(1) Aphorism Murmured at the Edge of Sleep. (2) Rain at Midnight.

                 1.

Aphorism Murmured at the Edge of Sleep.


You whispered to me as I switched off the light,
"If you cannot remember being born,
perhaps you are not alive."
And then you laughed out loud under the duvet.
Laughing like a schoolgirl high on candy.

Loving you is another kind of dreaming.
In the workaday world you simply do not happen,
A clock ticking but seldom keeping time.
When I long for sleep you kick start into life,
A rock solid presence, not a will o the wisp in denim,
Not a flurry of feathers called out by the band.

I held you first as a newborn baby.
Now I hold you as a full grown woman.
The chrysalis forty years a breaking.

I wondered then what you would be like at forty,
Little thinking that we would share our lives together.
I imagined a princess, not a highly strung punk rocker,
I thought the chick I waltzed around the ballroom
Would stay like that forever.

And oh yes, I do remember being born,
And so I can be booked among the living.
It was a journey packed with trauma,     so very like our love.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 11th. 2016.

For Josephine.

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                    2.

     Rain at Midnight.


Rain forecast on the radio
A steady sound of clapping
No footprints on the patio

At night the closing of doors
Can become a private ritual
A prayer against the darkness

Not spoken          but enacted
Just moments before sleeping

While rain taps on the patio

A steady sound of clapping


Trevor John Karsavin
January 14th. 2016.

In Japanese religious practices, including Buddhism, to clap can be a part of praying.