(1) Recollections of an Old Dancer (Revised).(2).Shadow Play: The Ballerena Replies.

(For Zoe Smith, 1950 - 2011, who never was a dancer,
but, perhaps, should have been).


                   1.

Recollections of an Old Dancer.(Revised Version).


The doctors were wrong.
That old problem has not crippled me.
I could have continued dancing.
But now I can barely think about those times,
The hours in Class;
Those hard won Terpsichorean movements
When we were partners, collaborators,
Before that faulty diagnoses
Fractured our relationship, (forever)?

You were my White Swan,
My Cinderella, my Snow Maiden,
The girl who melted away at the start of summer,
                  Only to return to haunt me
When those sudden winds, announcing the onset
of autumn, Rattled the window panes
And scurried fallen leaves along the pavements.

You remained with me for most of that winter,
A white kitten lodged in our tenement apartment;
The coal fire, that seldom warmed the grate,
Flickering red lights deep down in your eyes;
My enigmatic friend, my Snegurochka,
Pale Cinders with her besom and ancient scuttle;
Fraught scion of Les Saisons Russe,
Pale as ivory, fresh ice on the Neva.

And then you were gone.

The moment that I ceased to dance
You deserted me; waltzing out of the apartment
Into the frosty night, the enveloping shadows;
A filigree figure dissolving,         like the sleet,
That shifted the bolted shutters.
I was devastated, a Pierrot dashed into several
tiny pieces,        My dreams cut dead by reality.
               
So please now tell me, where did you flounce off to?
How did you escape the vigilant paparazzi,
The boys on the five star bikes?

Did you Troika deep into Siberian forests;
Or sail to the edge of Antarctica,
The albatross haunted seas?
Did you circle the face of the moon?
Tip toe on the North Pole of Mars?
You had often promised yourself such trips
In our volatile moments together.

You always hated hotels.
Declined to visit your friends.
You left no letter, no clue to your intentions,
Not even an old publicity shot
Designed to enchant your fans.
No remnant that I could decipher.

But now, in this bleak December,
A decade, or more, after your disaffection,
I am daily pestered by rumours of your returning,
A face, like yours, ghosting the edge of a mirror,
A guarded whisper discerned in a darkened theatre,
A shadow darting silently out of a crowd;
A discarded glove:

A newspaper cutting drifting upon the wind;
Dogs barking in the back yards;
A crystal shoe dropped down an empty stairwell;
Strange noises late at night;       a shimmer of ice.

So now I sit and wait, diligent with expectation,
For the tap of your footsteps crossing the patio,
Your willowy figure,         at ease in the unlit hallway
Poised to confront me                        en pointe.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
December 30th. 2010. - June 14th. 2013.
Revised July 31st. 2013.
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                         3

Shadow Play: The Ballerena Replies. 


Hooked to no fixed strata
                   No ticking time
Unchecked I visit various orbits
In one quick conscious day,
Not marching, as you, clockwork towards your moon
But in free space suspended, juggling fates,
Times, perspectives
                   Until clear patterns shape.
As to you, your blindness appals me,
Commuting through flecks of experience
One point in mind,
                   Scared to unmask and review
           The intricate complex of suns.
Yet, though separated by distances, by depths
and shadings immeasurable
Our challenging voices scan
To receive appropriate token;

                   By this we are defined?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 1965.
Written in The One Tun Goodge Street, when it was at the heart of the London Scene.