Uncertainties

A slight change in the evening light
To remind us of less settled times
Stirred up by a colder wind;
August scrapes the edge of Autumn.

Tonight we cannot see the stars,
A sail of cloud flaps high and wild
To drive this ark we crouch within
Against the dark.

Frozen, scared, resisting sleep
We huddle like children in the dark
Knowing that the moon wont rise,
But we stare & stare at the cloth grey skies.

Surgeons braced your delicate womb
With a web of stitching that must not break:
Last night the moon was red like blood
But the breeze as soft as an angels breath.

We snuggle up tight against the dark
In hope of new life to brighten the ark
And mock old death.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
August 29th. - 30th. 2012.  

Dark Beginnings.

I have found your poems
Inscribed precisely on scraps of paper
                Fifty years ago
And left to my safe keeping.

I can see you now, pen in hand,
Kneeling low on the kitchen floor
                in my mother`s house;
Thick black hair swung over your face
As you fought to refine an exuberance of words.

You were just fifteen then,
A fierce Irish girl intent on a brawl
                for the smallest slight,
Your adolescent dreams deeply in thrall
To macabre images of death.

Just like a child you hated the night,
But your true fear was honed to a sharper edge,
The elemental urgency of adult love
               More terror filled than dying.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
August 27th. 2012.  

A Song of Longing.

Torn from my dreams by grief
I swear to keep
This precious gift you gave me
Safely lodged
In that box of trinkets stashed
Close by the bedroom window.

Shutters swing out like hands
Spread open wide to snatch
The first glimmer of the sun
In a gesture of pagan prayer
Whilst night dissolves, then dies.

The morning light reveals
A glissando of many colours
Distilled in muted reverie
On lake and mountain top.
The night lamp loses relevance.
Shadows slink back into corners.

This precious gift I clasp
Out dazzles the morning light
With an intensity that burns
Beyond the powers of reason.
It cannot be cheated of beauty
By clouds or wintry weather.

Last night I searched for your photograph
Deep down in my clutter of keepsakes,
But I am sorry, I could not find it.
My love you have been away for so long
I can barely remember your face.

I think of you in India
At prayer in an ancient mosque
As the evening shadows lengthen.
Outside that guarded sanctuary
The noise and heat of the market
Stuns like a fierce narcotic.

Caught in this mayhem of commerce
I stumble from doorway to doorway
In search of that secret mosque.
But the crowds are forcing me deeper
Into a labyrinth of chaos.

Torn from my dreams by grief
I swear to truly keep
This gift of trust you gave me
Lodged deep in the layered box.
I crave for your safe return,
Until then I am dark with longing.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
August 25th.- 26th. 2012.

A Tramp describes his One ever Love.

This little sketch is based upon a character who roamed the streets of London when I was a boy. I clearly recall him wearing a battered Top Hat while dancing an improvised solo gig at Speakers Corner. According to legend and rumour he departed the family home forever on the very day that he had inherited the property from his wealthy father. From that day forward he lived as a vagrant. On one occasion I shared my packed lunch with him in Regents Park.He seemed to be the type of person who loved a simple life.- I dedicate this poem to my Sufi Soul Mate , who will fully understand.    


She asked me to cut holes in my shoes
to prove that I love her.
I did so, with romantic swagger
and theatrical gesture;
It was no mean act to hole my only shoes.


When finished, she quietly thanked me
and then, kissing the tips of her fingers, neatly
turned upon her heal, smiled whimsically
and skipped off down the pathway
Lifting her skirt from the puddles.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
July 18th. 1966 - August 23rd. 2012. 
August 7th. 2015.

Resurgence.

Thus now we discover Candlemas,
Unexpectedly awoken in the frost white city,
A barren metropolis restored to humanity
As we walk hand in hand through the concrete streets.
You hold onto me tightly as we enter the church.

Thus now we are consecrate to Candlemas,
In a sudden cold movement of uncertain intensity
Electrifying the depths of this February evening
With the frigid fire of ancestral memory
Arcing from taper to taper, from Officiator to Acolyte
But barely illuminating our hands, our faces
As we bend forward in a moment of prayer.

Yes now we are consecrate to Candlemas.

(Cometh ye sermon./ Lingo Moderne./ neo Tabloid Speak.)

Ignoring the priest you kiss my cold fingers
And smile at me archly.-

                                     Oh How I Do Love Thee!
Winter is diminishing. The Spring is now certain,
Soon the white snowdrops shall cover the Heath.
Oh God, How I Do Love Thee! .
                                      But I must whisper oh so quietly
As the choir intones plainchant into the night.

I have loved thee since childhood
                                       Since our first frenzied school days
When we laughed and we danced and we kicked and we screamed
And we battled and sprinted across the High Heath,
Chasing our shadows like a pair of mad puppies,
                                         A disorder of fox cubs,
                                         A convulsion of geese.
Young poets of mayhem mocking a dull world,
them teachers in grey coats, them boring old priests,
                                          Old ladies in snow boots,
Widowers in weeds.
Oh then we shouted and sang at the dumb winter world scape
Our disconsolate, irreverent, fierce dialects of passion,
Raw songs of new shaping rough hewn, so much to our liking,
From that wild pagan language, our dear piratical English,
The tongue of sea traders, kings, bandits, dissenters,
Ancient and Modern, sap heavy with new strength
Distilled from a fusion of epochs in the sacrament of making;
Dragged into feral life like a child torn out of the darkness
By the conjuring of Shakespeare, of Middleton and Rowley.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 1st. 2011. - 21st. August 2012.

Dark Transfigurations (Original Version, Poem re-written December 2015)..

The Feast of the Dormition
A threnody of weeping
Solemn as winter
The church almost empty

Nails break upon hard wood
A taper gutters
A baby cries

I step aside from the golden curtain
Stumble and shiver
Walk to our home

The silence shimmers

You enter my room
An ivory Angel
White naked breasts
Blatant with summer

A baby cries
We hardly perceive her
I caress your beauty
Hands golden with worship

But you turn from my loving
To comfort the child
I watch your curved shoulders
Weighed down with compassion

I stumble to help you
But sleep comes to part us
A cold hard door
Slammed in the darkness

Love opens my senses
To dying haunting us always
Nails break upon hard wood
A threnody of weeping

Silence returns
Solemn as winter
Night shades out the beauty -  the sweet beauty of life
A taper gutters

I step aside from the golden curtain


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 

August 17th.- 19th.- October 12th. 2012.

Storm Spite, Some Lincolnshire Impressions.

In the middle of this night
Dense winds paw the trees
That sing like prisoners

Whipped branches tap the windows
Lift and splinter slates
As if demanding entry

The broken Norman tower
Sinks slowly back to sand
The sea gulls wheel like vultures

A house proud hunch backed mole
Steers a careful tunnel
Between the upright gravestones

Tall fields of wheat
Buck like giddy seas
The farmer counts black sheep

A tiny dust grey moth
Whirls against the light bulb
The wind beats back the silence

Buffeting the locked doors
The storms last hammer thrust
Slams back upon itself

Shimmering the still air
Dawn nudges the grey horizen
Softly into view

A fragile splendour stirs



Trevor John Karsavin Potter
August 1st. 1968, Market Raisen.

Collage.

elusive
                 shadowy
shifting
deeper than reason
                  the gods
Christianity
                  Holy Fools
The Face on the Icon
The face in the crowd
                   tears
laughter
wise virgins of Strasbourg
Chartres
The Tears of The Virgin
Cathedral glass
                  Buddha
bats in the belfry
the stillness of water
the ship of death
                 and
                 after time
singing
swinging
Saints in the pub
                   in mufti
                   serendipity
uncensored
or poetry
                    a window
cracked
shards of scattered highlights
                    mended
crafted
cut
cannily into elegant patterns
maybe reflecting the truth



Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
9th. August 2012. 

Post Modern Beauty. Revised Version.

Mona Lisa`s face without the smile, yet flawless,
never to be scarred by age or exposure to the sun.
Groomed for the cat walk. The camera`s prying eye.
A Fashion Plate image refracted through amber glass
as the doors swing open wide, spilling the winter air
deep into the pub. She was not seen to enter then, but
for a moment her face flickered in the alcove mirror
like a faded video image.
            
                    Candle light obscured her finest features
with filigree shadow.
                 
                                Unaware for a moment where dreams
begin or vanish, I set down my glass and left the mirrored
alcove, hoping to find her in the swirling crowd.

                                                                                    Was that her 
there, dancing in the shadow?

                                                     I reached out to touch her shoulder;
but only the air seemed tangible, seemed real. I turned back to my seat
defeated.

Her face had quit the mirror.            The door slammed shut in the wind.

A shrill laugh echoed in the street outside.

  



Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
August 5th. - 6th. 2012- June 28th. 2014.        ( From an idea dating back to 1962).

London - 1966.

I broke my promise,
I did not visit you,
I sat all alone in the pub
Nursing my self regard
Like a pampered pop star.
Disturbed by your candid truthfulness
I had become afraid of intimacy.

You waited all day in your room
Staring out of the window at the busy street
Hoping to spy the visitor who never came.
The day cooled and darkened,
A shower sluiced the dirt into rivulets of mud.
The weather mirrored your mood.
Your friends told me that you cried then
But you never showed me your tears,
Nor your anger, nor your love,
But your silence was familiar to me.

The next day I arrived on the doorstep,
Dishevelled, unkempt, just like the weather.
You said nothing, your face was a stern mask,
You turned away from my glances. Frozen out
I snatched some chit-chat with your neighbour,
Snippets of news and some general tittle-tattle.
You never said a word, but hunched by the fire
Studied my every move, listening.

And then you stood up, head lowered, just like a nun,
Or maybe a Pre-Raphaelite priestess nursing a grief.
Gently you brushed my face with your fingers
As you slipped passed me, not speaking, to your room.
I stared at the lino, now noting how worn it was,
Spotted by cigarette burns and greasy yellow stains;
The bare patches looked like sacking.

Your father put down his newspaper.

The door closed softly behind you.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter, May 16th.2008 - August 2nd. 2012.
Revised January 6th. 2013.