Sunday 29 December 2013

On a London Street in December.Revised Version.

Just one backward glance
Then you were gone;
The dissonance of city traffic
Distorting the sound of your footsteps;
The edge of your long white scarf
Lifted deftly upon the wind
As you turned the corner.

The shadows have now become
more sharply defined
than just one hour ago.
The distant moon, strangely translucent,
Shines through the mottled cloud
Like an electric light through muslin.
For a moment I clearly recall
The smile of my long dead mother
As she watched two restive children
playing together. I thought I could snatch the moon
If I climbed up onto her shoulder.

When memories fail the world turns bitter
Like a dark night with no bright star;
Flowers that have lost their colour;
Windfalls that rot when handled.
The electric moon continues to silver the rooftops
with a cruel and eerie brilliance
that dazzles my half closed eyes.-
London seems empty without you.

Send me word from your distant homeland
The moment that you are free to do so.
I am already missing your soft voice;
Your pale face creasing with laughter.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
29th. - 30th. December 2013. 
2nd. - 31st. January 2014.

Wednesday 25 December 2013

Doctor Faustus.(Revised)

Faustus, of course, got it wrong,
As necromancers and licensed profiteers
Invariably do;
Relying, as always, on a dead and musty tradition
To validate nefarious activities;
The back stabbing daring do,
The gilded handshakes with politicians,
The abuse of the poor,
The lack of a moral compass.

Faustus followed this tradition to perfection,
Preferring a night on the tiles
To academic success;
And a dead queen really got his pecker up.
But when all is said and done, he was merely
a lousy businessman, sold on an easy profit
and a chance to hoodwink authority.

After twenty four years of not doing a proper job;
Wasting his petty investments; filching illicit sex;
Mocking God; preening like a cut price cowboy;
He got booted down into Hell
To be steamed in a permanent sauna;
A Health-Spa so ultra exclusive
               it could not be hired out by the super rich.

Was this final scene worth all the farce and the fury?
The magic circles? The tattooed arms and wrists?
The well scratched backs? The snuggling up to the devil?
Only our hero could answer these pointed questions
Provided the script was made ready,
But his speechwriter went on a binge one starry night,
Got stabbed in the eye, and could no longer come up
                                                           with the goods.
Faustus was left without help, lost in the melee;  uptight;
Dumb as a mannequin,            ditched and out of sorts;
Cursing the day that he devoted his life
To beach party hijinks and amateur sports.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 23rd. - 25th. - 26th. - 30th.  2013.