Three Meditations.

                     (1)

      Crossing the Stream.


An old man on a broken Bridge.
At dusk he crosses the swollen stream
With long        slow         strides.


                      *

                     (2)

          Chinese Ceramics.


This is where I can meditate,
A room stacked with
Plates, bowls and cups,
Simply decorated,
Reflecting the light.

I sit by myself,
Perfectly happy
Arranging invisible flowers.


                     *

                    (3)

        My Wilderness.


I have allowed a patch of garden to grow wild.
It is now more beautiful than when I mowed it,
Every plant has found its proper place.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 24th. - 27th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Tabula Rasa. (Completed Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Tabula Rasa. (Completed Version).: Under the watchful gaze of the philosopher, The weight of his words, She burnt all my letters, My ham fisted hieroglyphs of love On the...

Trevor J Potter's Art: In the Shadows. (Rewritten).

Trevor J Potter's Art: In the Shadows. (Rewritten).: There is a black hole in my consciousness. I do not remember the girl, Only her smile, Her name is a total mystery to me. We spent one...

In the Shadows. (Rewritten).

There is a black hole in my consciousness.
I do not remember the girl,
Only her smile,
Her name is a total mystery to me.

We spent one secret night together:
The Japanese timepiece chimed strict warnings,
A clock work grandpapa on guard in the kitchen.
He was stood by the window to bar intruders.

When I rewind the old clock I remember that night.
The face of a stranger blurred by the shadows,
Her chubby white fingers curled into mine,
Her high leather boots thrown down on the table.

I cannot remember the month, the day or the year.
Did the rain fall? Were boughs thick with blossom?
Did red leaves flutter from skeletal trees?
The silence of snow did not muffle the garden,

This much I can tell you; it was not mid winter.
Blizzards in England always make the headlines,
And folk rarely travel on sharp wintry days.
Black ice stops the buses. Trains block up the sidings.

Perhaps she was Dutch? - French? - Maybe Italian?
Her hair was blonde - mousey blonde - I recal.
I only know she slept in my bed, a real treasure,
But after breakfast she simply walked away.

It was like that a lot in the nineteen sixties.
Sometimes there were phone calls,
Sometimes a batch of well meaning letters,
But more likely a silence, monastic and chill,

The real world had taken its toll.
But this girl seemed different, not like the others.
She would come back on Friday to set things straight,
Before she flew off to wherever she came from.

I cant tell you now if that promise was kept,
The relevant page has been ripped from the diary.
When love becomes rancid a curtain descends,
An iron curtain painted black.

The blank in my forehead is pounding like hell.
All this week her shadow has darkened my dreams.
If I can find out her name I can search on line.
I just cannot find out her name.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 18th. - 23rd. - 24th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Kyoto Temple Garden. (2) A Memory of Kyoto. (3...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Kyoto Temple Garden. (2) A Memory of Kyoto. (3...:                       1 .     Kyoto Temple Garden. Buddha reflected in the water. Two Buddhas in a single moment. One breaks up whe...

(1) Kyoto Temple Garden.(Revised) (2) My Rose Tree. (3) The Spider.

                     1.

    Kyoto Temple Garden.

                     1.


Buddha reflected in the water.

Two Buddhas in a single moment.

One breaks up when a leaf falls,
The other sits unconcerned
On a lotus blossom.

The lotus blossom is carved in stone

Grey stone reflected in green water.

I sit and watch the leaves fall.
The landscape is slowly changing.
Now it is autumn the bones are showing.

I cross the stepping stones on heavy feet.

When I press the handset the car doors open.


                         2.

A car ride from the concrete city
A temple garden full of trees,
Not a straight line to be seen.

Behind me the Buddha laughs
Deep in his granite belly.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 14th. - 17th. 2017.
Completed January 16th. 2018.

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

                         2.

             My Rose Tree.


My rose tree, a twisted arm,
Branches writing on the wind
In praise of stillness.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 19th. 2017.
---------------------------------------------

                       3.

               The Spider.


On my window, doing nothing,
I thought the spider was a corpse,
It is only waiting.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 19th. 2017.
In a Kyoto Temple Garden completed 16th. January 2018.

(1) Street Scene. (2) No Fear of Water.

                       1.

              Street Scene.


This girl outside Kings Cross Station
Reminds me of the nineteen sixties,
Her jumper falling off one shoulder,
Athletic legs proudly displayed.

She stands alone on the rainy forecourt,
Lost in the bustle of fraught commuters,
Hoping to hustle an hour or twos work
Safe, but private, and adequately paid.

She stands stock still, a flamenco dancer
Waiting to dominate a well lit stage,
But her cheeks are sunken, her skin bone white,
Her eyes ice bright behind her shades.

Proudly intelligent, in charge of the moment,
She weighs up custom. Sharp as a blade.
She is not an outcast. She is not excluded,
But secretly vulnerable, and very afraid.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 13th. 2017.
 ---------------------------------------------------

                       2.

        No Fear of Water.


No
The water is not deep.
We can drown in it
Because we want to drown in it,
Pressing our faces into the pool
To see what happens.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 6th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Beneath the Ice. (New Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Beneath the Ice. (New Version).: A small hole in a frozen mirror. The moon shining through still water. Two golden carp chasing a circle, Piscine adolescents, enthralled...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Japan. Revised Version.(2) China Bluebirds.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Japan. Revised Version.(2) China Bluebirds.:                      (1)                  Japan. I did not know Mount Fuji was so large. The boats, four or five deft pen strokes, Fl...

(1) Japan. Revised Version.(2) China Bluebirds.

                     (1)

                 Japan.


I did not know Mount Fuji was so large.
The boats, four or five deft pen strokes,
Float on a pale blue bay.
A purple scarf of cloud surrounds the mountain.
Sometimes I press my ears close to the paper,
But as yet I`ve never heard the temple bells.

This is the country pictured in the photos
Posed for my ancestor in the nineteenth century,
An English country boy in a white pith helmet,
The bright red tunic of a bold marine.
This was long before grey concrete towers
Vandalised what was left of Edo.

The glass plates have long since been broken.
The prints in his book are black and white.
No voices have come down to us, just pictures
Of a world so still it may never have happened.
The sun has set over distant Fuji.
A strip of Prussian Blue depicts the sky.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 4th. - 6th. 2017.

    -------------------------------

                     2.

          China Bluebirds.


High above the empty footbridge
Two birds fly.
White sunlight on blue wings.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 3rd. 2017.

Words I wanted to speak to my Stepfather, but could not. (Rewritten).

You emptied me out;
Spat in my face, hauled me over purgatorial fire,
Whipped me in the High Street because of my words,
My hatred of lies, my commitment to love.
I professed equal rights for men women and children,
For Gays and Straights, Prods Papists and Muslims,
Buddhists and Jews,
The Homeless camped out under the arches.

You emptied me out;
Kicked me around like a bag of old bones,
Of blood soaked rags, of skin and sinews.
You threw me into the path of wolfhounds, a phalanx of horses,
The heavy batons of visored policemen,
Their rubber bullets, their boots and sabres,
Their racist, fascist text book jargon,
Their anvil moulded faces.

You emptied me out,
But could not erase me,
Could not excise my deepest secrets,
Could not delete the tape of my dreams.
You left me lame and almost blinded, my intellect shuttered,
My razored lips a rancid purple, my mouth a hollow cave,
But when my heart was raked from the ashes,
It beat as though it could never be stilled.

I am the ghost of all you despise.
I am the ghost of the love you denied.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 30th. - October 2nd. - 12th. 2017.