Pas de Deux. (Revised).

Gentle - soft - voice.

Swans on the wing under the moon.

I put down the receiver,
turn off the light,
set the alarm for 7am.

Waiting for you is like watching the snow
fall - then melt - then fall again;
a curtain of mysteries,
negative dreaming.

I wonder if you are already sleeping
in your Vardo packed with cushions and pillows,
duvet bunched awkwardly over white shoulders,
boots stuffed under the bed.

Echoes of wing beats over the rooftops.

A tear shaped moon caught in skeletal trees.

When I bussed out to the Borough Market this morning,
I didn`t even notice which coat I was wearing.
I was thinking of you,
nothing else seemed to matter.
Thinking of you hunting rabbits for supper.

I closed my eyes to the local street scene.
Mothers outflanked by fractious children,
fathers humping home parcels and pies.
I walked alone through the crowds and the taxis,
a blind man lost in the midst of the party.

"I will be waiting tomorrow - the path by the lake".

I remember your voice on the telephone,
A year ago, in a far milder winter.
Pale honey daylight and no snow falling.

"I will be waiting tomorrow - the spell can be broken".

I turn over in bed, hugging pillows and shadows,
embracing the silence in the depths of the room.
Christmas next week and I am still alone.
No fire in the grate. No logs by the chimney.

Afraid to discard the thin shell of reason
I turn to the wall the sketch of your face,
then try to imagine it has never been there.-
I have already unplugged the bedside receiver,
too many lies are whispered at night.

Buckled like wings weighed down by dying
outside my window the bare branches droop.

Under the spell of the mist veiled moon
the mute swans gather, heads tucked out of sight.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 9th. - 14th. - 17th. 2016.
January 7th. 2017.
February 20th. 2017

Advent.

Early December.
The sun a polished mirror.
The sky pastel blue.

I skid on bone china.

The ice bound streets break hearts,
shins, skulls.
Dogs limp on frozen paws.

All forms of life seem fragile,
rice paper blown upon the wind;
the lace leaves spiral.

I stare into the sun.
I want to buy this moment,
preserve it in my locker;

trap it like a dream
on pre war celluloid.

Today is so unreal,
a store of muted colours,
all objects made to melt.

I stare into the sun.
Shards of frozen glass
pierce my dazzled eyes,

piece my pounding heart
with a dread of dissolution.

Late blooming roses
poised on leafless stems
hint of somewhere different.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 4th. - 6th. - 8th. 2016.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) The Parting.(Revised) (2).Commonplace Tranqui...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) The Parting.(Revised) (2).Commonplace Tranqui...:                       1 .            The Parting. You departed at lunch time, Hat not at the usual angle, Shoulder bag swinging like ...

The Veteran.

Sombre end of Autumn music
smoking through the misty twilight,
an accompaniment to the falling of the leaves.

I turn off the radio.

The phone rings.
The news is unexpected.
I write the details down upon a pad.

The old man, unconscious in intensive care,
was joking with me, only last weekend
as I sat at ease in his musty kitchen.
He talked about his manic years at war,
straight out of grammar school into the army,
a useful bod because he spoke good French.
He waved his fork about whilst talking Hitler,
sliced cheese stuck to his outstretched thumb.

"Bach at lunchtime? - Or would you rather hear Tchaikovsky?"

"Neither" I said. "I just like to hear you talk".

Now he lies wired up on the metal bed,
His voice a prisoner in his failing body;
his memories trapped inside his restless head
rocking silent on the single pillow.

Music, his quixotic Guardian Angel,
has always kept him sane at times of stress,
especially when shot up at Monte Casino,
but now, as the leaves fall like tarnished wings,
blotching the hospital grounds in reds and yellows,
he listens, listens, deeper than his heart thrums,

listens for an ambivalent call to arms.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 24th. - 25th. - December 4th. 2016.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) A Miracle on the Northern Line.(New...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) A Miracle on the Northern Line.(New...: A Miracle on the Northern Line. The woman with the red hair Laughing on the tube train, I do not know her story, I only know her laugh...

Two Poems. (1) A Miracle on the Northern Line. (2) Water Lily. (Poem One).

A Miracle on the Northern Line.


The woman with the red hair
Laughing on the tube train,
I do not know her story,
I only know her laugh.

However,

The walking stick held tightly
By the old man sat next to me
Burst into May blossom
When her fingers touched it,

Yet

The old man, being blind,
Could only smell the perfume
Of the yellow May blossom,
That faded when he cried,

So

I tried to save the blossom,
Could only feel the cold air
Sifting gently through my fingers
As I stretched out my hand.

The hot brakes slammed.

Bank for Monument Station.

Familiar faces vanish
In the crowd.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 26th. - 28th. - 29th. 2016.

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

              Water Lily.


Girl, hair kept long,
Flowing like a river
Over the landscape of her body
Down to the narrow ankles
Tensed, just like a dancer`s
Pirouetting en pointe.

Eyes, equatorial blue with longing,
Peering sadly at the grey shore
Of our northern island.
Eyes, sad oceans, deep with thwarted love.

I watch her sleeping in her narrow bed.
Perhaps she sails that ship she often talks of
To a dark, uncharted land of broken vows,
Far darker than the loneliness that breaks me.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 29th. 2016.
February 25th. - March 3rd. 2017.

Time Capsule.

The last present you gave me was a cactus.

Well, that is what it was all about then,
not the long drawn out kisses on Hampstead Heath,
the rain falling.

          On the other hand, the forty something years
between the first kiss and the last
have been full of incident,
strange events not looked for in the Almanac
that only listed births and marriages.
Death is something missing from published horoscopes.

My home was like the Zoo, you often said;
in fact you took a shine to my one eyed woolen bunny
and my pre war tin giraffe.
Four generations of independent cats
lodged at 115,
furring up the kitchen,
lugging dead birds home to lay upon the door mat,
pummelling flies.
They have shuffled off their coils since our first night enchantment,
our first stroll in the park,
our first snog in the dark,
when we believed that we would live forever,
and a single kiss could speed us to the moon.

Well we were children then - well - more or less,
too young to vote, yet old enough to marry,
your first born nipper soon to kick your belly;
not our love`s child, but a gift from St. Tropez
one drug skewed summers day
in the arms of a counterfeit Count, or some other Hippy lover.
Our dreams became burnt cinders after that,
but I still kept your slipper safe at home
to place upon your foot if you should come to stay.

And call you did, two weeks before you died,
to present me with this cactus I now care for
upon the doorstep    where the cats had slept
before they soft shoed out on one last sad foray.

But I have not quite finished setting the world to rights,
this cactus was not the only gift you proffered,
there were also those two pots of Dorset honey
and that long sad wistful         unexpected kiss.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 21st. - 22nd. - 25th. - November 16th. - 24th. 2016.