A Threnody for Josephine Mary.

             1

For one hour only
Snow lay upon the roof
And then the Autumn rains returned
To wash the slates clean.

The first night that we spent together
The temperature had dropped to zero
In the streets outside.
You lay as still as a sleeping cat
Snuggled by the fire
In a ball of fur.
Your hand curled under my hand.
Your warm breath brushing my shoulder.
Your heart tapping like a toy drum.
I held you as close as I dared in the rickety bed,
Held you and watched you melt into sleep
With a kind of nervous wonder.
               
               2.

Last Friday night our daughter was born
after five tough years of IVF treatment
that pushed your body almost to breaking point.-
For one hour only you held her in your arms.
For one hour only you hugged her tight and kissed her.
For one hour only she rested on your breast.

                3.

Baby died.
Mummy cried.
The neighbours` children played outside
as usual.

There are no healing words to say.
Words are meaningless today.

Baby died.
Mummy cried.
The neighbours` children played outside.
The world passed by
as usual.

There are no healing words to say.
Words are empty noise today.

Baby died.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 20th. - 21st. 2013. December 31st. 2013.
September 1st. - 2nd. 2014.- October 18th. 2015.

(1). November 11th. 2014. (Longer Revised Version). (2). Mr Baxter.

                1. 

November 11th. 2014.


The silence drifted over England
Like the smoke from a cannon
After the echoes had faded.

A million million poppies fell from the clouds,
At 11 am preciously.
Small drops of congealed blood
Settling on upturned faces
Pale with the cold.

Fear cuts into the silence a cruel wound
Deeper than grief can stab.
A terror of what might occur
Tomorrow, or perhaps the day after,
Is almost more compelling
Than tears for the maimed and the dead.

The past is the past,
What happened is merely what happened.
The dead have buried the dead
In pits dug where they had fallen
On the killing grounds of France.
Dead Man`s Dump has been levelled.

It is the fear of a future catastrophe
That makes us stand here in silence
Under the blood red snow.

The fear that someone just might
Press down a small red button
And blow the world to pieces.

One moment of lazy thinking
Converting the Earth into ashes.

I bare my head to the poppies.
They are lighter than the breath of children.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 11th. - 13th. 2013.
Eight new lines added, September 23rd. 2017.
------------------------------------------------

                 2.

        Mr. Baxter.


He kept me awake all night with his coughing,
Our Mr. Baxter.
His lungs scraped raw by gas
As he crouched in the slime of the trenches
Waiting to kill or be killed.

These fierce wounds saved his life,
But almost a lifetime later I lay awake screaming
And crying out loud for my mother;
A child unable to sleep
In the shadow of his war.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 14th. 2013.  

November 5th.

A labyrinth of neon slashing the sky
With disordered art work
Capricious,
Short lived, but burned on the retina;
Cheap fireworks vandalize the autumn night
For a loud half hour
Then dissipate into swathes of acrid smoke
That leave a foul taste on the tongue.


Wearing my loneliness on my sleeve
Like a torn thread,
I remember you fiercely tugging at my shoulder
As you danced me into the neighbour field
For one last hour of larking.
You did not tell me then your private plans;
A one way ticket to an unnamed destination
Already in your pocket.


A distant bonfire crackling under trees
Excites a party of children,
Your grandson leading the riot
As the rockets fizzle and fall.
I shamble over the neighbour field
Half aware of your shadow ghosting the landscape
Cold as the early frost.
I have wrapped your favourite Winter Coat around me,
But it no longer keeps out the weather.


Old "Thorny" Price, freelance Fairground Barker
And feral mischief maker of my youth,
Your absence cuts me deeper than the East Wind
Shaking red leaves out of branches.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
November 4th. - 7th. - 10th.- 14th.  2013.

Benedict Canyon.

The moment that my key turned in the lock
your smile lit up the alcove where you waited;
a hundred watt tungsten light
suddenly turned on.


It is now half a century since that meeting
but, almost every night I think of you;
an incandescent, & yet monochrome, image
burnishing the screen;


or, outgrowing a love affair with Hollywood fiction
my memory reinstates a simpler scene,
a single rose bud glistening in a garden
gauzed in October mist.


Yet, perhaps that time we lingered on the beach
to watch the Dervish flight of madcap starlings
whirl in frenzied clouds above the pier,
scratching shadows on the sun


is more relevant to my understated heartache
than all the other mementoes packed together
In a single embossed album.


You took a new address in Benedict Canyon,
wherein one night psychotic strangers entered
and ambushed you into their savage dream world,
a trap from which there could be no awakening.


My life became a car smash when you died,
a constant swerving into road side barriers,
the slammed brakes high pitched screaming
and head lights turned full on, revealing nothing

except the exit signs.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
20th.-21st.-28th.-29th. October 2013.
17th. 18th. September 2015.

August 30th. 2013. (New Version).

"Today all Ireland is weeping
But, as usual
                No one is listening".

The pain of ancestral hurt
Enforced a sudden despair
When the news came on the radio.

Goodnight sweet Prince,
Frail memory cannot invoke you,
Silence now claims it`s due.

Your poems are rough hewn monuments
Slowly remade by the weather;
The cut throat winds of Ulster.

Even raw granite decays,
Worn down by frost and hail blast;
Fierce rivulets of melt-water.

What hope for human words
To survive the tumult of centuries
However deep the carving?

We can only pray, I suppose,
To hone the voice of our culture
Now that our teacher has left us.

We stood stone still by the radio
Hearing but not believing;
Bereft like orphaned children.

We must now truly keep the faith,
Honour his words of devotion
Whispered on the brink of life,

"Do not be afraid".


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
31st. August, - 26th. October 2013. 

This poem was started in County Fermanagh on the day that Seamus Heaney died and completed at The Rose Theatre Bankside two months later. The last line of the poem is a translation into English of the last words of the Great Poet. 

The tears of a Roma Child kidnapped by the State.

Mummy
Why is my hair blonde and your hair is black?
Mummy
Why are my eyes blue and your eyes are brown?
Mummy
Why is my skin pale and your skin is dark?
Mummy
Why are these strangers staring at me?
Mummy
Why are these strangers staring at you?
Mummy
Why have these strangers put you in chains?
Mummy
Why are these strangers holding me tight?
Mummy
Why won`t these strangers let me hug you?
Mummy
Why won`t these strangers let me kiss you?
Mummy
I don`t like these strangers.
Mummy
I want to kiss you!
Mummy Mummy
Where are they dragging you to?
Mummy Mummy
Where are they dragging me to?
Mummy
They are rough and brutal and rude.
Mummy
Are they hurting you?
Mummy
They are hurting me.
Mummy
They are shouting words I do not understand.
Mummy
I do not like their words.
Mummy
These people sound like animals.
Mummy
What is Greek?
Mummy
What is Roma?
Mummy
Am I Roma? Am I Greek?
Mummy
I want to be Roma. I want to stay at home. I want to be with you.
Mummy
I love you!
Please Please come back to me
My Mummy.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 23rd. 2013.
There has been an outbreak of virulent discrimination against Traveler Folk in the European Union over the last two years. Settlements have been destroyed or partially dismantled by local authorities in Italy and England. People have been deported from France. Blonde haired children have been taken into Care by local authorities in Greece and Ireland. Blonde gypsy children are not uncommon. People have intermarried openly and legally over many centuries. Also a Roma community works as an extended family, and therefore the adoption of children is often undertaken in an informal manner. Roma folk are often more polite than folk from the settled community.      . 

(1) October Foundlings. (2) Herne Bay Outing.- A sketch. (Revised)

                       1.

         October Foundlings.

You have come back to me too late,
Returning like a sparrow with one good wing;
Head down against the north east wind
To reach a half remembered homeland.
I cannot now distinguish right from wrong,
Or fathom how to solve intractable problems,
Those that we create to harm ourselves.
Perhaps we should simply rest and wait,
Wait for time to heal all aching wounds
With a kind hand, or the undeniable force
Of an unredeemed necessity.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
14th. October 2013.
------------------------------------==

                    2.

Herne Bay Outing. - A sketch.


Old people staring out to sea,
Companions with an opaque history
Hand in hand;
Cheep mobiles stashed in pockets;
Tissues up their sleeves;
Complexions smooth like uncooked pastry.


They criticise the young`uns on the beach
That pursue a truculent hound dog into the briny;
Or storm across half rotted wooden Breakers
Like a petulant free range army.
The littlest holler and scream at the crashing waves,
Whilst outflanking an ambush by cantankerous Seagulls
As though the flocks were rife with Bubonic Plague.


These are the holiday outings
that I always seem to remember:

October days colder than December:

Salt adding lustre to Shortbread;

Sand drifting into the tea.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
3rd. -  7th. -17th. October 2013.
November 18th. 2014.