Autumnal Mood Poem, Bankside London; Lovers Strolling. (A Poem in Three Sections).

                       1.

November sun
A marigold shrouded in white mist
Trying desperately to bloom.

We walk hand in hand
By the black waters of the sluggish river,
The cold wind cutting through our coats.

Summer has packed her bags and flown due south,
Hitching a lift on the spread wings
Of migrant birds.

We are forced to remain here by the chilly Thames
Safeguarding mementoes of warmer days
Deposited in flimsy boxes.

Faded memorandums scrawled on old note pads
More delicate than sheets of ancient newspaper,
Or dead leaves scattered by the wind.

We walk hand in hand,
A couple in thrall to the internet jungle
But more in love with the raw edged past
Than to the pseudo amnesiac twenty first century.

We walk hand in hand
Our lives reflected in the words of the poets
Who long ago burnished the mirror of language.

                        2.

Deep in the mud beneath these pavements
The ghost prints of Marlowe, Shakespeare and Fletcher
Have marked our environment forever.

We who keep Theatre alive on Bankside
Are not just the keepers of personal histories
But the full time guardians of civilisation.

We work for the world, not just for ourselves,
Nor the petulant flocks of summertime tourists
Who land in plane loads, take pics, then are gone.

We must toil all winter to keep the light burning
In the dark corners where memory shelters,
Locked in documents unread for centuries.

Memory stored in a fossilised shoe,
Or the scored bones of a baited bear
Dug out of the foreshore.

We walk hand in hand,
Our pockets bulging with renaissance play texts,
The newsroom spreadsheets of their era
Cobbled together on the banks of this river.

To safeguard this heritage we toil night and day,
In fear of the vandals who would desecrate history
If it blocked their access to easy money.

                         3.

A fragile mist rising over the water
Blurs the facade of a bling mad city,
Office blocks flashing a fluorescent cheapness
Rapier slashing the skin of the darkness.

We watch the twilight redden the dull waves
And talk of Leander alone by the sea
Dreaming of Hero, his priestess lover;
And for a time we forget this iron cold day.

For a time we forget the twenty first century
As we walk hand in hand, lost in each other.
We talk of the poets who fashioned our language
And dream of their past locked in London clay.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 21st. - 27th. - 28th. 2013.
December 4th. - 11th. 2013.
For all my friends at the Rose Theatre, Bankside.

A Threnody for Josephine Mary.

             1

For one hour only
Snow lay upon the roof
And then the Autumn rains returned
To wash the slates clean.

The first night that we spent together
The temperature had dropped to zero
In the streets outside.
You lay as still as a sleeping cat
Snuggled by the fire
In a ball of fur.
Your hand curled under my hand.
Your warm breath brushing my shoulder.
Your heart tapping like a toy drum.
I held you as close as I dared in the rickety bed,
Held you and watched you melt into sleep
With a kind of nervous wonder.
               
               2.

Last Friday night our daughter was born
after five tough years of IVF treatment
that pushed your body almost to breaking point.-
For one hour only you held her in your arms.
For one hour only you hugged her tight and kissed her.
For one hour only she rested on your breast.

                3.

Baby died.
Mummy cried.
The neighbours` children played outside
as usual.

There are no healing words to say.
Words are meaningless today.

Baby died.
Mummy cried.
The neighbours` children played outside.
The world passed by
as usual.

There are no healing words to say.
Words are empty noise today.

Baby died.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 20th. - 21st. 2013. December 31st. 2013.
September 1st. - 2nd. 2014.- October 18th. 2015.

(1). November 11th. 2014. (Longer Revised Version). (2). Mr Baxter.

                1. 

November 11th. 2014.


The silence drifted over England
Like the smoke from a cannon
After the echoes had faded.

A million million poppies fell from the clouds,
At 11 am preciously.
Small drops of congealed blood
Settling on upturned faces
Pale with the cold.

Fear cuts into the silence a cruel wound
Deeper than grief can stab.
A terror of what might occur
Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after,
Is almost more compelling
Than tears for the maimed and the dead.

The past is the past,
What happened is merely what happened.
The dead have buried the dead
In pits dug where they had fallen
On the killing grounds of France.
Dead Man`s Dump has been levelled.

It is the fear of a future catastrophe
That makes us stand here in silence
Under the blood red snow.

The fear that someone just might
Press down a small red button
And blow the world to pieces.

One moment of lazy thinking
Converting the Earth into ashes.

I bare my head to the poppies.
They are lighter than the breath of children.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 11th. - 13th. 2013.
Eight new lines added, September 23rd. 2017.
------------------------------------------------

                 2.

        Mr. Baxter.


He kept me awake all night with his coughing,
Our Mr. Baxter.
His lungs scraped raw by gas
As he crouched in the slime of the trenches
Waiting to kill or be killed.

These fierce wounds saved his life,
But almost a lifetime later I lay awake screaming
And crying out loud for my mother;
A child unable to sleep
In the shadow of his war.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 14th. 2013.  

November 5th.

A labyrinth of neon slashing the sky
With disordered art work
Capricious,
Short lived, but burned on the retina;
Cheap fireworks vandalize the autumn night
For a loud half hour
Then dissipate into swathes of acrid smoke
That leave a foul taste on the tongue.


Wearing my loneliness on my sleeve
Like a torn thread,
I remember you fiercely tugging at my shoulder
As you danced me into the neighbour field
For one last hour of larking.
You did not tell me then your private plans;
A one way ticket to an unnamed destination
Already in your pocket.


A distant bonfire crackling under trees
Excites a party of children,
Your grandson leading the riot
As the rockets fizzle and fall.
I shamble over the neighbour field
Half aware of your shadow ghosting the landscape
Cold as the early frost.
I have wrapped your favourite Winter Coat around me,
But it no longer keeps out the weather.


Old "Thorny" Price, freelance Fairground Barker
And feral mischief maker of my youth,
Your absence cuts me deeper than the East Wind
Shaking red leaves out of branches.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
November 4th. - 7th. - 10th.- 14th.  2013.