Through the Looking Glass. (Original unrevised version).

I found myself on the mantlepiece
Floating through the mirror on a breeze
That parted the malleable glass
As though it were a fog
                                      or a skein of silk
Falling apart at my touch.
"Where have you been?" my friends asked
As we strolled through Carnaby Street
On a cold mid winter evening
Among crowds of fashionable girls.
"To the future" I replied,
                 "I have visited the 21st. Century
Where today is just a legend,
The Beatles ancient history,
And this street a commercial byway
Marginalised by the Tory Magnates
                           And deserted by the young".
They looked at me and laughed,
"Trevor is always full of stories",
And we entered the smoke filled pub
Packed with mods and mouthy film stars,
             Con artistes by the score,
The occasional legitimate actor,
And fought our way up to the public bar.
The chatter faded and became distorted,
The smoke was now a muslin curtain
Dissolving into a mirror
That I drifted through, a weightless Pinewood phantom,
                                 back into my Living Room.
"The nineteen sixties were fine", I quietly whispered,
"Back then we were full of hope,
We dreamed a utopian future,
                                 A brand new Platinum Age
When all folk could be truly equal
And flowers would blossom out of the throat of a gun".
I stared deeply into my mirror,
Noticed the flaws, the film of grubby dust motes,
That speckled the rippled surface
Like the marks on an old woman`s skin.
"Who is that now looking at me?
Does that person have a genuine history,
Or is this grey haired vision merely an ugly dream?"
For a moment the image was young and lively once more.
            It giggled and puffed a cloud of smoke in my face.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 3rd. - 4th. - 5th. 2016.

Note. I originally wrote Golden Age, but changed it to Platinum Age because people in the 1960`s tended to think in terms of the media, ie the TV, Pop Culture, Fashion, the latest Ism. I was thinking both of Platinum disks awarded by the then, very powerful music industry, and the comic strip view of the future, (think Dan Dare), that many people had at that time, when climate change was not an issue in the forefront of most people`s thinking. Everything was going to be glossy and shiny. Poverty was going to be abolished, as was violence by the ruling classes and ideological warfare. The dream remains, but now it is down to earth and eco friendly.  
This poem has now been superseded by the version published on August 25th.