(1). A Russian Christmas Eve. (2). Bonne Nuit Gymnopedie.

                     1.

 A Russian Christmas Eve. Revised Version.

How strange the time feels
Those days when my home town
Seems to emulate the beauty
Of a half remembered foreign city
That a lifetime ago I visited.
But the drab cold rains quickly swab away
All vestiges of vibrant colour.

Tonight is the Russian Christmas Eve,
But already shoots are breaking open
The lid of ash grey London earth
Compacted down by boot and shovel
Over the bulbs buried in my garden.

Tonight I kneel before an icon;
The Virgin Mother holding the Saviour
In hands that are delicate, yet strong:
Her eyes, blank with pain, are weary;
Her face wan as a child`s in Auschwitz.-
The guttering candles sting my eyes
As I kiss the ancient gilded image
With the compassion of a lonely stranger;
An Outsider unnoticed in a crowded church.

How strange the time feels.
I have long been an exile from my Russian past;
The emigre dancers, musicians and dreamers
Who nurtured my intellect when a child.
A world of ballet, of poets, of painters;
Of Stravinsky and the Orthodox chants:
The surreal counterpoint of Pushkin`s chained cat
With Stalin`s Gulag, where a relative died.
Yet London has always been my home city;
The golden domes were a distant dreamscape
Sheaved in the mists of my imagination.

The bulbs that I planted in late September
May perhaps create an oasis of colour
Between the stone paths of my garden

And lend me a sense of belonging.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
6th. - 7th.- 10th. - 14th. January 2014.
July 18th. 2020.

Originally titled January 6th. 2014. 

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                          2.

          Bonne Nuit Gymnopedie.


Satie flicked the nail across the head
Whereas Richard Strauss grandly missed the point.

Proust picked the petals from dead flowers.
Ravel flecked the keyboard with snipped lace.

Boredom could ensue, but, let me see?
Yes. - Pass a menu. Pass a serviette.

Lean back on this umbrella, it is the only one I have.
Dismiss that cup of coffee:. - Devour a cigarette.

Life is a roulette wheel of lonely nights and days,
Quickly pass the whiskey mate - and then decide who pays.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
7th. - 30th. January 2014.
18th. July 2020.