson's Choice

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

Today’s poem first appeared here in 2017 and has since been substantially revised; it is but one of a number of poems that I am posting on either or both blogs that are no longer accessible in the archives. [Archives are available on the right hand side of any blog page.]

It can (and does) happen to anyone, gay or straight, male or female, young and old alike; we fall in love and, in return, are offered an ‘open’ relationship, no strings. It all sounds very ‘modern’ and we convince ourselves we are OK with the arrangement rather than reject it (and be rejected, in turn) for the raw deal it so often can be, especially where ‘open’ gives the green light to one party to look elsewhere.

 I know people who have spent the greater part of their lives persuading themselves that any deal is better than no deal, any arrangement better than none, all the one-sided sacrifices worth every heartbeat; it happened to me once. At the time I was feeling lonely, unloved and could see no light at the end of a long tunnel. I savoured every moment we spent together closing my mind to those aspects of his life in which I was never invited to play a part. I convinced myself I was a martyr to love, and almost enjoyed the role.

Ah, but only almost …

Few people knew about us, such was the nature of our relationship. One day, I confided in a friend who told me I was a fool to dance to his tune. I protested, insisting love was a tune to which only a fool would not dance. “On your own?” he asked, incredulous. “Sometimes, yes, but all the time…?

I knew he was right, of course, but it was a good while before I would admit it to myself, thereby freeing my tearful heart from such self-imposed shackles as I had been fooling myself were pretty ribbons around a box of delights I could not nor should not resist. On opening the box, though, I had seen only what I wanted to see, failing to get to grips with the psychology of wishful thinking.

Like most learning curves, it was a bumpy ride but, yes, worth every heartbeat just to get my life back. 

A TEMPORARY HEAVEN or LOVE-HATE, HOBSON'S CHOICE

As someone obsessed with public perception,

your body could only (ever) offer a temporary haven,

no strings attached, warning me from at the start

never to fall in love with you for love is only for fools

(you said)

You warned me at the start about falling in love

its course only ever likely to run true but in dreams,
and we 'worldly' types have (far) more sense 
than to let ourselves be carried away by such fantasies
of mind-body-spirit

Gladly I would let your incredible body take mine

in the hope you would (eventually) learn to love me,

despairing as each frantic, mindless, orgasm

ripping into us, much like s classic double-edged sword

we call honesty

My lover, no less indifferent to true love’s needs

than any folly of delusion on which its loneliness feeds,

remained true to his word, watched me fall apart,

sensing neither need nor responsibility (or should he?)

for my heart

Not before time, I walked away of my own free will,

much as I had been complicit in making of love’s heaven,

a living hell, years of mixed feelings ahead of me;

Yet, whatever hindsight might demand I do, a part of me 

goes on loving you

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007, 2020

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appeared on the blog in 2007] RNT

Breaking Cover OR Making Sense of Sensibility

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

This poem has appeared on he blob before but was removed and revised after receiving few visitors.

There are various ways of breaking cover. What nicer way for two gay people to come out to each other than with a kiss under the stars ... whatever their sex, sexuality or socio-cultural-religious background? As for letting everyone else know, it is rarely if ever easy, but worth every heartbeat as well as any tears along the way...

In some countries and home environments, gay people just have to seize the day and trust that a time will come that everyone recognises and accepts that the heart is a free country, and our difference don't make us different, only human.

Neither love nor life itself is rarely anywhere near as simple as we would wish, if only because we human beings insist on making everything so complicated with reference to various socio-cultural-religious dogma written in tablets of stone rather than engaging with contemporaneity, and trying to understand human nature, less rushing to judgement and / or  seeing its complexities as an excuse for hate crime, and worse ...

BREAKING COVER or MAKING SENSE OF SENSIBILITY

We lay on the ground,

barely touching, the only sound,

owls hooting;

your piano hands as if playing

the stars as we debate

women from Venus, men

from Mars

One toe brushing mine,

letting me share your body heat;

your eyes, winking like stars

as I clutch at your every word

like a man drowning;

you edge closer, thigh nestling

against mine

I'm stroking your shirt

while you're talking, unaware

of my being tossed about

on waves of desire, longing

to shut your mouth

with my lips, explore your body

implore your love

All the sounds of night

a serenade for lovers, caressing

each secret part of us

as I can but cling to every timbre

of your voice like straws

in a summer breeze, Cassiopeia

blinking back tears

Eventually, you wearied

of words, seemed to count stars

while I continued

to chase pipe dreams till the owls

broke cover, flew over us

as if at Earth Mother bidding,

a blessing of sorts

Enchanted, we shared

the owls' graceful flight across

silvery meadows

of night into a heart of darkness

that struck us both,

as lonelier than our lying there

needing each other

Slowly, tearfully, you turned to me,

kissed me, and we made love ...

Copyright R. N. Taber 2004, rev. 2011

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears under the title 'Breaking Cover' in The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004.]