Paradiso. (New Version).

Our horses huddle in the August heat haze,
Little piebald miracles on the verge of sleeping,
Little vagabonds of the hills and valleys.
These sons and daughters of Olympian Pegasus
Ridden in dreams by wistful children.

Stars spin iridescent in the evening stillness,
They seem to sanctify the vacant spaces
No saint can contemplate without despairing.
Dusk descends early as summer grows old,
And a chill wind warns of a grey September.

The horses, they dream of those gypsy dealers
Who once rode them bare backed down the rapids
To sharpen dull wits for market trickery.
That was the morning we discovered Elysium,
The pounds cascading from out of our pockets.

That was the morning we bought the horses
From the gold toothed haggler
With eyes well hidden.
That was the morning we found that Elysium
Was barred and shuttered to folk with no income.

Tonight I am standing alone in my garden
And I think of the horses, tethered to fences
In a part of the country I now rarely visit.
They sleep beneath stars that could burn up the oceans
Or fill every planet with gardens of roses.

And I think of young Ivy, felled by a bully,
Lying unconscious, her black eyes unfocussed,
But ears tuned in to the murmurs of doctors.

Perhaps she dreams of our four little horses,
Piebald truculents feigning docility.
Perhaps she is dreaming of galloping bare backed
Into the rivers and over the hedgerows.

Perhaps she is dreaming of nothing at all,
But dances alone through the vacant spaces,
Dancing where no saint dare to wander,
But blessed by the power of a million suns.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 19th. - 20th. - 22nd. - 23rd. 2017.

For Ivy, drifting in and out of a coma.
She has been given a radio so that she can listen to music.
I have tried to integrate dream and reality in this poem.