The Dead Infantas. Parts One & Two & Coda..A Dark Fairytale for our Times. (Completed Poem).

              
                    Part One.
           The Dead Infantas.


It is a time of ruined cities,
Of silent streets haunted by lone foxes.
Of palace gardens wrecked by hail and frost
Under the mournful gaze of dead Infantas.
It is a time of pestilence and ransacked churches;
Thieves smashing doors to steal the sacraments.

Rotting daffodils hang their tattered flags
Over a moss green mere of tangled leaves. -
In another corner of the palace gardens
Purple tulips, shaped like communion cups,
Raise scented prayers up to the soft blue sky.
The communion cups are lacking wine and water,
The snow grey clouds that cross from time to time
The moist eye of the April sun,
Dapple the empty bowls with icy shadows.
Bees and moths die when they touch these shadows.

The souls of the dead Infantas float unseen
Between the corpses of the winter flowers
That slowly turn to mush as days grow long.
When they were flesh and blood these sad princesses
Never learned to look beyond the giant mirrors
That iced their palace walls.
Their whole world seemed to be a burnished surface
That reflected nothing but their inbred faces,
Their painted lips, their haunted mermaid eyes.

The communion cups are magicked into bells
That chime ethereal warnings of unease
As the restless souls of the dead Infantas glide
Between the moss green leaves.
They all died childless, the mirrored walls impassive
To the sobs and shrieks of inconsolable women
Crying out to glimpse the Son behind thick veils.
But remorseless shadows rose high like the tides.
Rose like spring tides pounding empty beaches
While the priests and servers murmured Nunc Dimittis.

Once the cooling bodies had been anointed.
Once the final prayers were softly spoken,
The cramped souls of the dead Infantas fled
Out of the sickroom, into the fields and gardens,
That protocol had barred them from exploring
During their sheltered lives.
"This is heaven", they whispered to themselves.
But as they touched the plants, and stared, and wondered,
The green leaves changed to brown, the blossoms tumbled.

Rotting daffodils hang their tattered flags
Over a moss green mere of tangled leaves.

                             *

                     Part Two.
             Sleeping Beauties.


The dead Infantas glide on silent wings
That gently lift their spirit bodies
Like webs of blown silk
Upon the misty breath of April winds.

Their flimsy wings catch on the twisted thorns
Of ancient briar roses
That in summer will be weighted down with blossoms
Darker than the darkest ruby wine.

Caught on the thorns the dead Infantas weave
Ghost cocoons with their saddest memories
That slowly fade as they rock themselves to sleep.
Slowly fade like delicate pencil sketches.

And what do they dream,
If they have the power to dream
In the heavy scents of the shady palace gardens?
The gardens they never walked when they were children.

Do they dream of pampered lives bereft of meaning
Trapped by protocol and artifice?
Do they dream of food banks, junkies and rough sleepers,
So often reviled on the palace intranet?

I suspect if they dream at all in their realm of shadow,
Its of billionaire princes on Lippizaner horses
Who will one night bludgeon a path through the maze of thorns
To wake them with a kiss.
                             
                             *

                         Coda.

The Dead Infantas do not dream,
No folk are left to grieve in their crumbling palaces,
To dig the graves, to light the pyres and ovens,
To shovel ashes over silent fields.
The Dead Infantas have passed into a darkness
Darker that the furthest tracts of space.

Centuries under earth their bodies rot,
The gardens they once loved are now wild forests
Roamed by creatures they could never name,
Wise denizens of a verdant paradise,
A brand new Eden red in tooth and claw
Incubated in the world wide great extinction.

Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief
Have all rotted into mush and ashes,
Even their ghosts have vanished from the forests
That now entwine their frivolous civilisation.
All that the Dead Infantas understood
Has self annihilated, transfigured into dust.

The billionaires, the oil men, the presidents and kings
Have killed the world they made, and every human in it.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
27th. - 28th. - 30th. March 2020, Part One.
1st. - 4th.April 2020. Part Two.
3rd. June 2020. Coda. 

The only way I could react at first  to self isolation during the covid19 pandemic has been to respond to the surreal and dangerous situation by digging deep into the fiercely dark fairy tale legends that I read in my childhood and have haunted my imagination ever since.

My China House. (Revised).

On my kitchen shelf I keep a china house.
A cream-white house with a yellow roof,
and pale green vines flat on the wall.
The front door is pink, the windows pale blue,
the shutters a paler pink than the door.
Tiny red grapes hang from the vine,
and have flourished there one hundred years,
never to be picked and crushed into wine;
never to be thieved by whispering children.
The door cannot open. The windows are blank.
It seems only secrets can dwell in this house,
my cream-white house with no ceilings, no floors,
no lounges, no bedrooms, no rickety stairs,
no bath to relax in for long hot hours.
This house may seem useless, a box that is empty,
but it is there, when a child, I stored hopes and dreams.
I tossed my wild dreams up into the air
and watched them float down the porcelain chimney.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
26th. - 30th.  March 2020.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Night Train.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Night Train.:            Night Train. Outside the carriage window The night has become spectral, A ghost factory of forensic arc lights Into which ...

Crescent Moon in March. (Original Version. The Completed Poem published 21st. March 2021)

Weeping into the hollow shell of my violin
I remember the last time we were together
And try to fill my lonely hours with music.

The heartbreaking cadences of Beethoven`s
Final string quartet
Drift from the old time record player
In the adjoining room.
I place my violin back inside its case,
My music cannot speak truth as plainly as Beethoven`s.

Tonight we are in the company of angels.
They fly between us on quiet wings,
Conveying messages that only we can hear.
The angels understand the anguish of separated lovers,
They protect us from alcohol and opioids
As we wait out the sickly hollowed hours.

Until I met you I did not believe in angels.
I thought they were the by-products of reveries
Lived for real by mystics
When they fasted in remote and hostile wastelands
Seeking to speak with God.
I thought these saints were driven mad by loneliness,
By mouldy bread or brackish drinking water.
But now I must self isolate, at least until the summer,
The hidden presence of our guardian angels
Seems as real as music.

Tonight the moon is an indistinct white crescent,
A desert moon above the mists of England;
Febrile mists dissolving truth and clarity.

The ambivalent final chords of the string quartet,
Crafted out of solitude and sickness,
Echo through the house - and then the silence.

I turn off the lights. I now can better see
The slow drift of the shadow patterned moon
Above the London rooftops.
I hope you can watch the moon from your hospital bed,
But I expect the blinds are pulled down before dusk.

I retrieve my violin from its wooden case.-
For the first time since the fall that nearly killed you
I can play the tune I wrote the day we met.-
In the depths of my mind I can hear you call my name.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 3rd. - 18th. - 21st. - 24th. - 26th. - April 6th. - 7th. - May 10th. - 12th. 2020.
For Ivy in hospital Leicester.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Unexpected Gift of Absolution. (New Poem).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Unexpected Gift of Absolution. (New Poem).: You lay in my arms asleep, Your night dress wide open Because you neglected to tie it, A habit you keep to this day. A habit, just like...

Japanese Weeping Plum Trees. (Revised).

Weeping plum trees;
Rain of blossom and fragrant wood
Sweeping out the grit of winter.

We walk beneath the swaying trees;
Small birds feeding in the branches
Scatter blossom on our heads.

We need not plan an Easter wedding;
The falling blossom, the budding leaves
Are all the blessings that we need.

Last time we saw Kameido Tenjin
The fruit was soft and ready to eat.

Bitter sweet these fragrant trees,
Burdened with the weight of flowers
That bloom and fall within one week.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
7th. - 8th. March 2020.
Kameido Tenjin Shrine in Tokyo has a wonderful garden, the high arched bridge is famous.  My mother was in love with Japanese culture, and taught me much about costumes, flower arranging, the wonderful wood block prints. When my school friends only knew about jungle warfare I was learning about Zen Buddhism, Shinto and the Spring festivals. My mother kept her kimono through the war years. I now think I had the better education.

The Unexpected Gift. (New Poem).

Until then we had lodged in small bedsits,
Loners who steered clear of strangers.
We hated fairgrounds and parties;
Dance halls and pubs.
We preferred to stay in to watch game shows,
Holed up and alone at weekends,
Reality ditched at the back door.

But to me you are an open book,
(As I hope I am open with you).
Two people - two books - one story;
One script only we can decipher. -
When we met, just by chance, in the stairwell,
We stood and just looked at each other,
Looked for an hour without speaking,
In a semi hypnotic trance. -
In that silence I learned your whole story,
And it seems that you also learned mine.

"I too need some truth", you whispered,
And I knew, without asking your meaning,
That from then we could not live apart.


Trevor John Karsarvin Potter.
7th. - 10th. March 2020.
22nd. March 2021.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Mount Fuji seen from Goten-yama to Shinagawa on th...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Mount Fuji seen from Goten-yama to Shinagawa on th...: I do not understand this picture. Have two monks flown in on their crimson carpet Over the pale blue sea and wooden roof tops From dist...