When I opened the window this morning
I thought that I briefly saw you
Admiring the miniature roses.
But then, with a shock, I realized
That it is now more than twenty years
Since you last stood here in my garden,
Your hat tilted over grey eyes,
Your arm hooked loosely in mine.
Such memories are not pale ghosts,
They remind me of transfers printed
On derelict buildings
To remind us of what we have lost.
Nor are they sepia photographs
Stored in dusty albums
That are normally shut and locked.
But whenever I think of you
Memories lose their sepia strangeness
And become suffused with colour,
They are poignant, yet feisty with light.
When I opened the window this morning
I thought that I briefly saw you
Caught in a halo of sunlight.
You stood where you always had stood
When the roses were fully in bloom,
But I had no time to catch your attention,
No time to call out your name.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 1st. - 3rd. - 4th. - May 26th. 2014.
June 4th. 2018.
Thursday, 3 April 2014
Friday, 28 March 2014
Short Erotic Poem.
I cannot remember your voice
But your body was special to me,
More valued than the family silver;
Your vagina sweet as a nut
Secreted away by a squirrel:
Your hair a tangled forest
That protected us while we slept.
You clasped my hand in the darkness
Because I was precious to you,
A gift to pack under the coverlet,
And not to write home about.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 29th. 2014.
But your body was special to me,
More valued than the family silver;
Your vagina sweet as a nut
Secreted away by a squirrel:
Your hair a tangled forest
That protected us while we slept.
You clasped my hand in the darkness
Because I was precious to you,
A gift to pack under the coverlet,
And not to write home about.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 29th. 2014.
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
(1). A Short Story.(Revised Version). (2). Hypatia of Alexandra.
1.
A Short Story. (Revised Version).
The woman could not afford to bury her child.
The woman did not know the whereabouts of her husband,
nor did she care.
The woman had only herself to rely on.
The child had died unexpectedly in her sleep.
The child was six months old.
The body was kept on ice by the Undertaker for several months.
The woman worked late to earn some extra money.
When the body began to putrefy the funeral took place.
The woman could not pay the bill in full.
The Debt Collector ransacked the woman`s home.
She was left with a small box of clothes, a bed, a single ring cooker,
a pet cat, her wedding ring, some black and white photographs of her family.
The woman was then visited by the police.
The police let her go with a warning.
The woman had sold her car to pay for the funeral.
The car had been abandoned by her husband.
The woman cried in the silence of her home.
That night she considered committing suicide.
The woman was aged just forty.
This just happens to be a true story,
But you will not read about it in the Press.
The woman just happens to be a gypsy
And therefore thought to be a waste of space.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 25th. - 26th. - 31st. 2014.
------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Hypatia of Alexandria.
Hypatia
Black water rippling over white marble
Blood on the city streets
Locked in their orbits the distant stars look down
Ice glints on moonlit rooftops
Dogs sniffing and licking scraps of human offal
Blood on the floor of the sanctuary
Weeping Willows dropping sprigs of memory into black water
Monks wearing daggers
Astrolabes smashed into fragments
Hypatia raped and murdered inside the cathedral
Her works destroyed
Her face cut to the bone
Black water rippling over white marble
Memorials drowned in the wide sea
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 24th. 2014.
A Short Story. (Revised Version).
The woman could not afford to bury her child.
The woman did not know the whereabouts of her husband,
nor did she care.
The woman had only herself to rely on.
The child had died unexpectedly in her sleep.
The child was six months old.
The body was kept on ice by the Undertaker for several months.
The woman worked late to earn some extra money.
When the body began to putrefy the funeral took place.
The woman could not pay the bill in full.
The Debt Collector ransacked the woman`s home.
She was left with a small box of clothes, a bed, a single ring cooker,
a pet cat, her wedding ring, some black and white photographs of her family.
The woman was then visited by the police.
The police let her go with a warning.
The woman had sold her car to pay for the funeral.
The car had been abandoned by her husband.
The woman cried in the silence of her home.
That night she considered committing suicide.
The woman was aged just forty.
This just happens to be a true story,
But you will not read about it in the Press.
The woman just happens to be a gypsy
And therefore thought to be a waste of space.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 25th. - 26th. - 31st. 2014.
------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Hypatia of Alexandria.
Hypatia
Black water rippling over white marble
Blood on the city streets
Locked in their orbits the distant stars look down
Ice glints on moonlit rooftops
Dogs sniffing and licking scraps of human offal
Blood on the floor of the sanctuary
Weeping Willows dropping sprigs of memory into black water
Monks wearing daggers
Astrolabes smashed into fragments
Hypatia raped and murdered inside the cathedral
Her works destroyed
Her face cut to the bone
Black water rippling over white marble
Memorials drowned in the wide sea
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 24th. 2014.
Friday, 21 March 2014
(1) Her Timed Entrance. Version No.2. (2) Ludic is Love.
1.
Her Timed Entrance.
Quietly through the labyrinth of time
You followed the clues I had scattered,
Your footsteps, although muffled,
Discerned at ten years distance,
Their soft sure tread
Praised from the first.
your gently whispered words,
A far away enchantment;
Your elfin features, a shadow in my mirror.
And now you have arrived
To the minute,
On the very day expected
At the meeting of two paths.
I am hoping that our planets are aligned,
Preferably with the near perfect precision
That atomic clocks are tuned to oscillate.
From now on we should chart the course together.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 23rd. 1966. - December 29th. 2012.
February 20th. 2014. - March 21st. - 23rd. 2014.
---------------------------------------------
2.
Ludic is Love.
Ludic is love
Like a kiss in the dark
Unexpected and unrepeated
But for all times remembered;
Or the smile on the face of an infant
Caught dipping fidgety fingers
Surreptitiously
Into a bowl of blancmange;
Or the instinctive moves of a dancer
That hush the babbling crowd. -
Last night we ran through the garden
Frenetically laughing and crying
Like lost souls at a shindig
Spotlit by the moon.
Such moments are rare indeed,
Rarer than untainted honey,
But without them our lives are worth nothing.
Ludic is love.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
21st. - 22nd. March 2014.
Her Timed Entrance.
Quietly through the labyrinth of time
You followed the clues I had scattered,
Your footsteps, although muffled,
Discerned at ten years distance,
Their soft sure tread
Praised from the first.
your gently whispered words,
A far away enchantment;
Your elfin features, a shadow in my mirror.
And now you have arrived
To the minute,
On the very day expected
At the meeting of two paths.
I am hoping that our planets are aligned,
Preferably with the near perfect precision
That atomic clocks are tuned to oscillate.
From now on we should chart the course together.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 23rd. 1966. - December 29th. 2012.
February 20th. 2014. - March 21st. - 23rd. 2014.
---------------------------------------------
2.
Ludic is Love.
Ludic is love
Like a kiss in the dark
Unexpected and unrepeated
But for all times remembered;
Or the smile on the face of an infant
Caught dipping fidgety fingers
Surreptitiously
Into a bowl of blancmange;
Or the instinctive moves of a dancer
That hush the babbling crowd. -
Last night we ran through the garden
Frenetically laughing and crying
Like lost souls at a shindig
Spotlit by the moon.
Such moments are rare indeed,
Rarer than untainted honey,
But without them our lives are worth nothing.
Ludic is love.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
21st. - 22nd. March 2014.
Monday, 17 March 2014
A Grief.
1.
How can I write about grief?
It is almost impossible.
How can I write about grief without telling a lie?.
How can I write a sentence that is not anodyne?
There is just too much sorrow in my life at the moment.
The weight of all this pain is almost unbearable,
Suffocating
Like an overcoat thrown over my head
Covering my eyes, my ears, the whole of my face,
My body.
Too many deaths,
Too many griefs dropped out of the blue
Unexpected,
An unstoppable avalanche of deaths.
Faces that were here suddenly not here anymore,
dropped out of sight.
The local streets crammed tight with new, much younger
faces,
Strangers,
The old ones deleted entirely,
Wiped out beyond yearning,
Taking my comfort zone with them,
That old warm blanket riddled with tiny fag holes,
Chucked into the landfill bin;
Thrown out with a bag of old keepsakes,
The knick knacks of long gone lives.
2.
And you, my Thorn Flower, just one lost among many,
For you I have cried each night for forty years,
My friend, my partner at the campfire dances.
Your friends gathered in twos and threes to nurse you.
Sat silent and watched the snow thaw while you slept.
Sat silent counting the minutes, the hours break slowly,
We, who were more uncertain, more terrified than you.
Today I still keep watch for you, my Thorn Flower,
Placing a candle by the kitchen window;
Listening for the knock that never comes.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 9th. - 12th. 2013.
February 20th. - March 17th. 2014.
How can I write about grief?
It is almost impossible.
How can I write about grief without telling a lie?.
How can I write a sentence that is not anodyne?
There is just too much sorrow in my life at the moment.
The weight of all this pain is almost unbearable,
Suffocating
Like an overcoat thrown over my head
Covering my eyes, my ears, the whole of my face,
My body.
Too many deaths,
Too many griefs dropped out of the blue
Unexpected,
An unstoppable avalanche of deaths.
Faces that were here suddenly not here anymore,
dropped out of sight.
The local streets crammed tight with new, much younger
faces,
Strangers,
The old ones deleted entirely,
Wiped out beyond yearning,
Taking my comfort zone with them,
That old warm blanket riddled with tiny fag holes,
Chucked into the landfill bin;
Thrown out with a bag of old keepsakes,
The knick knacks of long gone lives.
2.
And you, my Thorn Flower, just one lost among many,
For you I have cried each night for forty years,
My friend, my partner at the campfire dances.
Your friends gathered in twos and threes to nurse you.
Sat silent and watched the snow thaw while you slept.
Sat silent counting the minutes, the hours break slowly,
We, who were more uncertain, more terrified than you.
Today I still keep watch for you, my Thorn Flower,
Placing a candle by the kitchen window;
Listening for the knock that never comes.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 9th. - 12th. 2013.
February 20th. - March 17th. 2014.
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
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.
Friday, 7 March 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.
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.
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