In the Shadows. (Rewritten).

There is a black hole in my consciousness.
I do not remember the girl,
Only her smile,
Her name is a total mystery to me.

We spent one secret night together:
The Japanese timepiece chimed strict warnings,
A clock work grandpapa on guard in the kitchen.
He was stood by the window to bar intruders.

When I rewind the old clock I remember that night.
The face of a stranger blurred by the shadows,
Her chubby white fingers curled into mine,
Her high leather boots thrown down on the table.

I cannot remember the month, the day or the year.
Did the rain fall? Were boughs thick with blossom?
Did red leaves flutter from skeletal trees?
The silence of snow did not muffle the garden,

This much I can tell you; it was not mid winter.
Blizzards in England always make the headlines,
And folk rarely travel on sharp wintry days.
Black ice stops the buses. Trains block up the sidings.

Perhaps she was Dutch? - French? - Maybe Italian?
Her hair was blonde - mousey blonde - I recal.
I only know she slept in my bed, a real treasure,
But after breakfast she simply walked away.

It was like that a lot in the nineteen sixties.
Sometimes there were phone calls,
Sometimes a batch of well meaning letters,
But more likely a silence, monastic and chill,

The real world had taken its toll.
But this girl seemed different, not like the others.
She would come back on Friday to set things straight,
Before she flew off to wherever she came from.

I cant tell you now if that promise was kept,
The relevant page has been ripped from the diary.
When love becomes rancid a curtain descends,
An iron curtain painted black.

The blank in my forehead is pounding like hell.
All this week her shadow has darkened my dreams.
If I can find out her name I can search on line.
I just cannot find out her name.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 18th. - 23rd. - 24th. 2017.