1.
Bright Dandelions.
The beauty of these dandelions reminding me of you,
My wild flower,
My rider of the untamed ponies
Trekking summer fields
Fording rock strewn rivers.
Wide teenage eyes laughing,
Pantheistic, fierce in the pre dawn half light,
Pristine mirrors of the god.
Small hands grasping thrusting shoulders.
Yellow hair streaming.
Distorted by technology,
The lens coarse ground, unfocused,
You on your wild pony, white shirt torn open;
This Kodak printed image
Fades, nicotine stained by sunlight.
These days I now prefer to trust
The embroideries of my memory
However worn and ancient;
The finest patterns crafted with the threads of Sichuan silk
Lofted high on Pennine wind.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
16th. - 18th.- 22nd. April 2013.
----------------------------------------------------.
2.
Dandelion Removal.
I drag the Dandelion out of the narrow border
With trowel and fingers:
Tearing apart my chosen victim, my class A prisoner,
Into several ragged pieces.
Shreds of life that did not seem to matter
Thrown to the April wind.
With one quick move I serenely sacrifice
The unwanted ugly baby.
I become in my garden a sort of amateur Nazi
Trying to enforce strict order
With spade and sharp edged hoe.
Thrusting the heal of my green boot into the raw earth
I arrange the perfected, the vacuum packed species
Into long well mannered rows.
This is my chance to indulge in a little fanaticism,
To drill a small notch in the world.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
15th. April 2013. - 12th. September 2014.
-------------------------------------------------------
3.
Nuits Saint Georges and Josephine.
I taste you in this wine,
The sweet and bitter fruits
Dissolving over my tongue
And slithering into my belly
To make me very drunk,
Like Nelson stuck in the Brandy.
The intoxication explains to me
With simple, Pub Time stories,
Why I have never felt properly sane
When left alone in your company
My Showgirl of the windswept horses.
I am completely enthralled by your face,
My python slung Eurydice,
My Gypsy with the raven black hair
And Big Top bare back grace,
Your unprincipled savoir - faire
That your friends think fine and funny,
Has led us to the brink of disgrace.
I fear you will saunter away
Like a Pop Stars doting baby
Caught up in the underworld heat
That snakes through the depths of our city.
I can see you in Wardour Street
Bereft of your favourite pony,
Earning your living in Bars
With the voice of a victimized angel,
And your delicate dancing feet.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
13th. April 2013. - 27th. June - 15th. August 2013.
.
Thursday 18 April 2013
Thursday 11 April 2013
Two Love Poems.(1) Wild Ponies.(Revised Version). - (2) Tomorrow Could be Different.
1.
Wild Ponies. (Revised Version).
Riding unbridled ponies across cold fields,
The wind scything through our loose hair,
We outsmart our fears laughing.
And afterwards, you on the damp grass,
Dress hitched high up over your shoulders
Exposing slim thighs, belly, breasts, all
White as the winter snowdrifts,
Boots kicked deep into the undergrowth
As though they were of no importance,
Although, when you snatched them off the
shelf last week
They were your absolute pride and joy,
Your leap into sophistication,
Your commitment to a grander market;
But now, all caution shoved into the wind
like scraps of lies,
We vandalize the rough insanities of love
With Shakespearean audacity,
The beast with two backs tupping in the grass;
Mud larking miscreants roughing up propriety. -
"And O My God How I Love the shear abundance
of You!
Your hot salt flesh fierce against my mouth,
Feet kicking against my legs,
Young breasts already sour with drops of milk."
Flat on our backs we stare out at the stars
Shimmering in the frost haze, almost beyond sight,
Far above the filigree mask of trees.-
Snuggled up naked, warm in this wintry night,
Our shared thoughts soaring way beyond ourselves
Like apprentice astronauts, angels honed to flight,
Arcing across our universe in sheaves of fire
To force the heavens open with brand new light,
The force field of redemption.-
"Angels are jet propelled", you once proclaimed
Staring me straight in the eye, "Like Christ in the firmament".
We make our peace with the world, and also with
each other,-
"Those two are wild as the ponies that they ride",
Our next door neighbours whisper."But fiercer than the ponies".
"They will both come to a bad end, you mark my words".
"Just like his Dad?" "Just like her bitch of a mother."
The night is as thin as rice paper, we can hear every sound, every word
Murmured near or far. Two miscreants curled together, squeezed in a pod,
Dreaming of those delicate ponies dancing through uncut grass.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 21st. -22nd. - 27th. - September 2nd. - 3rd. 2013.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Tomorrow Could be Different.
You sit on the edge of the bed
Like a street kid hogging the pavement
Legs wide apart.
Meantime, I carry on with my daily chores,
Typing poems, cooking dinner, washing floors,
Confronting the newspaper.
Some mornings I make attempts at prayer,
But when I knock and look in on the mirror
I wonder what on earth I see in there.
Perhaps our world is full of heavenly angels,
But it seems my Hen, you are not one of them,
And I am merely something the cat dragged in.
But then at least we do have one another,
So when you finally decide to come downstairs,
We might as well lie low and have a cuddle.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
11th. - 12th. March 2013.
Wild Ponies. (Revised Version).
Riding unbridled ponies across cold fields,
The wind scything through our loose hair,
We outsmart our fears laughing.
And afterwards, you on the damp grass,
Dress hitched high up over your shoulders
Exposing slim thighs, belly, breasts, all
White as the winter snowdrifts,
Boots kicked deep into the undergrowth
As though they were of no importance,
Although, when you snatched them off the
shelf last week
They were your absolute pride and joy,
Your leap into sophistication,
Your commitment to a grander market;
But now, all caution shoved into the wind
like scraps of lies,
We vandalize the rough insanities of love
With Shakespearean audacity,
The beast with two backs tupping in the grass;
Mud larking miscreants roughing up propriety. -
"And O My God How I Love the shear abundance
of You!
Your hot salt flesh fierce against my mouth,
Feet kicking against my legs,
Young breasts already sour with drops of milk."
Flat on our backs we stare out at the stars
Shimmering in the frost haze, almost beyond sight,
Far above the filigree mask of trees.-
Snuggled up naked, warm in this wintry night,
Our shared thoughts soaring way beyond ourselves
Like apprentice astronauts, angels honed to flight,
Arcing across our universe in sheaves of fire
To force the heavens open with brand new light,
The force field of redemption.-
"Angels are jet propelled", you once proclaimed
Staring me straight in the eye, "Like Christ in the firmament".
We make our peace with the world, and also with
each other,-
"Those two are wild as the ponies that they ride",
Our next door neighbours whisper."But fiercer than the ponies".
"They will both come to a bad end, you mark my words".
"Just like his Dad?" "Just like her bitch of a mother."
The night is as thin as rice paper, we can hear every sound, every word
Murmured near or far. Two miscreants curled together, squeezed in a pod,
Dreaming of those delicate ponies dancing through uncut grass.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 21st. -22nd. - 27th. - September 2nd. - 3rd. 2013.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Tomorrow Could be Different.
You sit on the edge of the bed
Like a street kid hogging the pavement
Legs wide apart.
Meantime, I carry on with my daily chores,
Typing poems, cooking dinner, washing floors,
Confronting the newspaper.
Some mornings I make attempts at prayer,
But when I knock and look in on the mirror
I wonder what on earth I see in there.
Perhaps our world is full of heavenly angels,
But it seems my Hen, you are not one of them,
And I am merely something the cat dragged in.
But then at least we do have one another,
So when you finally decide to come downstairs,
We might as well lie low and have a cuddle.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
11th. - 12th. March 2013.
Thursday 4 April 2013
Two Poems, (1) Barn Owls. (2) On the Cusp of Spring and Winter.
1.
Barn Owls.
The moment you left the house
I became like a stick thrown into the wind
With no place to fall.
A dead leaf dropped on the wet ground
Scuffed at by laughing children
Chasing after a ball.
A plastic cup dropped in the gutter
Slowly dismembered into shreds
Under which two waterlogged beetles
Skid and crawl.
But what of you, do we see you at all
Rushing back to your dying brother
Now collapsed in his freezing caravan
Like a foal curled up in a stall?
Do we see you crying at midnight
As he lies coughing under his window?
Now counting the pulse of his breath
While outside the Barn Owls call?
No, we are too busy scratching at sores,
At our jealousy and other trite sorrows
As we stare bleakly into the mirror.
We do not notice your kindness at all.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 4th. 2013. .
-------------------------------------
2.
On the Cusp of Spring and Winter.
The dark forest cracks open its bare bones
To reveal the fledgling leaves.
The softened leaf mould breaks apart, bursts
And roughly heaves with fevered disruptions
Splitting open the secret heart of the forest.
Awakened saplings strive to muscle upwards
To greet a distant rumour of the sun.
The river stretches out a thickened fist,
A bruised fist towards the distant ocean.
Ice crashes down the mountainside in a torrent of rainbows
Dissolving ancient escarpments, water courses, unstable cliffs,
Mixed up with the wreck of woodlands, dead bracken, liquid
soil, the remnants of animals. Flesh wood and leaf mould
Thrown down to replenish the earth.
And we, the grieving citizens of the Earth,
Fierce children tamed by artificial means
Learned in the neon glamour of the streets,
The slick life of the city, the forum of plastic
dreams. We, the inheritors, cut off from ancient
hearths, our rural forbears, the comforts of
community. We, the suckling babes of Mother
Earth, Exiled in concrete citadels of light,
Gleaming charnel houses cloaked in steel and
glass / That vandalize the sky, block out the stars.
We too await the onslaught of the Spring
To galvanize with hope our lonely lives.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Sketched January 30th. 1991, Kehl am Rhein. -
Revised London December 5th. 2003. - April 4th.- 5th. 2013.
Barn Owls.
The moment you left the house
I became like a stick thrown into the wind
With no place to fall.
A dead leaf dropped on the wet ground
Scuffed at by laughing children
Chasing after a ball.
A plastic cup dropped in the gutter
Slowly dismembered into shreds
Under which two waterlogged beetles
Skid and crawl.
But what of you, do we see you at all
Rushing back to your dying brother
Now collapsed in his freezing caravan
Like a foal curled up in a stall?
Do we see you crying at midnight
As he lies coughing under his window?
Now counting the pulse of his breath
While outside the Barn Owls call?
No, we are too busy scratching at sores,
At our jealousy and other trite sorrows
As we stare bleakly into the mirror.
We do not notice your kindness at all.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 4th. 2013. .
-------------------------------------
2.
On the Cusp of Spring and Winter.
The dark forest cracks open its bare bones
To reveal the fledgling leaves.
The softened leaf mould breaks apart, bursts
And roughly heaves with fevered disruptions
Splitting open the secret heart of the forest.
Awakened saplings strive to muscle upwards
To greet a distant rumour of the sun.
The river stretches out a thickened fist,
A bruised fist towards the distant ocean.
Ice crashes down the mountainside in a torrent of rainbows
Dissolving ancient escarpments, water courses, unstable cliffs,
Mixed up with the wreck of woodlands, dead bracken, liquid
soil, the remnants of animals. Flesh wood and leaf mould
Thrown down to replenish the earth.
And we, the grieving citizens of the Earth,
Fierce children tamed by artificial means
Learned in the neon glamour of the streets,
The slick life of the city, the forum of plastic
dreams. We, the inheritors, cut off from ancient
hearths, our rural forbears, the comforts of
community. We, the suckling babes of Mother
Earth, Exiled in concrete citadels of light,
Gleaming charnel houses cloaked in steel and
glass / That vandalize the sky, block out the stars.
We too await the onslaught of the Spring
To galvanize with hope our lonely lives.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Sketched January 30th. 1991, Kehl am Rhein. -
Revised London December 5th. 2003. - April 4th.- 5th. 2013.
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