1.
Lily plus belle.
Your eleven year old niece
Wants to be a grown up woman,
Reinventing her face with make up
As she leans into the mirror,
Elbows pressed against the glass.
Her desire to seek perfection
Creates an impudent red scar.
Such affectation could be dangerous
Especially when she gets to dreaming
Of a life she does not know.-
The drunken poet, old Li Bai,
Came to grief in a placid river
When he leant across the gunnels to embrace
A bright reflection of the moon.
He thought that he had witnessed
The features of the perfect courtesan
Sparkling in the evening waters.
Her skin as smooth as porcelain
Polished until it dazzles:
Her painted lips an impudent red scar.
And the air was full of music and wild laughter
As he slipped unnoticed beneath translucent waves.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 11th. - 12th. 2016.
For Josephine and Ivy.
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2.
Thinking of Georgy Ivanov.
When I get washed in the morning I stare at the glass
And think random thoughts about the world as it is.
I get very bored with conventional folk,
Whatever they say does not really matter.
You don`t have to be young to write fierce poetry,
You just have to learn to be self aware;
But that old yew tree against the wall
Could outstay any words or bits of paper:
The church in it`s shade is eight hundred years old,
But the tree itself is a century older.
Most folk only chatter to please themselves,
They are entranced by their mirrors, and that is all.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 13th. - 14th. - 27th. 2016.
Written after reading some poems by the great Russian poet Georgy Ivanov, but not in imitation, it is just that my midwinter mood was responsive to his personal zeitgeist.
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