(In Memoriam Anne Sexton and John Lennon).
Listening to you read I become American,
A citizen of that eastern seaboard world
I dearly wanted to move to,
Wanted to be native of when young;
A citizen who was born and bred mid way
On a ship or a slow Dakota.
A citizen but never quite at home.
That was before
Three bullets had hit their mark,
Filleting,
Shredding John`s back
As though it were a curtain of rice paper,
A curtain so thin it was instantly torn apart.
His still beating heart attached to nothing
sustainable,
Danced out of time in the surgeon`s
delicate fingers
As he tried to fix it to the torn aorta. -
The heart skipped and danced like a small
child playing hop scotch,
Skipping from square to square,
From moment to moment
Until the world veered crazily out of orbit
And all the numbered squares blurred into one.
From that day on I feigned to hate America,
To hate myself for having loved too well
The Manhattan neighbourhood where Lennon died.
I turned my back on all I had once been,
Erased all dreams of southern California,
Redacted memories of New York City,
And told my friends I had never seen the place.
But then tonight I heard your smoke cracked voice
On a scratchy tape you made in nineteen seventy:
- Your poems keen as scalpels - blunt as bullets.
Anne, listening to you read
I recovered something I did not want to know,
That I am not a foreigner where the pilgrims landed,
That I was taught to think and write by East Coast poets,
Yourself, young Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell.
I have always thought myself an American poet
But a misplaced love of England kept me here in London,
That was before
Three bullets had hit their mark,
Filleting,
Shredding John`s back
As though it were a curtain of rice paper,
A curtain so thin it was instantly torn apart.
His still beating heart attached to nothing
sustainable,
Danced out of time in the surgeon`s
delicate fingers
As he tried to fix it to the torn aorta. -
The heart skipped and danced like a small
child playing hop scotch,
Skipping from square to square,
From moment to moment
Until the world veered crazily out of orbit
And all the numbered squares blurred into one.
From that day on I feigned to hate America,
To hate myself for having loved too well
The Manhattan neighbourhood where Lennon died.
I turned my back on all I had once been,
Erased all dreams of southern California,
Redacted memories of New York City,
And told my friends I had never seen the place.
But then tonight I heard your smoke cracked voice
On a scratchy tape you made in nineteen seventy:
- Your poems keen as scalpels - blunt as bullets.
Anne, listening to you read
I recovered something I did not want to know,
That I am not a foreigner where the pilgrims landed,
That I was taught to think and write by East Coast poets,
Yourself, young Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell.
I have always thought myself an American poet
But a misplaced love of England kept me here in London,
A vibrant town perhaps, but never snug and homely. -
I have often strolled by the Thames on wintry evenings
Alone and missing the talk of American friends..
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 28th. - 29th. - 31st. 2020. - October 13th. 2020.-
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 28th. - 29th. - 31st. 2020. - October 13th. 2020.-
November 7th. 2020. - January 24th. - 25th. 2021.
Born in London, Since my early teens I have had dual nationality. I like being an international person, a "Citizen of Nowhere" as Theresa May once pronounced, but I have deep roots in place and culture. My roots spread thousands of miles. - I thought this poem was going to be written in two parts, but I have only needed to add two lines to complete it.
Born in London, Since my early teens I have had dual nationality. I like being an international person, a "Citizen of Nowhere" as Theresa May once pronounced, but I have deep roots in place and culture. My roots spread thousands of miles. - I thought this poem was going to be written in two parts, but I have only needed to add two lines to complete it.
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