Divorce

I was in the One Tun Public House in Goodge Street London when the Beatle Song "Norwegian Wood" was written; well the words at least. At the time I thought it was a piece of fun. Now I wonder what it was really about.I am still not sure that I will ever know.

           *

Norwegian Wood?

Memories burn bitter.

Black ash scuffed in the bedside grate.

Sheets grabbed and thrown.

The chair smashed.

"You Even Took The Radio You Bastard!" 

Silence is icy on Sundays.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
14th. September 2012.

A Response to Dorothy Parker.

    Men recover their senses
When girls wear contact lenses.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
September 9th. 1986.    
 

The Mad Hermit and The Owl.

The quotation in italics at the top of the poem is not exact, it replicates my first conscious response to the entry in the Intimate Journals of Charles Baudelaire dated 23rd January 1862, an entry that terrified me when I first came across it in the early 1970`s. I have included it here to help elucidate the poem. Goya and Yeats have also had some influence on the imagery.

The Mad Hermit and the Owl. 

"The wind of the wing of madness 
Last night passed over me." 

                         1

The Owl shadows the dark wood.
The Owl is the essence of night.
A silent hunter haunting the northern wilderness.
A desolate shadow descending through the pines.

                          2

I cannot sleep when his shrill cries pierce the moonlit forest.
I cannot sleep when his shadow falls across my window.

I cannot walk free, out of the moonlit forest.
I cannot escape the malignity of that shadow.

My darkened window reflects a sudden movement.
I panic and shake when he passes.

His wing beats echoing through the winter stillness
Awake dark fears in the depths of my mind.

                          3

In folklore the Owl is a bird of evil omen,
A lord of the underworld come to gather souls,
A portent of evil.
When I hear his shrill cries piercing the snow hushed forest
Those ancient legends flower like wounds in my brain.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
May 23rd. 1974.-December 9th. 2003.-September 8th. 2012.

Owl in Winter.

Short days.
The cold nights encourage the work of the Owl,
A feral holocaust on the altars of Nature
Accomplished with impartial efficiency
Between the nightly birth and death of the moon.

Cloaked in his straight jacket of wings
The Owl sits still and waits.
A precision crafted machine
Primed to perfection,
His keen eyes cutting the dark like razors
Scan the forest for prey.

The wind threads like ghosts between bare trees
Shaking the undergrowth with tiny waves
That expose the darting movements of a vole.
That instant life and death have just one face.

A cry stark as the winter forests
Acts as prologue to the deed of terror.
Quick talons grip and dig.

Wisely the Owl hones silence like a blade,
His iron secret,
A silence that hangs like Arctic water
Knifing toward the snow.
This is the Owl in his moon cold fury,
The barb and craft of a dark vocation
His infinite skill.
Only the sunlight can mellow his actions
Moulding his wings around sleep.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
December 18th. 1972. - September 6th. 2012.  
Revised June 17th. - 18th. 2016.

Uncertainties

A slight change in the evening light
To remind us of less settled times
Stirred up by a colder wind;
August scrapes the edge of Autumn.

Tonight we cannot see the stars,
A sail of cloud flaps high and wild
To drive this ark we crouch within
Against the dark.

Frozen, scared, resisting sleep
We huddle like children in the dark
Knowing that the moon wont rise,
But we stare & stare at the cloth grey skies.

Surgeons braced your delicate womb
With a web of stitching that must not break:
Last night the moon was red like blood
But the breeze as soft as an angels breath.

We snuggle up tight against the dark
In hope of new life to brighten the ark
And mock old death.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
August 29th. - 30th. 2012.  

Dark Beginnings.

I have found your poems
Inscribed precisely on scraps of paper
                Fifty years ago
And left to my safe keeping.

I can see you now, pen in hand,
Kneeling low on the kitchen floor
                in my mother`s house;
Thick black hair swung over your face
As you fought to refine an exuberance of words.

You were just fifteen then,
A fierce Irish girl intent on a brawl
                for the smallest slight,
Your adolescent dreams deeply in thrall
To macabre images of death.

Just like a child you hated the night,
But your true fear was honed to a sharper edge,
The elemental urgency of adult love
               More terror filled than dying.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
August 27th. 2012.  

A Song of Longing.

Torn from my dreams by grief
I swear to keep
This precious gift you gave me
Safely lodged
In that box of trinkets stashed
Close by the bedroom window.

Shutters swing out like hands
Spread open wide to snatch
The first glimmer of the sun
In a gesture of pagan prayer
Whilst night dissolves, then dies.

The morning light reveals
A glissando of many colours
Distilled in muted reverie
On lake and mountain top.
The night lamp loses relevance.
Shadows slink back into corners.

This precious gift I clasp
Out dazzles the morning light
With an intensity that burns
Beyond the powers of reason.
It cannot be cheated of beauty
By clouds or wintry weather.

Last night I searched for your photograph
Deep down in my clutter of keepsakes,
But I am sorry, I could not find it.
My love you have been away for so long
I can barely remember your face.

I think of you in India
At prayer in an ancient mosque
As the evening shadows lengthen.
Outside that guarded sanctuary
The noise and heat of the market
Stuns like a fierce narcotic.

Caught in this mayhem of commerce
I stumble from doorway to doorway
In search of that secret mosque.
But the crowds are forcing me deeper
Into a labyrinth of chaos.

Torn from my dreams by grief
I swear to truly keep
This gift of trust you gave me
Lodged deep in the layered box.
I crave for your safe return,
Until then I am dark with longing.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
August 25th.- 26th. 2012.