Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) The Old Fox. (2) Russian Summer Hol...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) The Old Fox. (2) Russian Summer Hol...:                     1 .           The Old Fox. The chiming of the chapel bells sounds like the music of Caliban to the ears of the Sun...

Two Poems. 1. The Old Fox.(Revised). 2. Russian Summer Holiday. (Revised).

                    1.

          The Old Fox.

The chiming of the chapel bells
sounds like the music of Caliban
to the ears of the Sunday fox.


He sniffs the air for tang of hounds
shouldering their litheness through
bracken and hedgerows
under the hefty shadows of the horses;
the men the colour of blood.


But this morning the air is as fresh
                                     as it can be,
only the scent of willow and herb,
the distant odour of grazing cows;
and from the village, so calm and settled,
the Sunday morning sting of incense
that sometimes accompanies the morning
                                                           bells.


High over the steeple, an indistinct cloud
is perhaps a veiled threat of incoming rain,
a reminder that spring, the most volatile
                                                      season,
is marked with the tears that drenched Golgotha.


Now feeling a little less uneasy
the fox turns away up a track hedged
                                         with thorns.
For a few more hours he can stalk his
                                                     prey
safe in the itch of his skin.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 8th. - 28th. - March 1st. - 2nd. 2017.
--------------------------------------------------

                    2.

Russian Summer Holiday,

The grey bearded man is very fat,
His paunch the size of a whiskey barrel.

A quartet of girls sway in a circle,
The steps of the dance their prime concern.

If his feelings get hurt they wont give a damn;
Their somnambulant grace weaves a delicate pattern.

Sand smothers their legs in tobacco yellow
As they sail on the drift of self hypnoses.

Down by the farm beside the seashore
A fox lies in wait for the farmhands to sleep,

And the sun turns the ocean to molten iron
As it sets behind the jet black hill.

The quartet of girls wander home together.
The grey bearded man glares up at the moon.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 24th. - February 8th. 2016.
February 28th. 2017.   

Trevor J Potter's Art: Random Thoughts in the Herb Garden, Southwark Cath...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Random Thoughts in the Herb Garden, Southwark Cath...: I sat and dreamed in the remnants of the chapel, sat and studied the herbs that now grow there to create a metaphor of the resurrection, ...

Random Thoughts in the Herb Garden, Southwark Cathedral. (Revised)

I sat and dreamed in the remnants of the chapel,
sat and studied the herbs that now grow there
to create a metaphor of the resurrection,
vivid new growth between the weathered stones.

"My head is like a sieve", the old woman cried.
"Pour words in my ears they fall straight off my lips
then evaporate into the empty air".

"But nothing is really lost", I thought as I sat there
amongst the herbs and heaps of broken stones.
"I can see the shape of the chapel outlined in the raw earth
just like the carcase of a stranded ship.

I would like to haul that ship out of the soil,
set up the mast, a spire of polished wood,
swing on the ropes and climb".

Pre reformation England haunts this place,
but the rush hour traffic pounding London Bridge
shakes the earth more violently than the bells,
Cathedral bells that call the crowds to Mass.

Here in this urban sprawl of steel and glass
small memories of a rural past remain,
this herb garden is one such tiny space.

 Time present and time past here intersect,
create a sombre stillness in the heart
of the vibrant city. Even the solemn nave of the Cathedral
seems not so holy as this fragrant spot.

What sort of resurrection is implied
by these herbs that pack the broken ground
that was once the stone floor of the Bishop`s Chapel?

Perhaps the interface of spring and winter
when flowers explode with life, greening the fissures
that fracture the city sidewalks. Earth bound spinnakers of green
transforming yesterday into tomorrow.

"The garden is now closed", the old woman called.
It seems that even she still keeps the hours
that drive this city like a clockwork motor,
grinding all quiet thoughts out of our minds.

Oh I wish that the Ship of Faith,
that I have built in my imagination,
could sail me away to a calmer civilisation.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Original short version.August 28th. 2016.
New long version. February 22nd. - 23rd. - 24th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Pas de Deux. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: 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. Waitin...

Trevor J Potter's Art: September 1666. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: September 1666. (Revised).: The flames touched the books, gently at first, lingering over the leather covers with a rough curiosity, that awkward disdain for knowl...

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Holy Feast, Launcelot Andrewes, Southwark Cath...

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Holy Feast, Launcelot Andrewes, Southwark Cath...: Our saint`s tomb is buried in autumn flowers cut down at dawn, the dew still fresh on them, but soon to lose their colour, shape and scen...

The Holy Feast, Launcelot Andrewes, Southwark Cathedral.

Our saint`s tomb is buried in autumn flowers
cut down at dawn, the dew still fresh on them,
but soon to lose their colour, shape and scent.
These flowers are martyrs picked to sanctify
those honoured words first spoken by our saint
at Christmastide
to jostling festal crowds
when vicar of St. Giles in Cripplegate,
words terse but packed with mystery.
"A cold coming we had of it", like any night time journey
when footsore camels groused, their packs too heavy,
and shooting stars the only signs to follow
when seeking for one child among so many.

The saints effigy now seems so out of place, being 17th. century,
lodged under the Caen stone arches, the delicate rib vaulting
raised in record time by pilgrim monks,
who had trudged from Northern France to build this sanctuary
not long after the Norman knights had conquered,
then laid waste feisty England with axe and fire and sword.
In this world the horse was worth more than a wife,
a bull more than a serf, a mastiff more than money;
and monks were two a penny.

These flowers represent an ancient pagan custom
revived to add some grace to modern times,
their  heads lopped neatly off, just like the Tyburn martyrs
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,
my search for equilibrium.
A lonely figure, the only person standing
through every minute of the festive Mass.
A King James Bible in her trembling fingers.
Her grey eyes bright with tears.
She reminds me of my friend who played St. Joan
so truthfully she could have been the saint,
and for an hour or more, perhaps two hours,
I feel ashamed to be here in this church,
a shame that dislocates me from the prayers.
I feel that I would try to dodge the flames
with an unworthy, trite, vain recantation,
if I should be brought to the time of trial.
But this girl, I see her fierce before the judges,
proclaiming truth, integrity and love,
with incandescent power.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
September 26th. - 27th. 2016. - February 16th. 2017.

Like most people, I first discovered Launcelot Andrewes famous sermon through reading T S Eliot, who quoted the opening sentences of the sermon in his poem Journey of the Magi. For some reason, Eliot did not disclose his source. The other great piece of writing by Andrewes is his translation of The Book of Ruth in the King James Bible. The girl in Southwark Cathedral was perhaps a tourist, I have only seen her once.

Poet at The Proms.

I remember him at The Proms,
The North of Ireland man
Hooked on poetry and Bruckner,
A squat figure among excited fans.

We talked of farms and guns,
The hard labour of digging turf and spuds,
The slow long trudge for water.

It seemed so strange to me, a city fellow,
That a blunt spoken, solid country man
Should live his life for words,
And put by rugged toil for pen and paper.

But now, more than fifty long years later,
I read his books to learn more of the art
That I part share with him, though in a smaller measure
Than that rich crop of sayings, deeds and legends
That he gleaned from the fields of Ulster,
The back yards of Belfast, the rage in the Derry streets.

If I had known, as we talked beside the fountain
Waiting for the baton to be lifted,
The orchestra to thunder,
That I was chatting to a king of words
Who would one day carve the clay of language
Into a brand new music,
An epiphany of saying,
I would have pinned back hard my teenage ears
And listened to him with a greater care
Than I bestowed on Bruckner,
And would perhaps not have been quite so casual
About things I claimed to know.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 14th. - 23rd. 2017.  

Water Lily (Second Poem).

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 her northern island.
Eyes, sad oceans, deep with thwarted love.

I watch her as she walks slowly towards me,
stepping over nets spread on the quay
like an expert sailor. The rucksack on her shoulder
stashed tight with prized possessions.

Love? I have searched for love for half a lifetime,
sailing from island to mainland, from continent to
atolls,
but only finding harbours packed with strangers,
and visitors rarely welcomed.
But this morning our hands touched in the post office
doorway
as we passed each other to and from the counter,
and I knew at once my life had locked into focus,
transformed without a word, a whispered note of
warning.

Girl, my boat is ready, ship shape to sail back southward,
provisions packed below, the sail made new and furled.
The crossing can be tough, icy cold and squally,
but with two to hold the course we should get through.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 13th. 2017. (From a poem started November 20th. 2016).

Happy St. Valentine`s Day everyone.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Montaigne. A fantasy. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Montaigne. A fantasy. (Revised).: Montaigne slept above the stars Following his thoughts wherever they took him on their swift nocturnal wings. "I am a man and not...

Montaigne. A fantasy. (Completed Version).

Montaigne slept above the stars
in thrall to his dreams
wherever they took him
on their swift nocturnal wings.

"I am a man and nothing is alien to me",
He whispered into his straw filled pillow. -
Outside the windows of his tower
the ice eyed owls fiercely hooted,
a Dormouse shivered among the leaves.

The Heavens that crowned his private study
revealed no debt to Copernicus,
"But what do I know? What can I know?"
Montaigne cried to the whirling stars
spinning in galaxies through the chaos
that even the nail punch of his gaze
could not split open, reveal or measure.

The Moorish treasure box of the Church,
locked deep inside his imagination,
reflected the fading lights of certainty
through the embroidery of his thoughts.
The Church had been the voice of reason
lulling his mind when he knelt to pray,
but the Crown of Thorns in the Sainte Chapelle,
was it only a dead king`s bauble?

The canniest answers are seldom so simple,
and the centrifugal forces of gravity
have so far allowed the centre to hold.
Faith often seems the simplest pathway
across the dark that we cannot fathom,
but the owl and the fox patrolling the shadows
beneath the scimitar swipe of the moon
and the stars that lit Montaigne into dreams,
have only their empty stomachs to think of,
and the insatiable needs of their young.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 6th. - 7th. - 10th. 2017.
January 19th. 2018.

Note. On the ceiling of the study below Montaigne`s bedroom was painted the sky emblazoned with stars, and Gothic Architecture, central to both French and English culture, was initially inspired by the pointed arches and large decorated windows of Islamic art. The animals mentioned in this poem are both real and symbolic, part of the everyday struggle to simply survive. I am a profoundly spiritual person, but like Montaigne I must question all things all the time.

Old Fragments.

What are these poems?
How did they originate?
What thought processes
kicked them into life?
Neither thought through nor completed,
and just left hanging here
like scraps of ancient music,
echoes of old songs
suspended in mid air,
hung out to dry.

I found them in the loft.
Pegged up like negatives
in the corner of a dark room.
Their contents scratched or faded,
smudged or pencilled over;
one crudely cancelled out.
They bring to mind lost children
discarded without mercy,
abandoned upon an island.
They cry out to be rescued,
to be safely housed and loved.

I quietly scan the writing
and try to fit the words
into coherent patterns
that might make a little sense.
But I cannot break the codes,
they are adolescent products
from an era half forgotten
that does not seem relevant to these times.

And yet the handwriting is mine.
These are my tees and aitches,
the commas big fat blots.
When a boy I wrote for hours
in secret under the covers
for night after lonesome night.
This was my secret ritual,
my substitute for prayer,
my imagined contact with the big wide world.
But I was an innocent blinded
by a plethora of arcane symbols
dug out of library books.
A whirlwind of conflicting ideals
that my hand to mouth vocabulary
could not question, nor articulate.

But I shall guard these scraps of poems.
Perhaps one day they shall be better understood.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 21st. - 23rd. 2016.
February 4th. 2017.