Dante and Beatrice in Florence. Poem No.2./ Dante - A Painting.

      Distilled fear terrorises this vision of perfection,
A tumult of lonely confusion snagged on the townscape
Like a fraught dream that is yet to materialise, erupt, overwhelm,
    Dissolve the quiet hinterland of the poet`s imagination
         With an abrupt squall of chaotic emotion.

      Proud Beatrice walked serenely through the city,
      Then turning briskly into the crowded courtyard
        That fronted the grand house of the Portinari,
Offered no comment as the great doors banged behind her.

Entranced by a wistful smile, Dante, her Courtly admirer,    
   Has long since come to terms with vanquished hope
And the power that her venal father has over his daughter.
The poet wept
   Then continued his lonely walk by the river Arno;
The sight of a bevy of swans for a moment consoled him,
                         Assauged his sorrow;
But his fears had already confronted that savage Inferno
   Where thwarted lovers scream out their visceral pain.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 7th. 2009. March 23rd. 2010.
March 11th. - 16th. - 30th. 2014. - October 7th. 2014.

Five Quirky Short Poems.

         Maurice


Ravel
Sensitive as a cat`s paw
                         Poised
To scratch a child.



March 7th. 2014.
----------------------


          Love.


Sleeping alone in single beds
We breathe in unison
Although a hundred miles
                             Apart.



March 7th. 2014.
-------------------------


        Out of Season.


My pot of Basil has survived
                    a frosty winter.

Perhaps your severed head has
                                        kept
                    the compost warm.



March 7th. 2014.
-----------------------------


2 HEADLINES


 MOON SHOT
MAN INJURED


December 13th. 1971.
-----------------------------


....and now of universal significance.


Sitting cross legged on my lap
You stroke the anatomy of the ridiculous
Starry eyed.

Did your mother warn you about Quasars?

Too late now                       we`re pulsing.


December 15th. 1971.


All poems by Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Collated March 7th. 2014.

                           

February Daffodils. (New Version).

The butter coloured horns of early daffodils
Rock without sound in the snow flecked wind surge
That almost tugged the scarf from off my shoulder.
They shiver in tight knit, short lived families,
Under the scuffed and jagged parapet
Of my red brick garden wall.

I watch the static dance of these winter flowers
And think back to the night when we lugged the rough hay bales
A good half mile through the storm shook forest
To feed the tethered horses.
That was the night that our daughter was conceived
On the cold wooden floor of an unfurnished Vardo.

We were just visitors to the Roma encampment,
A good hundred miles from my loose tongued neighbours
And the unflinching eyes of the gutter Press.-
Our tryst had been facilitated by this band of Travellers,
Their friendship giving us a taste of the freedom
That our cityslicker life styles could rarely access.

And now, five long years since I last caught sight of you
Swanning in your finery through the foyer of a theatre
To lap up the plaudits of your loving public,
I am suddenly reminded of those bunches of daffodils
That we gathered after we had fed the poor horses
Under the bare wet trees.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
26th. - 27th. February 2014.
6th. March 2014. 

Three Poems. (1) The Healing. (2) Cat Dancer. (3) Girl.

             1 

     The Healing.


A crushed snowdrop
Slowly opening in my hand;

Absorbing tap water
Cupped in my palm.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 19th. 2014

-------------------------------

               2

       Cat Dancer.


After the storm
Even our cat trod the walkway
with a new grace,
a linear elegance;
Tip-toeing around the fetid puddles -
The broken fences -
Much like a Maitre de Ballet
Gifted with four swift feet.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 28th. 2013 - February 19th. 2014.

In memory of Max, a very cool cat.

----------------------------------------------

                   3

                 Girl.


Girl
Mother of secrets
Face white as the northern ice floes

She retreats into shyness
Hiding beneath her heavy skirts
Two fractious children

Two heart breakers
Impatient to burst out onto a world
Not readied for their fearlessness.

Girl
I once danced with you through the small hours.
Why do you lower your head when I pass?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 19th. - 20th. 2014.

Finsbury Park 1969. (Revised Version).

Wet Streets.
Victorian houses turning black in the rain.
Puddles spreading slowly over the pavements.

You light a cigarette, and then you kiss me,
Coughing smoke into my face.
We laugh like sexless children.

Adolescent humour bright with impish promise;
Two kids larking wildly in the streets,
Yet powerless beneath the crush of time.

You searched; you longed to love your father;
Longed to find him in some foreign land.
I did not search; but I was lost to mine; lost,
unreguarded,
A love child born, but hidden like a crime.
This was the anguish that changed us into lovers,
Love children, deep in love, because we were not loved.
These were the bonds that scarred, yet deftly bound us;
An anguish shared, our inheritance of pain.

And then your mother thought it time to part us.
Time to pack you off across the sea.
Powerless, we let her compromise our futures.

Deaf to my pleas you boarded the train for Dublin:
Our talk of marriage, salt upon our lips.
Our love child crying, tugging at your fingers.
The clamour of Euston sharpening our fears.

"I shall be faithful", you screamed across the barrier.
And then you were gone,
Lost in a throng of strangers.

Wet streets.
Victorian houses turning black in the rain.
Puddles spreading slowly over the pavements.

I shiver in my loneliness.-
The station clock struck nine.
The crowded train departed.

London, you are a book of vagrant memories
That penetrate my skin, like the rain.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 8th. 1984.- November 11th. 2003. - 
February 14th. - 24th. 2014.

Autumn Travails / Winter Blues. (Rewritten).

Perhaps we are already in mourning.

The passengers all appear to be wearing black.

We huddle inside this commuter train,
Jolted unceremoniously towards London
Like a jumble of nondescript frieght.

As has often been the case in my life
I appear to be the odd one out.
I am dressed in sober grey,
Black is too formal for me.

October will begin tomorrow,
The golden month with the cruel edge,
A knife in the belly of the year.
Even now the sun grows mellow, indistinct,
Soon it will vanish completely,
Drowned in a bruise of clouds.

I stare out of the carriage window
At a city drenched in rain,
The Plane Trees leaning sideways,
Their roots submerged in mud.

The passengers all appear to be wearing black.
I find it hard to look at them.
I think they must all be doctors
On route to a colleagues funeral.

I touch your photograph in my pocket
And dream of California;
We two holding hands in secret,.
And waiting for he sky to fall.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 28th. - 29th, 2013.
June 13th. - 14th. 2014
Rewritten July 22nd. 2015.

Soul Poem, Love Has No Perfect Language.

Soul Poem, Love Has No Perfect Language.

In the secret darks of your soul -
Cold desert space - a forest stirs -

Probing with myriad roots
The tangled depths
Of dappled time -
Deep inner emptiness -

Seeking a source to tap -
A fault to crack open -
Cram with new life -
A blank to score with raw power - eradicate.-

The forest is full of noises -
A filigree network of sounds
Warping vacancy into self awareness
With the weft and weave of language.

You touch my hand -
Having newly accepted my presence. -
I struggle to find a pattern of words
To adequately express this moment.

Not speaking we accept the primacy of love -
We seek empathy in the pain of silence
As we stand face to face - apart -& yet together.

Love has no perfect language. -
We stand face to face - enthralled by the knock of our heartbeats
But blind to the world - brimming with life around us. -

Heedless on proud wings fly the feral swans.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 18th. 1969. - January 30th. - 31st. 2014.
February 3rd. - 10th. 2014.