Two Poems (1) The Streams of Lough Melvin.(2) Bad Weather Friends.

                    1.

The Streams of Lough Melvin.

The river contorts over stones
Reminding me, for no clear reason, of a knuckle thrust into my face
By a fretful infant
Urgently demanding my time, my total attention.

Being no geologist, here, at the rapids brink, this fraught re-enactment of Dis,
I stare, with an untutored interest,
Down into translucent layers of ancient time
To explore a ferocity of movement, a convulsion of currents, side swiped deflections
reflecting my fears, my suicidal deletes.
I stare, like a wild man, deep into the troubled waters,
The voice of some river god permeating my addled brain
With unclear warnings, garbled chants, an oblique reference to Charon.
The god of this untamed river let loose by the rain? Perhaps?
More likely a substrata reminder of my fragile mortality.

Thrashing flash floods envelope flat granite blocks
That, long before Noah took ship, were sheaved in thick skins of old limestone
That then seemed forever
But have long since been pounded to sludge.

My Grandchildren laugh at my stillness,
Contemplation is not to their liking,
It is monkish, old fashioned, outmoded,
It is not on their template of skills.
They pummel me out of the way of the restless water
Onto the new gravel causeway
That climbs to the town on the hill.
But the rapids still roaring behind me are pulling me back and back and back
To plummet an implacable darkness.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
29th. - 30th. April. May 1st. 2nd. 2013.  

Dedicated to the Late Peter Odell, died 27/04/2013 aged 56 years. 

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                      2. 

    Bad Weather Friends. 


I am your threadbare overcoat
That you throw on over your shoulders
To keep yourself warm
On chilled out winter nights.

But I also feel the cold
When you hang me up in the wardrobe
And leave me there in the dark,
For week after unlived week,

Absorbing the odour of moth balls.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 4th. 2013. 

(1) Bright Dandelions. (2) Dandelion Removal.(3) Nuits Saint Georges and Josephine.

                               1.

                    Bright Dandelions. 

The beauty of these dandelions reminding me of you,
My wild flower,
My rider of the untamed ponies
Trekking summer fields
Fording rock strewn rivers.

Wide teenage eyes laughing,
Pantheistic, fierce in the pre dawn half light,
Pristine mirrors of the god.
Small hands grasping thrusting shoulders.
Yellow hair streaming.

Distorted by technology,
The lens coarse ground, unfocused,
You on your wild pony, white shirt torn open;
This Kodak printed image
Fades, nicotine stained by sunlight.

These days I now prefer to trust
The embroideries of my memory
However worn and ancient;

The finest patterns crafted with the threads of Sichuan silk
Lofted high on Pennine wind.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
16th. - 18th.- 22nd. April 2013. 

----------------------------------------------------. 

                              2.

                  Dandelion Removal.

I drag the Dandelion out of the narrow border
With trowel and fingers:
Tearing apart my chosen victim, my class A prisoner,
Into several ragged pieces.
Shreds of life that did not seem to matter
Thrown to the April wind.
With one quick move I serenely sacrifice
The unwanted ugly baby.

I become in my garden a sort of amateur Nazi
Trying to enforce strict order
With spade and sharp edged hoe.
Thrusting the heal of my green boot into the raw earth
I arrange the perfected, the vacuum packed species
Into long well mannered rows.
This is my chance to indulge in a little fanaticism,
To drill a small notch in the world.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
15th. April 2013. - 12th. September 2014. 

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                                 3.

Nuits Saint Georges and Josephine. 

I taste you in this wine,
The sweet and bitter fruits
Dissolving over my tongue
And slithering into my belly
To make me very drunk,
Like Nelson stuck in the Brandy.

The intoxication explains to me
With simple, Pub Time stories,
Why I have never felt properly sane
When left alone in your company
My Showgirl of the windswept horses.

I am completely enthralled by your face,
My python slung Eurydice,
My Gypsy with the raven black hair
And Big Top bare back grace,
Your unprincipled savoir - faire
That your friends think fine and funny,
Has led us to the brink of disgrace.

I fear you will saunter away
Like a Pop Stars doting baby
Caught up in the underworld heat
That snakes through the depths of our city.
I can see you in Wardour Street
Bereft of your favourite pony,
Earning your living in Bars
With the voice of a victimized angel,
And your delicate dancing feet.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
13th. April 2013. - 27th. June - 15th. August  2013.


.

Two Love Poems.(1) Wild Ponies.(Revised Version). - (2) Tomorrow Could be Different.

                          1.

                  Wild Ponies. (Revised Version).

Riding unbridled ponies across cold fields,
The wind scything through our loose hair,
We outsmart our fears laughing.

And afterwards, you on the damp grass,
Dress hitched high up over your shoulders
Exposing slim thighs, belly, breasts, all
White as the winter snowdrifts,
Boots kicked deep into the undergrowth
As though they were of no importance,
Although, when you snatched them off the
                                     shelf last week
They were your absolute pride and joy,
Your leap into sophistication,
Your commitment to a grander market;
But now, all caution shoved into the wind
                                     like scraps of lies,
We vandalize the rough insanities of love
With Shakespearean audacity,
The beast with two backs tupping in the grass;
Mud larking miscreants roughing up propriety. -
"And O My God How I Love the shear abundance
                                       of You!
Your hot salt flesh fierce against my mouth,
Feet kicking against my legs,
Young breasts already sour with drops of milk."

Flat on our backs we stare out at the stars
Shimmering in the frost haze, almost beyond sight,
Far above the filigree mask of trees.-
Snuggled up naked, warm in this wintry night,
Our shared thoughts soaring way beyond ourselves
Like apprentice astronauts, angels honed to flight,
Arcing across our universe in sheaves of fire
To force the heavens open with brand new light,
The force field of redemption.-
"Angels are jet propelled", you once proclaimed
Staring me straight in the eye, "Like Christ in the firmament".

We make our peace with the world, and also with
                                                            each other,-
"Those two are wild as the ponies that they ride",
Our next door neighbours whisper."But fiercer than the ponies".
"They will both come to a bad end, you mark my words".
"Just like his Dad?"                  "Just like her bitch of a mother."

The night is as thin as rice paper, we can hear every sound, every word
Murmured near or far. Two miscreants curled together, squeezed in a pod,
Dreaming of those delicate ponies              dancing through uncut grass.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
March 21st. -22nd. - 27th. - September 2nd. - 3rd.  2013.

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                          2. 

    Tomorrow Could be Different.

You sit on the edge of the bed
Like a street kid hogging the pavement
Legs wide apart.

Meantime, I carry on with my daily chores,
Typing poems, cooking dinner, washing floors,
Confronting the newspaper.

Some mornings I make attempts at prayer,
But when I knock and look in on the mirror
I wonder what on earth I see in there.

Perhaps our world is full of heavenly angels,
But it seems my Hen, you are not one of them,
And I am merely something the cat dragged in.

But then at least we do have one another,
So when you finally decide to come downstairs,
We might as well lie low and have a cuddle.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
11th. - 12th. March 2013.

Two Poems, (1) Barn Owls. (2) On the Cusp of Spring and Winter.

                     1.

             Barn Owls.

The moment you left the house
I became like a stick thrown into the wind
With no place to fall.

A dead leaf dropped on the wet ground
Scuffed at by laughing children
Chasing after a ball.

A plastic cup dropped in the gutter
Slowly dismembered into shreds
Under which two waterlogged beetles
Skid and crawl.

But what of you, do we see you at all
Rushing back to your dying brother
Now collapsed in his freezing caravan
Like a foal curled up in a stall?

Do we see you crying at midnight
As he lies coughing under his window?
Now counting the pulse of his breath
While outside the Barn Owls call?

No, we are too busy scratching at sores,
At our jealousy and other trite sorrows
As we stare bleakly into the mirror.
We do not notice your kindness at all.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
April 4th. 2013. . 

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                        2. 

On the Cusp of Spring and Winter. 

The dark forest cracks open its bare bones
To reveal the fledgling leaves.
The softened leaf mould breaks apart, bursts
And roughly heaves with fevered disruptions
Splitting open the secret heart of the forest.
Awakened saplings strive to muscle upwards
To greet a distant rumour of the sun.

The river stretches out a thickened fist,
A bruised fist towards the distant ocean.
Ice crashes down the mountainside in a torrent of rainbows
Dissolving ancient escarpments, water courses, unstable cliffs,
Mixed up with the wreck of woodlands, dead bracken, liquid
soil, the remnants of animals. Flesh wood and leaf mould
Thrown down to replenish the earth.

And we, the grieving citizens of the Earth,
Fierce children tamed by artificial means
Learned in the neon glamour of the streets,
The slick life of the city, the forum of plastic
dreams. We, the inheritors, cut off from ancient
hearths, our rural forbears, the comforts of
community. We, the suckling babes of Mother
Earth, Exiled in concrete citadels of light,
Gleaming charnel houses cloaked in steel and
glass / That vandalize the sky, block out the stars.
We too await the onslaught of the Spring
To galvanize with hope our lonely lives.

  Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

Sketched January 30th. 1991, Kehl am Rhein. - 
Revised London December 5th. 2003. - April 4th.- 5th. 2013.

Two Contrasting Poems, (1) Maundy Thursday Night. (2) The A Word.

                         1.

              Maundy Thursday Night

Pitch black
The Hand of God resting over us
Shadowing the interior of the church
With an intensity of sorrow
That average grief cannot touch.

The candles flicker in the fierce gloom
Like sparks of winter starlight
Refracted through sheets of melting ice.
I shiver in the darkness
Feeling intensely lost, alone,
Although the silent church is crowded.

Scarcely breathing
The sombre congregation kneels in prayer
Before the stripped altar, the vacated Shrine,
I look to the bare wall where an icon
Is normally placed among fresh cut flowers,
And am struck by a searing pang of loss.

Today and yesterday and tomorrow
Come together in this single moment
That seems to exist outside linear time.
And for one short hour, opened wide to the eternal,
In another epoch in a much altered country, ,
Christ, who is for everyman, remains alone,
Trapped like a thief on the Mount of Olives
Under an implacable Pesach moon.

Traversing a distant rock filled valley
The traitor and guards are marching to claim him
For the whip, the Cross, the Crown of Thorns.
His ferocious cry of desolation,
Wild, like that of an injured animal,
Reverberates bleakly into our lives
Although we can barely imagine him.
A cry that could not anticipate
The enigma that is salvation.

Under the twisted olive boughs
Deaf to all prayer
His disciples remained locked in sleep
Like untroubled children.
We, in our blacked out London church
Commune with private thoughts and fears,
Feigning to believe that in our personal lives
We could be almost as brave as Christ,
A miracle that dare not happen.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
March 29th. 30th.  2013. 
April 16th. 2014.,

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                          2               

                   The A Word

You were my first honest transgression,
My first encounter with the A word,
The noun that I was taught not to mention,
At home, and certainly not at school,
My first dive into the ancient Labyrinth,
(Buried deep under the prim Assembly Hall)
With its strange conundrums, spectres, animals
And a chance of being eaten by something
                                                     nasty,
Something that resembled a Human Bull,
A vast, mock tragic, monument to power
Inviting us to visit his Hall of Mirrors
Where nothing is certain, and legends overawe
Our grip on common things, on day to day reality.

I was nineteen, you were nearly thirty five,
A married woman, your family in the States,
Two young children awaiting your return,
An old house in the country to keep tidy,
A husband rather good with his old rifle
Not keen at all on a younger Cockney rival;
A herd of deer and a dozen hunting dogs;
A meadow land of butterflies and frogs.
You kissed my body as though it were an
                                                        icon
Something rare and precious, rich and rare,
A Chinese Vase perhaps? A pot of weekend
                                                        goodies
Far better than those skins flown back from
                                                        Africa,
Fresh hides of Antelope, of Lion, Cheetah,
                                                        Tiger
To keep alive your adventure under the sun
Inside the dark museum of your memory,
That Labyrinth of passion, madness, fun,
  That held me in its thrall, we had a Ball,
      But alas the tears were copious
    When all had been said and done.

I had always considered myself to be less than ordinary,
You changed my mind about that, and now I am grateful.
You trained me for survival, made me sit down and write,
But alas you were not so lucky, you could find no way to
                                                                           resist
The pull of your inner night, the call of your jet black star.
Hope extinguished
You rushed straight into the arms of the waiting Minotaur,
He tossed you into the air,                  you fell and broke.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
March 26th. - 28th. 2013.

Two Poems. (1) To Someone Missed This Easter.(2) Jennie Reaching Out.

                               1.

          To Someone Missed This Easter.

I settle a spray of pink blossom into your favourite vase,
Then set it down gently onto the oval table
By the opened window.
Early bees fly in to inspect these delicate flowers
And explore the strangeness of the bright clean room.

I set the vase down like a totem of sorrows
Placed high upon an isolated hill
In a vast American forest.
A totem of flowers crafted to give new hope
To those who grieve and wait.

My hands trembled with joy and simple reverence,
But a deep tunnel of lonesomeness cuts through my heart.
The tranquil bees appear dark and ominous,
Loaded with prominent stings.
The curtains lift on a small discordance of wind.

This solitary act of remembrance I here set down
In a circle of morning sunlight
That seems as still as a mirror.
The pine wood seat you sat in that Good Friday
Now folded against the wall.

That was the first time that you flew overnight to meet me,
Travelling north eastward from your forest home
In the far off Catskill Mountains.
A simple gift of love, quiet expectations
Shown to me by your father.

Your first Atlantic flight, prologue to many, is now a scratched out dreamscape.
Today you are just that photograph, displayed on my computer;
A retrieved newspaper cutting
Conserved with certain letters:
A set of keys misplaced on the mantle shelf.

At half past 5 an unexpected downpour
Washes out the exuberance of the sun,
Turning my small world several shades of grey.
I sit alone and imagine I hear you knocking,
Knocking softly on the locked front door.

And suddenly the house is sunlit with laughing children
Absorbed in collective excitement. We escape your brood
Walking hand in hand, slowly together,
Into the flower packed garden
Ecstatic with wild honey bees.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 13th. - 18th. - 19th. 2013. 

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                           2. 

Jennie Reaching Out..

Taking off
She reaches for the moon
Like a child at play.

Decades later
In her kitchen
Cutting sandwiches for tea
She feels downgraded.
The balloon that she had once stretched out to tamper with
Burst with a kiss of cold air.

Nappies and screaming fits
Came as a complete surprise that nearly floored her,
Two hits straight out of the blue,
But were none the less made welcome.
The small ones at her elbow
Spinning her out of control
With their never ending neediness,
Their frenetic laughter and tears,
The sky high stories and lies. -
Tending their everyday wounds
She imagined a vocation for godliness.

But a man in a distant country
Refusing to come home
Is a different kind of story,
Something to keep mum about.
The cheques that kept bouncing along
Like fragile rubber balls
Barely in touch with the surface
Related the history of his caring
To a perfectly positioned Tee.
He was her man in the Harvest Moon
That Saturday night at the Party
In the grounds of the local Golf Club,
The fate that she should have turned down.

This is her Groundhog Night,
A forever repeating dream
That gnaws coldly into her memory.
She stands alone in the moonlight
In the hope of seeing his face
Looming out of the shadows.
Her arms stretched out to greet him
Becoming set hard with waiting,
Slowly transformed into ice.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
April 6th.- 21st. 2013. 

(1) Now and Then The Milkman.Revised Version. (2) Sad Poem.

                    1. 

Now and Then The Milkman. (Revised Version)


This morning the Milkman came
Humping bottles of memories of school days
To light up my pre - dawn blues
With armfuls of magic.-
Crate fulls of white joy horse drawn into
                                     the playground
Under a vermilion sky
To the rhythm of tambourine hooves.
Bottles of milk laid out in class room order
Perfect for birds to plunder
And infants to pick and choose.

And as I stooped down early to grab my share,
The crack of a knuckle hard into my face,
Harris, the Mafia boss of playground order,
Was already hard at work
Refining his natural trade,
Brute labour that went unpaid
From my store of pirate booty
That is, until this morning.

Today, at 9am, I paid off this former class mate
With a Co-op cheque in place of gold and silver
And a loud n cheery "How`s the Missus Mate?"
I watched him scuttle, crab like, down the pathway,
Then scramble sideways into his skew-whiff van
That shook like a broken carillon.

This van is stashed with unwashed empties,
A quorum of left over pints, frayed cardboard boxes,
Egg trays,- and trying to stay securely out of sight,                  
An unkempt school kid squatting in the cabin,
Slumped like a captive Squaw.
"His daughter feigning sick", a neighbour guesses,
And I nod in assent, but in truth, I am not so sure.
She has been labelled his model princess,
A starlet on hold, but a perfect horror at school,
Not even his actual kid, some say, but the child
                          of the Rocker next door:
Nothing pertaining to Harris is ever certain.

Later I shall make free with this his produce,
A scrunched up packet containing slips of cheese,
A see through plastic box crammed tight with eggs,
Two carton loads of soured history lessons.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
March 9th. - 15th.  April 17th. 2013.
Revised, March 29th. 2014. 

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                   2.

             Sad Poem.


When your Honey Child dies
And the cut flowers fade
In the vase placed by her bed,
It is said that a perfect world
                                crumbles.
And not only her world
But our universe dies
Like a light turned off at the wall.

Please tell me now, what is left over
To remind us of all that is lost,
Blanked out for a vacant forever?
Sadly, I can retrieve no answer,
Only this hushed feral wind
Scratching my locked back door.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 7th. 2013. 
For Anne, Violette and Sharon, with sadness and love.