End of Season Love.

I cannot tap tap deaf and dumb language,
My hands are wrecked,
bare bashed up quires where no birds sing,
cracked columns leaning hard against the sun
begging only questions.
So if you wish to talk to me with signs,
please semaphore your meaning with your eyes,
or come out front and act a scene or two.
Do this and I shall know just how to answer,
with a wink, a nod, a seismic loving stare,
                          a quirky stage side laugh
as I nudge and elbow obstacles aside
and try to keep the sight lines unencumbered.

Truth is a shadow danced across your lips
as you try to shape the words you cannot sound,
words I can only answer with a glance.
It seems we must now make up our own language.

My hands are snarled in knots,
                          bashed up and nearly useless
curled in upon themselves like mollusc shells,
the life and love lines scrunched up tangled threads
                                             delineating lies.
I can no longer hold a book, a pen or pencil,
throw a ball, wear a pair of gloves,
but these bandaged paws can still stretch wide and clap,
set free the moment you command the stage.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 18th. - 19th. 2016.

Written after attending a performance of Imogen at The Globe, and shortly after attending a season of readings of wonderful Restoration period plays written by neglected female writers given at The Rose Playhouse, Bankside. The writing in all these plays was truthful and to the point, no fudging and blurring of the edges. My poems are nowadays conceived as mini performance pieces, and I am trying to make them as truthful as possible, even if the results sometimes go against the grain, the fault lines of contemporary wisdom.