Home Truths, Martyrs to Love

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

A reader once got in touch to say he feels such a fool because he can’t help loving his girlfriend even though she continues to see other guys. 

That same day, there was an email in my In Box from a gay guy relating how he could not get even begin to get his head around his boyfriend's wanting an open relationship. While I, personally, would walk away, I do not underestimate either the power of love  or of well-meaning (if often ill-advised) pressure from family and/or friends - reminding us of our various 'responsibilities'; in other words, we mustn't be seen to let the side down. (Better to let ourselves down...?)

What can I say except these are among many men and women around the world who, for centuries, have settled for less - sometimes far less - in a relationship than, at heart, they desire and need. Some people, of course, can live with open relationships; for others (like me) it is asking too much.

It has to be one of the saddest facts of life that many potential partners cannot always see the other person’s take on love or…each other. Yet, many of us will settle for a one-sided relationship than no relationship at all, and the threat of loneliness; the latter reason perhaps why the world is full of martyrs to love.

Relationships between two people can only work if both partners want it to work, and neither should forget that everyone has a choice.

HOME TRUTHS, MARTYRS TO LOVE

You warned me not to fall in love with you,

that it was sex alone, never love, spurring us on,

for love is only for fools (you said) its course

set and steered by wet dreams; we worldly types

know better (you said) while tonguing words

of intimacy as if rites for a benign conspiracy

Keeping up appearances, it was nothing more

(never love) fuelling inspiration. Gladly I’d let

your fine body take mine, clung to the hope

that you’d come to love me, despairing as each

frantic, mindless, orgasm ripped through us

like that double-edged sword we call honesty

A culture of hypocrisy concealing human needs,

never quite able to satisfy the loneliness it feeds

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2007; 2015

Progress, Bitter-Sweet

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

Now, can we honestly call the rape of our forests and woodlands…progress?

Humankind needs to balance its own humanitarian needs with the needs of nature to help sustain them. If we are not careful, nature will get the upper hand sooner rather than later, destroy us before we can destroy it or even ourselves.

Whatever, to the victor, the spoils as the march of today’s Titans of big business and entrepreneurial skulduggery proceeds all but unchallenged...

PROGRESS, BITTER-SWEET

Shadows gathering
like crowds for an execution;
storm clouds rumbling
like a malediction on the planet
challenging us to bow out
here and now or put things right
(if it's not already too late)
to bequeath our children a future
in harmony with nature

In a spotlight of sunshine,
luminous corn circles invoking
the mystery of eternity,
human parts all but played out,
hearts put to rout,
hounded by a native savagery
plaguing the purer, simpler,
beauty of a common humanity
haunted by its history

‘Progress’ a bitter-sweet victory
over an earthly vulnerability

Copyright R. N. Taber 2002, 2018

[Note: An earlier version of this poem appears in the Poetry Now [Forward Press] anthology series, London and Home Counties (2001) and subsequently in First Person Plural by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2002.]

Dead Cool, Macho Man

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

Overheard on a bus:

TEENAGER 1: It’s all very well for people to say don’t carry a knife or a gun, but what do they know, yeah? It’s dead cool, right? Besides, you gotta protect yourself. F**k the do-gooders. What kind of world do they think we live in? You gotta get real, yeah?

TEENAGER 2: What if someone gets hurt, killed even?

TEENAGER 1: So it ain’t gonna be me, right?

TEENAGER 2: I dunno…

TEENAGER 1: (Rising to leave as bus stops) You dunno know f**k all.

An elderly lady sitting next to me shook her head, "He’s right about one thing. What do we know about the world they live in? And whose fault is that, I wonder...?"

I said nothing. What could I say?

There is nothing either cool or macho about carrying a knife or a gun even if (potentially) in self-defence, and who's going to care anyways if you end up dead?

This poem is a villanelle.

DEAD COOL, MACHO MAN

Finally, managed to get me a gun

and spreading the word,

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

At first, life was a buzz, good fun,

but all that disappeared;

finally, managed to get me a gun,

Needed to prove I was someone,

get me some street cred;

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

Shouting at just about everyone,

but no one ever heard;

finally, managed to get me a gun,

Joined a gang, mustn't let 'em down,

show I was shit scared;

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

Got into a street fight, shot down
dripping with blood...

Finally, managed to get me a gun,

didn’t ask who’ll carry my coffin

Copyright R. N. Taber 2010; 2015

Innocent, Until Proven Human (As Defined by Rites of Conscience)

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

I once saw a foal and a child born at different times of the same day. One had no conscience and would remain a picture of innocence until its slaughter for human convenience; the other would soon become wise to the ways of the world and learn to manipulate them … one way or another.

INNOCENT, UNTIL PROVEN HUMAN (AS DEFINED BY RITES OF CONSCIENCE)

Every birth, a celebration,
history redeeming
the very nature of creation

At break of day, an ovation
for each living thing;
every birth, a celebration

From its time of hibernation,
a glorious spring;
the very nature of creation

At the heart of every season,
find love enduring;
every birth, a celebration

If history pauses for no one,
find in its evolving,
the very nature of creation

Seeds of a world’s salvation
here for the nurturing;
at every birth, celebration,
the very nature of creation

Copyright R. N. Taber 2009; 2015

Catcher in the Eye done Good

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

Years ago, I saw a painting in an art gallery that has made me reflect on the beauty of memory, capturing and preserving a precious moment in time. Yes, a photograph can do much the same, but a painting is so much more than a photograph; it reads aloud to the inner ear, thus inviting the inner eye to appreciate its every deliberate brush stroke in much the same sense and sensibility as one might appreciate iambic meter in a poem. As with all creative endeavour, the art lies in its artlessness, artist rewarding observer with an insight to a process that requires we tap into reserves of feeling of which the chances are we are not consciously aware.

Memory may fade, but the art-poem remains a part of us and will be sure to manifest itself in our approach to life, love, nature and human nature…; indeed, to  just about everything.

‘Oh,’ I hear some people say, ‘but that’s only if you have the imagination…’ Bollocks, to that! Imagination can and does work on our consciousness, yes, but it also works on the subconscious, possibly to even greater effect. So never let anyone lead you to believe you have no imagination; the human condition is better than that even where, sometimes, human nature fails us. 

Imagination is that Catcher in the Eye of which we may or may not be well aware but which, in any case, remains one of the sweeter mysteries of the human condition. 

CATCHER IN THE EYE DONE GOOD

Young girl with daisies
in the hair darts across a greeny field;
though brooding sheep
keep a sidelong watch on playful lambs,
the merry scene
attracts a frisky foal, prancing
at a boundary fence

Innocence

Young girl with daisies
in the hair glimpses a pretty butterfly,
gives laughing chase;
one tangent wing at a finger's tip,
angel face glowing
hope’s pink blushes, elusive happiness
caught on canvas

Copyright R. N. Taber 1974; 2001

[Note: An earlier version of this poem - under the title 'Brush Strokes' - first appears in Love and Human Remains: poems by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2000.]