September 7th. 2014. (Revised).

The hushed day slumbers.

Sunlight ricochets off white walls
and stings my tired eyes without mercy.
Almost out of sight my neighbour`s cat
mimics sleep in a clump of grass.

The first Sunday of September,
a day set apart for an archaic ritual,
the baptism of a firebrand baby.

Inside the church the drifting incense
made my skin feel dry and dirty. -
Outside the heat sizzles off wide pavements
scorched into glass by the slanting sun.

I lean against the old lychgate
sipping a cup of ice cold coffee.
I note how empty the street has become
now the congregation has prayed and gone.

Deep in the thicket that shades the churchyard
a squabble of birds ricochet through branches
watched by the cat with steel blue eyes.
A few red leaves fall like confetti.


Deep in my bag the Blackberry rings,
it is time to go home and cook the dinner,
but a love of the past keeps me captive here
mesmerised, as though in a West End Theatre,
by a world to which I do not belong.

A strict timetable rules my life,
and I try to think why we cling to rituals
when the natural world is packed with wonders;
then I notice the cat bustling through the thicket,
her small mouth grips a ball of feathers.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 7th. 2014.
September 20th. - 30th. - October 11th. - 12th. 2015.
August 20th. - September 6th.2016.

This is a poem about the moods generated by a stifling hot day in late summer, not about ideas. Thoughts just drift through the mind as though the writer is not fully awake.

Early October 2015. (Revised).

It`s that time of year again.

Slugs in the pantry.
Snails underfoot.
The cracking of shells on moist evenings.
Dogs staring at an enlarged moon.

From time to time
a spider`s web will catch us off guard,
snagging a fine tangle of old lace
over scared faces
as though we were giant flies,
fit food for arachnids.

The nights are cold underworlds
unlit by frail stars
smudged by passing clouds.
We walk home slowly,
heads bowed into the drab dark
of deserted streets
razored by black rain.
This darkness overwhelms us,
cuts us to the quick.
It is more intense than the bleakest night
of the recent drowned out summer.

You name this season autumn,
the sad weeks haunted by Hades,
the days of the blood red leaf.

But I name this time the new spring,
the season of quiet beginnings
evolving deep in the earth,

the new year lurching towards birth
under our mud clogged footsteps

as we struggle back home in the dark.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 8th. - 9th. 2015.

Leila (Revised Version).

1969.

Chorus:

Even we peaceniks adored her.
Even we pacifists loved her pure zeal.

So beautiful
She paid a surgeon to carve her face
Into a mask more commonplace
So that she could not be recognised,

So that she would not be known
For the icon she once was,
The flight 840 hijacker.

Hair wrapped in a keffiyeh
And holding a kalashnikov rifle
In her delicate feminine hands -
(An AK she never fired in anger),
Our fierce Palestinian Angel,
The girl snuggled up to her gun
In that refined, but frightening photo.

An image of cultural resilience.

A girl forced to battle unreason,
A girl forced to make a stand
When zealots stormed over her country
And stole her ancestral land.

A dream of the outcast made free.

Chorus

Even her detractors absolved her
From the anger they forced her to feel.
Even we pacifists loved her.
The Press made her into a star.


2015.            Coda.

Chorus.

That was a long time ago.
Since then there has been too much fighting.
Since then far too many deaths.
Too many men who would kill for an acre,
For a misinterpretation of The Bible,
"Love thy neighbour" put on the back burner.
The women left at home to cook supper.
The children shot down in the street.

But once a dream has been crafted
It cannot be unmade
But must remain intact
Within our memories,

The light of inspiration
Burning deep within ourselves
To guide our hope filled lives,
To sanction aspiration

Although the template is lost,
Although the image lies broken,
A relic of former times

Dropped in the desert sand

Strafed in the ruins of Gaza.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 27th. - 28th. - 29th. - October 2nd. 2015.

This poem is partly influenced by my reading of The Oresteia, as well as the famous photograph of the young Leila Khaled, taken before she underwent surgery, a deed of great unselfishness.

Eclipse of the Harvest Moon. Version Two.

Equinox moon
dragging her swollen body
through the harvest skies.

A blood red goddess
heavy with ancient children
that can never be born,

never be given life
in the cold heavens
above the fertile earth,

the fecund biosphere, so
vivid with pain and beauty
and rich beyond measure.



And we, true acolytes
in awe of this blood red moon,
walk in our mutual loneliness
under the autumn stars.

Under a rare conjunction
of moon and distant sun:
the crimson face of the goddess
cut through by a black edged knife.



As we walk we speak of the time
when you lay in the hospital bed
with our dead child placed beside you,

an infant perfectly formed
but cold and white as marble,
her heart too tiny to beat.

A victim of our imperfections.

A cruel and needless sacrifice
to the insanity of self love.



Thus we talk to assuage our grief
as we walk across mown fields
to observe the great eclipse,

a singular natural event
made holy by ancient magic,
the primitive dream of redemption.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
28th. September. 2015.
14th. October 2015

Two Poems. (a) Harvest. (b) The Widowers Complaint. (Revised versions).

           (a)

       Harvest.

              1

Alone
Stooping in the garden
Like a gnarled tree
Waiting for the axeman
to call


And you
Already lopped
Not a leaf
To remind me

             2

White flesh of wood
Spread
Over the russet pathway
Where once we ran
Larking
Looking for
                          (a place to lay your cloak)
A willow hung
Hide away


And the grandchildren laughing
their newness
through the old grove
unaware how autumn
brings such sudden changes

the pruning hooks

the Harvesters

the rasp of spinning saws

              3.

High overhead
a single swallow

Brief shadow on the sun


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
September 8th. - 10th. 2015.

-----------------------------------------
                (b)


The Widowers Complaint.


For the sake of propriety
Your son forbade us to meet -
although we were obviously
far gone in love
and had been so
for more than fifty years -
the chance to put an old wrong right
now made nigh on impossible

This is how the loyal offspring
(so caring and so loving)
like to manipulate their elders
once retirement age has passed -
Second childhood is perceived
to be hovering in the wings -
and happiness with a long term lover
ruled distinctly out of court

Dresden porcelain ornaments
displayed inside a cabinet
provoke a similar strict behaviour
from those rich enough to own them

Not to be tarnished

Not to be moved

Not to be placed beside
an inappropriate partner

Not to be exposed
in an unbecoming light

All signs of extra - mural frolics
kept under lock and key

But we who are old were young once
and have not yet lost the strength
to challenge those who would keep us
from our less than perfect selves

We can still kick up a rumpus
and foment the odd surprise


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 24th. - 25th. 2015.

Anna.

Kreuzburg liebeskind,
russet hair
(reminiscent of autumn leaves
pictured on my calendar,
the one purchased in Vermont
in 1964).
Feet of a dancer,
splayed but delicate.
Hazel eyes - smoky with sadness -
the smudge of tears -
searching deep deep - par blind into mine,
(a life raft of desperate questions
on her mind),
not fathoming an answer
but noting my ordinary fear,
my fear of being found out,
of being acutely known.

The morning you set out for home
the stone steps to the river
were awash with freezing rain;
the pathway through the park
concealed by fallen branches.

This scene was an epitaph,
an epitaph to our nascent love
born without a spoken language.
Our shared addiction to music
and the empathy of the dance,
had kept us on our toes.

But once the show was over,
(you speaking little English,
my Deutsch somewhat under par),
we relied too much on telepathy
and the simple slang of pop songs
to re - ignite the failing spark:

a touch of fingers in the dark,

a hug - a kiss - a laugh - a smile -
a sudden        doleful       glance.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 13th. - 18th. 2015. 

Internal Travelogue. (New Ending).

The planned engineering work on my mouth
will enable me to eat
grilled cheese sandwiches,
and perhaps
give me the confidence to kiss
your downcast eyes,
your black nailed fingers,
the red warning tapes
that are your lips.

Meantime the Circle Line rattles through the depths
that sinew London
with the taut griefs of anxious travellers
commuting to and fro.
I dream of Hades,
the darkness of Roman catacombs,
barricaded North Sea coal mines
poisoned by gas.
These visions flare on and off in my mind
like emergency lights passed speedily in the tunnel,
or grainy clips from half remembered films.

I fidget my analog wrist watch aimlessly,
and resist real contact with my fellow passengers
while staccato warning bells
start to clamour in my brain.
TOWER HILL NEXT STOP
repeated by an unseen actress
makes me think of Traitors Gate,
the photo of a stabbed child that made me vomit,
Sir Walter Raleigh waiting for the chop.
The hound now squatting by the sliding doors
exhales a smelly yawn,
then fixes me with a dope fiend`s look.

THE TRAIN TERMINATES HERE -
STAND CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS.
The journey to see you is always a squalid chore,
an apparent loop line slowly going nowhere
as though I had travelled in and out of a madhouse
made from buckled glass.
Meanwhile that girl with an acrobat`s muscular thighs
has completely burnt out my eyes.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 13th. - 14th. 2012. - September 11th. - 12th. - 16th. - 17th. 2015.
October 18th. 2016. 

This is my vision of the Inferno. City life is Hell, but too interesting to let go of.