(1). In Memoriam. (2). The Silence of Nam June Paik. (New Ending).

                      1.

              
            In Memoriam.

                        *

Tying up my shoes, I remember when
    You first taught me to lace them,
          A red rose in your hair.


                       *

             The party over?
      The guests are leaving?
     Must I turn out the lights?


                      *

That shoe floating in the pond -
Is it not one of the special pair
I bought for you last summer?


                    *

Do not remind me of that Judas kiss
   Among bare willows in the park:
     High up the swallows flying.



                    *

  Poems locked for seven years
   Inside a Highgate sepulchre
        Rebuke forgetfulness.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 6th. 2014. - December 30th. 2015.

------------------------------------------------

                      2.

The Silence of Nam June Paik. (New Version).


Broken records

Shredded spools of tape

Voices of an era
Lying smashed
Upon the floor

Now everything you said to me
Is dust for the hoover

Little scraps of black
The last of your love letters
Hammered into splinters

Words of false regret

Drifting dust of lies

Outside my shuttered window
A dog barking
At imagined whispers

Echoes of your footsteps
Not dinting the snow


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
December 6th. - 7th. 2014. - December 30th. 2015.
August 7th. - December 27th. 2016,

Original version of this poem was posted in January 2015. This new version is the finished poem.

The Daily Grind.

                 

      The Daily Grind.


My washing machine is growing long in the tooth.
It seems to have innards made from defunct dentures
That grind together awkwardly
Crunching on seeds and bones.

Whenever I turn it on
The noise is frightful,
Louder than heavy metal,
An ersatz military band,
Leather boots scraping on sand,
Metal studs grinding glass,

Ball bearings rusting together
In winter and foul weather.

But nothing ever gets crushed,
Mangled, chewed into lumps of cud,
Nipped in the bud.
Everything comes out clean,
White as the pre-dawn snow,
Spotless, just as it should be,
Exactly as mama had ordered,
Not a tooth mark to be seen.

Ah
My washing machine is so very nearly half dead.
Oh give it a crutch. Perhaps it will sit up and beg.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
29th. December 2015.

(1) The Face of The Virgin, (The Feast of the Holy Innocents).. (2) December Daffodils / Winter Tulips. (3) The longest Night. (4) The Wind.

                 1.


The Face of the Virgin.      (The Feast of the Holy Innocents).


In the back streets of Bethlehem some women are screaming -
The soldiers exultant - a kid dead at their feet -
"Crack shots enforce order", the gunman said.

                            *

Her face - pale in the church window -
Pensive among gold angel wings
Spread to shield the derelict stable
From the stiletto thrust of desert winds
Cutting through the cold back streets
Of war torn Bethlehem.

Her face - neither Arab nor Israeli -
But North Italian - if my guide book is right -
Portrays to perfection the love of Mother Mary
For her boy child - born one violent night -
The shrieks of racists echoing through the city -
The flames of rockets arcing through the sky.

Her face - pale with love that defeats ideology
As she breast feeds the child cocooned in her arms -
Illuminates the altar with a frail clear light.-
At noon her features glimmer with a cool sensitivity -
At night the stone pallor of the distant moon
Spot lights her faintly in the walled off quire.

                             *

In the back streets of Bethlehem some women are screaming -
The soldiers exultant - a kid dead at their feet -
"Genocide creates order", King Herod said.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 6th. 2014. - December 23rd. - 25th. - 26th. - 28th.2015.
-------------------------------------------------------

                   3.

     December Daffodils.


Daffodils in December?
I wish they would go back to sleep,
We can wait a little longer for spring.

                   *

        Winter Tulips?


My tulips are much more sensible;
Their cups stay buried deep in the earth
While my daffodils show off their audacity
And toast the winter solstice.

December is Janus faced,
Never sure in which direction to look.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 23rd. 2015.
-----------------------------------------------

                     4.

      The Longest Night.


Finally we have made the bridge:
Last night was the longest night;
The sun now blinks one eye
With the speed of an atomic clock
Re adjusting worldwide time
To another new beginning. I turn
Over in bed, my back turned to the
                          curtained window.
One minute more of sunlight means
                one minute less to sleep.
Winter is the season for dreaming,
Not for the licking of old time wounds.
"Make it new", the dissident poet said,
Make it new now the daylight is lengthening.
I look back to the bridge just crossed,
It has melted away in the shadows.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 22nd. - 23rd. 2015.
----------------------------------------

                  4.

          The Wind.


The wind hustling through the willows
Is making a great deal of noise;
Or perhaps I am hearing the willows
Teaching the wind their speech.
Weird to think that nature is packed with
                  a library of ancient languages
That have never required the muscle of a
                                             human brain
to power them into shape.
Languages that do not require human ears,
Delicate human eyes, hands as soft as silk
To pick up the gist of a meaning. -
Last night when I was trying to awaken the
                                               animal in you
When all you offered to do was turn over and
sleep,
I was far too aware of the bustling gusts of the wind
Rearranging the landscape outside, to feel the quick
feral thump of my heart
As it tried to switch gear to the rhythm of your pulse,
The calm ebb and flow of your breathing.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 20th. - 23rd. - 24th. 2015.

(1) British Museum. (2) Impressions on a Winters Night.(Original Version). (3) Grief.

               1

 British Museum.


Photography is so un zen.
This girl has been gone 50 years;
The leaves did not stop falling.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 28th. - December 4th. 2015.
-----------------------------------------------

                2.

Impressions on a Winters Night. (Revised).


Sat and watched The Silence
As though it were truly silent;
Not a word heard.
Lips moving on paper faces,
Masks etched on shadows.
This is how I`ve pictured wartime.
Grey vistas. Life a struggle.
Hands held over faces.

The limping man,
Whey faced, always speechless,
Hobbling slowly home from work;
Khaki coat, unbuttoned, soiled;
A fag held in yellow fingers;
Army boots, jet black mirrors.

At night the curtains were pulled tight
To cover taped up bedroom windows,
Blotting out pin pricks of light.

The house was silent.
Two sisters slept in single beds.
A child slept in a cot between them.

An old man stared up at the clock,
He could not read it in the dark.
"70 years gone like a dream", he said.

The limping man passed by the door,
Army boots, jet black mirrors,
Polished until they cracked like ice,

Boots of ice reflecting nothing.

"That`s old Jack Frost hobbling by"
My sleepy aunt sadly whispered.

I nearly did believe her.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 16th. - 17th. - 19th. 2015.

Footnote to this poem.

Impressions on a Winters Night was written after I watched Ingmar Bergman`s film The Silence with the sound turned off, and realized how closely the surreal mood resembled my recollections of living as a small child in wartime London. A new version that I much prefer was posted on 27th. December 2016.

-------------------------------------------------------

                   3.

               Grief.


Now that you are dead
Paper flowers in the vase
Have turned as grey as ash,
Grey as your brittle bones
Hidden in the earth.

And yet our yesterday
Is as clear and bright as spring
In the confines of my mind.

But only in my mind.-

I wander streets we used to walk together
To find that park where once or twice we played
Football in the rain.
You girls always bested me at sport.

I find a patch of grass that seems familiar,
The gates locked for the night,
The swings replaced by slides;
Not the sort of place where we could conjure dreams
Out of urban squalor,
Although, My Christ, we tried!

Just a gap between the houses,
A blank space marred by shadows,
Somewhere to avoid.

I do not long for death,
But without you life seems empty,
A blind that`s pulled down hard
To hide the waning sun -
The frail November light.

I do not long for death,
But I need a private sanctuary
Where I can put to rest
This dark remorseless pain.

My love for you has almost wrecked my heart.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Poem sketched August 30th. - 31st. - September 8th. 2015.
Rethought and completely rewritten December 18th. 2015.

(1) Dark Transfiguration. (Revised.) (2) Fish Bowl / Fish Pond.

                1.

Dark Transfiguration.    ( A dream recalled.)



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 the house

The silence shimmers
Black ice on old tarmac
Smog cutting my lungs

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

The baby cries
I caress your beauty
Hands golden with worship

The baby cries
You turn from my loving
To comfort the child

Your curved white back
Weighed down with compassion
Curved as when grieving

I offer to help you
Arms weak as water
The weight of salvation
Only strengthens your giving

I offer to help you
Sleep slaps me down
A cold hard door
Has shut in the darkness

Nails break upon hard wood
A taper gutters
I am lost - I am lost without you

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
First Version. August 17th. - October 12th. 2012.
December 14th. 2015. - New Version January 23rd. 2017.

--------------------------------------------------------

                    2.

           Fish Bowl.


No, I do not write haiku:
Ask my cat. She`s not bothered,
Watching the fish swim in circles.

                   *

           Fish Pond.


Leaves floating in the pond;
The fish disturb them with bubbles
That burst on reaching the surface.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 11th. 2015.         

(1) Three December Poems. (2) Advent - tide 2015. (3) In the Art Class.

                1.

   December Midnight.


Paper lanterns on a hill;
The houses look so small tonight:
Somewhere snow is falling.

                  *

   December Pruning.


Christmas is almost upon us:
I cut the rose bush down
To the size of a crown of thorns.

                   *

            The Fall.


Blood red roses on the path,
The final debris of last summer
Spilt upon brown leaves.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 3rd. - 11th. 2015.

--------------------------------------------

                   2.

        Advent - 2015.


             How mild the night is!
Although it is now
             raw hearted December
the wind is soft upon my cheek.

                   *

Blue flowers are breaking
        through the stone path,
Widening cracks between
        the broad flags,
Creating a surface that is so
               uneven,
It has become dangerous to
            walk upon.

                    *

The path was laid in early September.
The path was laid with consummate
                                                     care.

This strangely gentle Advent weather
        Perhaps warns of a darker story
        Than that revealed in Bethlehem.
The shepherds kneeling like true saints:
        The wise men bearing sacred gifts.
        The baby sleeping in a manger.

In that year the winter was bleak and chill.

                     *

        How mild the night is.
        How mild and still.
        How mild for mid December.
Perhaps,
when the sickle of the waning moon
Slits the birth cord of the new born year
These southern hills will be flecked with
                                                         snow.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
12th. - 14th. December 2015.

--------------------------------------------------

                     3.

        In the Art Class.


Sitting still, watching aircraft
Losing height over London.
Sounds of charcoal scratching paper.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
4th. December 2015.
 

(1) Walking on Water. (2) After the Storm.

                 1.

  Walking on Water.

I stand in the shadow of the Cathedral.
                                                                     Buddha walked on the waters.
                                                                     Jesus walked on the waters.
The Cathedral floats on an oak raft
Crafted by Saxon monks
Eight hundred years after the birth of Jesus,
Fifteen hundred after the birth of Buddha.
The monks were building a vessel, a stone crib,
A ship of faith to float the Word of God
Far above the rugged fields,
The farms, the woods, the quarries,
The smokey quagmire of the local town.
                             But the monks were out of touch with the local people,
                             They did not beg for alms at the Market Cross.
Jesus sat in the barrooms, spoke to strangers,
Mixed with outcasts,
Just as the Buddha had done
Squatting with quiet demeanor, with begging bowl and staff
Among the swarming flies,        the prostitutes,       the market porters,
The roaming cattle, the cut and thrust of the vendors.
                                                               The monks had missed the point,
                                               Miracles don`t really matter,
                                               But the poor are always with us,
Hustling for drinks and spare money,
                                                            A bit of sex on the quiet,
The price of a seat on the bus.
                                                                 And for them a cold stone crib
Is a darker,         sadder place.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 8th. - 9th. 2015. - January 13th. 2016.
Thinking of the history of Winchester Cathedral, among other things.
The Spacing on this copy is tighter than it should be, the spaces should be much wifer to get the proper perspective that I was trying to create.

---------------------------------------------------

                 2.

    After the Storm.


Low sun over winter rooftops
Soaked by last nights rain.
Somewhere a stray dog barking.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
December 8th. 2015.

(1). December 1st. (2). Kyoto. (3). November Morning.

                1.

      December 1st.


Now it is December,
The last of the roses
Crumple in pairs

So like the old folk
Sat on the beach,
Mourning the sun.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 1st. 2015.

----------------------------------

               2.

           Kyoto.


Last night I dreamt of Kyoto;
Za Zen every morning:
A lunchtime walk in the hills.

                  *

The sky pale as a faded print;
Your hand resting on my shoulder:
A tear fell. I thought of London.

                   *

You handed me an autumn rose.
Burnt love letters falling apart.
Hot ash whirling in cold wind.

                   *

The last kiss you ever gave me
Cold as winter in Kyoto.
Look up, the geese are flying.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 1st. 2015.

----------------------------------------

                   3

  November Morning.


Damp grey sky;
Poplars, thin brushes
Stored for a rich palette.

                   *

The colours return.
The sun glints off the ice pool
Arrows of longing.

                   *

Blank the winter canvas.
The artist lifts his sable brush,
Spring returns.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 21st. - 23rd. 2015.
.