Saturday 31 August 2013

(1) August 30th. 2013.(2) Late May Morning.(3) Farewell. (4). Repost.

                1.

    August 30th. 2013.

Today all Ireland is weeping
But, as usual,
               No one is listening.


Goodnight sweet Prince,
True memory cannot invoke you,
Silence now claims it`s due.


Your poems are rough hewn
                               monuments
Slowly remade by the weather.


We must not, for any reason, be afraid.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
August 31st. 2013.
Last line added September 4th. 2013.
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                 2.

Late May Morning.

Translucent leaves
Green glass on black boughs
Absorbing the sun
Exposing the bones of the world

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 31st. 2013.
-----------------------------------------

                  3

            Farewell.

Ending quietly
A small leaf dropped
On a moonlit pond
Causing no ripples

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 11th. 2013. 
----------------------------------------

                  4.

            Reposte.

My ex wife snarled
"Mujak"
as I cleared the household rubbish.
But she never danced a single night
with Karsavina,
And she could not dig up cabbages.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 3rd. 2013. 

Monday 19 August 2013

The Rose

The Rose of all our hopes
Lies deep in Southwark mud
A hostage
A smothered dream
Crushed
              But not forsaken

I lift it from the mud
Just like a broken keepsake
And offer it to you
A gift of love
A token

Please take it from my hand
And plant it in your Heart
Your living garden

There is life locked in these roots
This gnarled and broken stem
Old life we still can honour
Care for
              Cherish

So please accept this gift
This sacred bond that links
Historic generations -
The Britons with the Greeks -
The Renaissance with the Modern

Please take it from my hand
To nurture in your Heart
That it may prosper
Flourish

Grow tall
And once more blossom


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
19th. - 31st. August 2013.
For my friends at The Rose Theatre, Bankside.


Sunday 18 August 2013

(1) To J M the D T`s. (2) Fatal Secrets.

               1.

To J M the D T`s, ie, Victimized by a Fashion Queen.

Blue hair,
Those orange eyes
Tigerish, Open;
Curving lips seethe through the suburbs
Like Smoke.


Jack Frost
Supersedes Not
Your Sharpness: Nor can
Quick ore burn deeper than your

Silences.


You turn,
I follow. You glance
Hypnotic Curses through me
Making ME perform YOUR Measures,
Spin                          Until I fall.


But soon
The strings will SNAP
Beneath YOUR Fingers,
Jangling notes in your brain`s
Museum:

Then I`ll DANCE..................


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 14th. 1968. Slightly revised January 8th. 1973.  

--------------------------------------------

                2.

      Fatal Secrets.

Consigned to anonymity
The skeleton of King Richard the Third -
A wrecked oak lying in the undergrowth
The top hacked through by a crude axe
Branches snagged
Caught in the foetid marsh
The last leaf fallen

Even now
The final question has not been ventured -
The most important information
Lodged in the Mortician`s Pending Tray
His little black box -
We need to know what happened in The Tower
That sultry summer evening
But so far no one has blabbed

Leaning forward to stare into the vortex
The heroic patience of the Archaeologists
Certainly impresses
Keeps us on our toes -
But the harsh light of forensic technology
Has yet to guide us closer to the truth
Or laser open an unexpected clue

Crouched beside the tangled hedgerow
That masks the ruined oak tree
I watch a single Kestrel swoop and glide
High above the edge of Bosworth Field -
No other signs of life disrupt the landscape
Irk the mist drenched morning
Except perhaps a slight breeze smudged by woodsmoke
Nudging some nearby thorns


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
12th. - 13th. August 2013.


Tuesday 13 August 2013

Anne. (Revised Version).

                       1

Anne,
These photographs do you no justice,
They are the evidence for the prosecution
With no defence allowed.
A scribble of black and white lies
Disrupting a blank surface.
They mock you with their lack of colour,
Lack of life.
They are the smoke that rises out of dry ice;
Ashes cold and brittle.

                       2

There is no sense of you permitted.
No tangible presence. No true Anne
Revealed, printed on this yellowing paper
Designed to fade, to fall apart, become dust.
One Album hoarding a lifetime in snapshots,
Each image besmirched with a layer of gloss
Now split and cracked like a shattered window.

                        3

Your truth is not locked in this Photograph Album,
Entombed in implacable black and white.
Not the dance of your eyes; not your voice;
Not the raw young fire of your body;
That catastrophe known as your mind.
These photographs fabricate uncertain epitaphs,
Simplistic memos chalked on a slate.

                         4

Your kisses tasted of Gauloises,
And sometimes of whiskey and gin.
Your laugh leaped out of the darkness
Scorching the East London night.
Your fingers danced in my open hand
Like a troupe of feral Gypsies.
You teased me with your poetry,
Cracking down on my conventional dreams.

                         5

Anne,        You fracked the mould;
Hijacked my heart;
Kick started my gung - ho high life;
Showed me the ways of the world.

These prints do not compliment memory,
They can only make certain      my grief.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
5th. - 6th. - 13th. - 14th.- 31st.  August 2013.
(Dedicated to A S, my long lost friend).

Friday 2 August 2013

(1) Moon. (2) The Pianist. (Revised Version).


                1.

            Moon.

The Moon and I are pals.
She rests in the branches of my apple tree
Like a white fruit;
An Arctic Owl,
Her hooded eyes the texture of raw shale,
Her smile a curved shadow,
Her laugh is silent.

In her presence I keep no secret.
My transgression starkly exposed
Under the spotlight.
The surgeon`s hatchet honed.
I have sensed her forensic gaze skewer me as I sleep;
Slicing into my dream world
Like twin diamond points
Polished to kill.
But she commits no murder this time,
She is merely a cool observer,
A non judgemental spy. -
My lover watches the Moon for half the night,
But she is not an expert astronomer.

I have been a rover more years than I dare remember;
Living from moment to moment,
From hour to hour;
Grasping unlikely luck with both strong hands.
The Moon, as ever, the only reliable witness,
Impaled in the old apple tree,
Unable to alter her view point;
Unable to find her tongue.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 12th. - 28th. - 29th. 2013.
Opening two lines only, September 1971.

----------------------------------------------------

                2.

       The Pianist. (Revised Version).

You play every note right
But do not touch my heart

The soul lives in the gaps
Between the plunging octaves

Haunts the empty spaces
The sudden depths of silence

You play every note right
But never get the point

The beauty of life is found within
our everyday               mistakes

So please pack up the sheet music
Before you come to bed

You have played every note right
Staccato rhythms knock me dead

But if truth were told Miss Horowitz
Your style is a touch too smart

I had rather get you in the raw
Than refined by Liszt and Bach


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 2nd. - 3rd. - 4th.  2013.
April 23rd. 2015.