Age.
Now that I am more than 70
My lifeline is almost undone,
But old age should be a time of fecundity,
Not of dearth.
Gnarled trunks held firm by steel supports
May yield their richest harvests
The closer they lean to the earth.
Young buds breaking out of the cracked boughs
Open wide like a prisoner`s eyes
To filch a glimmer of light:
But too soon, like an old man`s memory,
They fall apart in the glare of the sun.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 27th. - 28th. 2014.
---------------------------------------------------
The One Tun.
Last Saturday night, on the eve of my birthday, I was celebrating the last night of a wonderful all female production of Richard IIIrd put on by the Scrawny Cat Theatre Company at The Rose Playhouse. I was a guest of the caste, and we made a very lively group jostled around a window side table in The Swan. I was asked by one of the girls what life was like in London in the 1960`s, but because of the general hub - bub in the pub I was unable to say very much at all. On reflection, I think it is now the right time for me to write a little about those extraordinary nights and days in a city undergoing unprecedented change. I was just sixteen and a student at Middlesex Poly when midnight January 1st. 1960 arrived like any other mid century New Year. I had no idea that by the time I reached my twenty first year that I would be plunged into the very centre of a mad cap vortex of unstoppable social change. At the very heart of this change was a pub in Fitzrovia frequented, for a short hectic while, by poets, musicians, actors, artists, the local everyday citizens, and a contingent of latter day Beatniks. Every revolution needs a watering hole, and this Irish Pub was it. Well, at least we imagined it to be.
For a while we were not really that interested in forging a new path. Many of us regretted that we had not been alive and kicking in the decadent 1890`s, spouting aphorisms and poetry in the Cafe Royale and sticking up for Dowson and Oscar Wilde. These were our semi legendary heroes, and we managed to make aquaintance with one or two old folk who had been young that long ago time. But soon, of course, we commenced carving out our own course. I would sit in the pub, drinking little, but helping my friends write songs for their Rock Band. I also fell romantically in love with a sun bright beautiful American actress, who sadly only had a few years to relish her good life. But then many of my friends have died before their proper time, sometimes by accident, but more often as a result of the revolutionary life style changes that were set in motion by our commitment to raw edged honesty and social equality. We were still socialists then, although we were not afraid of making and losing money.
A man who in many ways epitomised those times was the Sligo born Ray Lindy. A perfect match for "The Man From The West" as portrayed by Jack Yeats, he was a free spirit like no other. I would imagine that he has many descendants, his outrageous behaviour would lead me to believe that this should be so; but it was his talk that was important; the stories that he told and the rich language that gushed from his erudite tongue. He should have been a writer, like his wife; but sadly I know of no books stacked away on library shelves. Ray was a fan of the great barristers, even praising men he loathed for their brilliant speeches. He was himself great at the bar, usually in Fitzrovia and Covent Garden; but this kind of genius is no prolonger of good health, talent and life.
But many of my friends brought about real change at that time, usually by way of the arts. Many have become great actors and directors, one a great playwrite, another a fine song writer; yet another a social reformer; but the rest have acheived little, perhaps because they could never concentrate on one idea at a time.
I well remember Pauline Boty telling me with great enthusiasm of a large painting that she was then creating for a customer she did not name. Sadly this painting, which is most likely her finest work, has for decades been missing. Pauline died only a year or two after our meeting, a victim of cancer, and only now her great worth as an artist is becoming public knowledge. The contribution made by women to the arts and to society as a whole is still not properly acknowledged in Britain.
I had in my teenage years been a singer and a dancer; flickering in grey and white across TV screens in Britain, Europe and Australia. I had been known to some as "the boy who sang with Callas" because I had indeed shared a platform with that great soprano. But by 1965 I did not really know what to do with my life, and, for some inexplicable reason, I rebelled against a life in the Theatre when the Theatre is the only world that I really understand and feel at home in. I declared that I wanted to be a poet, but really had no idea how to go about becoming such a rare creature. I battled with words night and day, and did in fact produce some poems that I still quite like, but all have been rewritten several times since then. My problem was that I did not want to speak another persons words in a Play, I wanted only to speak my own. I was in fact on a voyage of self discovery, and yet I did not then realise that I had already set sail; I imagined that I was still standing on the quay watching the great ships come and go. I also would have loved to have continued as a dancer, but already the arthritis had taken root in my feet and hands, where it flourishes still, distorting bone and nerve ends. I made a mistake walking away from the Theatre at that time, but I did not walk very far and I now play a small part in the hustle and bustle of Bankside. I also got written into "Bedroom Farce" by Alan Aykbourn, but that is another story.
Moving forward to the twenty first century,I must say that I do not regret the passing of the years, but I think it is time for me to place a few memories on the archive shelves, and this I plan to do in future. A few prose chapters lodged between the poems.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 29th. 2014.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment