(1) Her Timed Entrance. A Love Poem. (2) The Silence of Nam June Paik.

                    1

Her Timed Entrance. A Love Poem. 

Quietly through the labyrinth of time
You followed the clues I had scattered;
Your footsteps, although muffled,
Discerned at ten years distance,
Their soft sure tread
Praised from the first.
Your gently whispered words,
A far away enchantment;
Your elfin face, a shadow in my mirror.

And now you have arrived
To the minute,
On the very day expected
At the meeting of two paths.

Give me your hand,
There is no reason to be afraid.
Empathy has long since been our guide;

Give me your hand, your nerve is strong,
My sense of purpose certain;
Let us finish this journey together.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 23rd. 1966. - January 29th. - 31st.- February 1st. 2015.
April 17th. - July 23rd. 2015.

I have reverted to the original last line sketched in 1966.

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                            2.

  The Silence of Nam June Paik.


Broken records

The voice of an era lying smashed
On the floor

Discarded

Now everything that you said to me
Is merely dust for the hoover

Words of false regret
Little broken lies

Poems locked for seven years
Inside a Highgate sepulchre

Little scraps of black
To be dropped into the bin

Broken songs of innocence
Picked over by blunt strangers

The municipal body snatchers

Broken records
Scattered on the floor

Unregarded

Depersonalized

The last of your love letters
Hammered into splinters
Rebuke forgetfulness


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 6th. - 7th. 2014. - January 30th. 2015.
First sketched during a visit to the Tate.

Oradour sur Glane, The Martyred Town. (Revised Version).

The burnt out buildings and vehicles
Of Oradour sur Glane
Have rotted on the rich green sward
Of Haute - Vienne
Like an unhealed wound
For much of my lifetime.
These piteous relics of a long gone epoch
Are a constant reminder of the horrors of conflict,
More powerful than any thick grained photograph
Placed high on a shelf
By a grieving parent.

Flickering images of starving prisoners
Violently gripping barbed wire fences
As they stare out at freedom
Lose potency as the years pass by,
But these shattered walls and caved in roofs
Are defiantly Now, and forever with us.

Nearly all of the townsfolk were butchered here,
Crammed into barns like pigs for slaughter,
Burnt alive in the ancient church,
Or shot as they tried to evade the squads
Of fanatical Third Reich soldiers.
These stones, these rusting hulks of cars,
These bombed out shells of well loved houses,
Are like scarred megaliths signalling anger
Against an uncomprehending world.

These are the only monuments that make any sense here;
Words are too fragile to describe such crimes,
And photographs are simply a blur of shadows
Dissolving gradually into nothing.
These ruins are raw, jagged and hard,
If we get too close we can tear our skin on them,
Rip our civilized flesh to the bone.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 22nd. 2015.  

I was too deeply affected to write about the recent events in Paris, my second city, but when a friend put a picture of the burnt out rusting cars left over from the 1944 massacre at Oradour sur Glane onto Facebook I just had to respond with a poem. I hope it speaks for all victims of atrocities, whoever they are, whatever part of the world they live in.  

A Beach in Donegal, 27th. December 2014.

A washed out
Faded
Frost blue
Clarity of sky
Hurts the eyes

I study
Tall clouds
Sailing
Serenely
Far above scree grey Errigal
Like the fleece white rudderless bucking ships
Of Celtic saints
Returning from America

Other mountains shall burst the soft hulls open
Upon inland peaks
And cornices
To steal their cargoes -
The priceless gifts -
But just as quickly lose them

This coast is usually mild
Unlike green hedged Fermanagh
Soaked in fog and snow -
A distant whisper of breaking waves
Reminds me of my origins
On the western verge of Europe -
Here where every rock and stone is sacred
And sea birds cackle archaic hymns
To strange primeval gods

The wet sand reflects the sailing clouds
In a harsh white natural mirror
Dazzling in the low December sun -
I stand
Half blind
In the midst of this sea edged mirror
Not knowing if I am placed on solid ground
Or somehow locked in stasis
Between the earth and sky

A nostalgia for sacred places pulled me home
Much as the west wind drove the ships of the saints
Travelling east from Greenland -
The holds crammed tight with legends

But I cannot honour the memory of those saints
As I linger here close by the ocean edge
Muttering paternosters
More out of habit than any sense of wonder

The cries of the grey winged birds drown out my every word
Mocking me into silence

Their magic rules the air


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 27th. 2014 - January 13th. - 14th. 2015. 

Will Shakespeare. (Revised).

Shakespeare, I meet you at nights in the pub,
The brothel, the goal.
You are one of our number,
A rogue and vagabond, a whore monger,
Dirt under your finger nails, spittle in your beard,
Cocking a snoop at the guardians of morality
As you write fierce plays to the thrum of the clock
In a smoke black alehouse.

Rapier sharp with raw sexual fury
Your words daub the tenements with a visceral anger
More relevant than untutored graffiti,
To tell us exactly how the wide world wags.
Thou art the truth speaker without parallel,
No public health warning can devitalize you.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 16th. - 22nd. - 23rd. 2014.
Re - written January 7th. 2015.