The Holy Feast. (Lancelot Andrewes). First rough draft of this poem..

The saint`s tomb is buried in Autumn flowers,
cut down at dawn, the dew still on them,
but soon to lose all colour, all fragile scent,
under the Caen stone arches, the delicate rib vaulting
raised in record time by pilgrim monks,
who had tramped the rain sodden tracks
and braved wild seas to London,
in a world where the horse was worth more than a wife,
a bull more than a serf;-
and the sailing ships were equipped with narrow oars -
their single masts and dragon prows
made nervous folk recount old battles fought with Vikings.

These flowers are little martyrs picked to sanctify
those honoured words, first spoken by the saint
at Christmastide
to jostling festal crowds
when vicar of St. Giles in Cripplegate.
These flowers represent an ancient pagan custom
revived to add some grace to modern times,
their heads lopped neatly off, just like a recusant priest`s
                                                               at Tyburn Corner,
although our saint died snugly tucked in bed.

But it is that girl, standing silent in the crowd,
her appearance innocent as a Van Eyck angel,
who captivates my gaze,
disrupts my quest for peace.
A lonely figure, the only person standing,
she holds a taper tight in trembling fingers
as she looks straight at the altar, the gilded reredos,
her blue eyes bright with tears.
She reminds me of my friend who played St. Joan
so truthfully she could have been a sister
acting out the family tragedy:
and for a moment I feared that girl, so pale and silent,
intense and statue still amongst the throng,
could face a judge, a shrewd inquisitor,
with all the power of truth that steeled St. Joan,
and become a modern martyr.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 26th. - 29th. 2016. - See February 2017 for completed version.

Note. The congregation sits to pray where monks once knelt or stood. 

I live in Many Minds. (Newly Revised).

Late summer stillness.
I drag a stick across the pond
and watch the mud come to the surface.-
At dawn moisture danced upon the cobwebs.
Can this be an early hint of winter?
I shiver at the thought
although the day is bright and warm.

I retreat into the house,
my hermit`s sanctuary,
and lift a favourite book from off the shelf;
Omar Khayyam, the melancholy physicist
who just happened to write perfect poetry.

There always is a shadow at midday
that moves solemnly across the garden,
relentless, like the hour hand of a clock;
but I`d rather sit and sip my wine in peace
than dwell too much on a sense of loss.

Like most bookworms I live in many minds
so I doubt a single thought can be my own,
and too often I look back to comments I have read
in tattered volumes tucked inside my library.

I suppose the stick and pond
are simply scraps of ancient Buddhist imagery
that I do not have a clue how to let go;
but if I threw a hefty stone and watched the ripples spread
then I would surely know my thoughts are not my own.

Well, it seems I am an acolyte, not a natural leader,
and therefore, my friend, to whom I write this letter,
If you are so inclined to visit me at home,
please bring with you a batch of new ideas
that we can study over beer or coffee,
pernaps, in time, I`ll claim them as my own.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
23rd. - 24th. August. - 18th. - 24th. - 30th. September 2016.

12th. May 2022. 

End of Season Love.

I cannot tap tap deaf and dumb language,
My hands are wrecked,
bare bashed up quires where no birds sing,
cracked columns leaning hard against the sun
begging only questions.
So if you wish to talk to me with signs,
please semaphore your meaning with your eyes,
or come out front and act a scene or two.
Do this and I shall know just how to answer,
with a wink, a nod, a seismic loving stare,
                          a quirky stage side laugh
as I nudge and elbow obstacles aside
and try to keep the sight lines unencumbered.

Truth is a shadow danced across your lips
as you try to shape the words you cannot sound,
words I can only answer with a glance.
It seems we must now make up our own language.

My hands are snarled in knots,
                          bashed up and nearly useless
curled in upon themselves like mollusc shells,
the life and love lines scrunched up tangled threads
                                             delineating lies.
I can no longer hold a book, a pen or pencil,
throw a ball, wear a pair of gloves,
but these bandaged paws can still stretch wide and clap,
set free the moment you command the stage.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 18th. - 19th. 2016.

Written after attending a performance of Imogen at The Globe, and shortly after attending a season of readings of wonderful Restoration period plays written by neglected female writers given at The Rose Playhouse, Bankside. The writing in all these plays was truthful and to the point, no fudging and blurring of the edges. My poems are nowadays conceived as mini performance pieces, and I am trying to make them as truthful as possible, even if the results sometimes go against the grain, the fault lines of contemporary wisdom.

September 1666. (Revised).

The flames touched the books,
gently at first,
lingering over the leather covers
with a rough curiosity,
that awkward disdain for knowledge
often displayed by the willingly ignorant
when faced with something they do
                                 not understand.-
The covers darkened, curled up their
                           thick parched skins
allowing the flames to break through
tough layers of protective membrane
deep into the pristine pages,
the pale faced children of the holy word
here gathered together,
compliant students marshalled at prep school
to receive a more salutary benediction,
the gentle blessings of a careful reader.

Soon all the books in the crypt were ablaze,
caught in the wrath of that Armageddon
that straight laced puritans had long since prayed for.-
The vault of the crypt burst wide open,
shattering the heart of the ancient cathedral
that had seemed to beat in the depths of the
                                                    maelstrom
a quiet prayer of hope,
not a scream of fury, not a cry of desolation.-
But when we stood among friends on the banks of the river
to watch London burn, we wept not only for people,
but for all the razed churches, for all the burnt books.

When London ceased burning,
and before our mallets beat down St. Paul`s,
the blood red walls left standing,
we found only one relic completely intact,
the marble statue of old John Donne,
enshrined, cocooned, in his funeral shroud,
swaddled up tight like a new born baby.
Perhaps he thought of prayers unsaid
          as he lay, rehearsing the perfect death
his insurance against the divine inferno.
Or perhaps he gained comfort recalling his sermons
preached out of doors at St. Paul`s Cross,
                             or a stanza or two from his poems.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 16th. - 17th. - 30th. 2016.
Revised February 18th. 2017.

Metamorphoses. (Completed Poem)

              
Cracks breaking through a black square.
White light of a winter dawn
crazing the glass of consciousness.

I wake up with a start.

Your face sleeping on the pillow beside me
is like a shadow in the dark,
a memory of what I thought I knew
before you turned your back and left me,
heaping curses on my name.

I reach out my hand to try and touch you,
making a memory whole again,
solid as marble,
warm as breath.
Invincible life renewed by an artist
shaping beauty from raw Carrara,
a young woman without a heart.

My fingers press the cracks in the glass.

Specks of blood spotting my pillow,
staining the cloth where you once slept,
your head pressed firmly against mine.
Two separate minds.
Two different realities.

White light streaming through the window
lasers me into wakefulness,
with a sudden violent jolt.
Was I awake or was I dreaming
as I lay wishing your return?

The window pane is firm, unbroken.

The pillow case clean and warm.

Is it your artifice I long for,

your painted face in the mirror,

and not the woman behind the gloss ?
Perhaps it was the art I loved,

and not the life in you.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 13th. 2016. - May 30th. 2022.

In Concert.

Late summer heat.
I rest in your arms
listening to the silence fall
like veils of mist across the moon,
the leaves not yet crimson.

It is 48 years since we sang Hey Jude
in the swaying crowd in the TV studio,
The Band euphoric,
the spotlights searing,

but to me you are still the pale faced girl
with the ash blonde hair and the quirky smile,
scorned by the press,
loved by the cameras.

After the Show,
the lights turned out,
the audience heave-hoed,
we sang and we danced all the way home,
the sleeping streets our rain dashed stage,
the cloud haired man in the distant moon
winking.

With the crowds departed we felt so lonely,
cold strangers in the midnight town,
out of place and      out of time,
our shadows walking before us.

Late summer heat.
I rest in your arms
and watch you fall asleep beside me,
your grey hair trailing across my shoulder,
your eyelids flickering when you dream.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 7th. - 8th. 2016.

Trevor J Potter's Art: September 7th. 2014. (Revised).

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Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Sabatha of the Twenty Eight Stars. (2) Love St...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Sabatha of the Twenty Eight Stars. (2) Love St...:                   1 . Sabatha of the Twenty Eight Stars. Lifting the veil that only I can lift I meet your eyes, blue and piercing, ...

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Two Poems. (1) At the Entrance to the Cave. (2) Orpheus.(Revised)

                  1.

At the Entrance to the Cave. 


Eurydice was not Lazarus.
She did not reach the light.
One death was enough for her.

For her love was a silent prayer
prayed in an empty church
to the flickering impermanence of a candle.

She turned back at the sound of music.
Retreated into the depths of her tomb,
far from the howling of disconsolate wolves.

Above her tomb her unhappy husband
sang to the dawn his irretrievable loss
while the wolves gathered to tear him to pieces.

For the wolves the perfection of his art
was a beauty that they could not endure,
a sound icon to be smashed and silenced.

Eurydice sat alone in the darkness,
her mementoes of her husband`s voice
falling to pieces in her fingers.

For her there could be no new beginning,
her life was perfected in twenty years,
that is why the snake bit deep into her ankle.

Resurrection is only for the unfulfilled,
for those whose tasks remain uncompleted,
for those that have not touched the hem of perfection.

Orpheus invented song and verse,
for him there was no turning back
to know a fate more ordinary.

For Eurydice the simplicity of a well lived life
was all that was needed to complete her journey
into eternal solitude.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 2nd. 2016.
-------------------------------------------------------------

                  2.

           Orpheus.


Holding hands, lost in the dark,
your face a distant memory.

This torch intensifies the night,
I dare not turn in case I see you.

Next time I stray into your kingdom
your veil may be a different colour.

The photographs I took last summer
have faded leaving not a trace.

This morning when I swept the leaves,
an adder stirred beneath my foot.

Perhaps there is no after life,
and yet your touch is warm and tender,

so like the breath of a baby`s kiss,
or a delicate pulse deep in the womb.

But the shadows of ten thousand dreams
now haunt the rocks on which we stand.

I hear your voice.      I turn to answer.
Your hands no more will rest in mine.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 26th. - 31st. 2016.
September 4th. 2016.