Californian Buddhist Wedding.

The cicadas in the distant gardens presaged heat.

In those moments the world seemed transfigured by hope
As we stood side by side on the tranquil beach
Hands barely touching;
The silent stars spun a glittering web beyond our niche in time.

Speaking few words
We watched the moonlight shimmering a fragile path
Upon the surface of the waters.
A magical path that few have dared to follow.

Like discarded fragments of our former lives
The stones that we collected on the shore
Were flicked across the tops of breaking waves.
Bad memories should not linger to deceive us.

Suddenly you kissed me.
A tentative kiss, like those that children give. -
Turning we climbed back up the concrete stairway
And entered the quiet house.

That morning when we whispered our solemn vows
In that Buddhist Temple high on the green hill
We had been changed forever by simple words.
No secular laws were needed then to bind us,
Only our fearless honesty.

But now grey walled Manhattan claims your time;
And here I sit and watch the London rain
Darkening the cold window.
December nights are long and strangely empty.
The distant moonlight seldom splits the clouds.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

27th. - 30th. November 2012.
June 5th. 2014.

3 Seasons 3 Poems.- Faded Snapshots of Kyoto - Sombre Winter Poem. - Late November.

            1

Faded Snapshots of Kyoto. 



Below us
The city seethes in heat


Here
Within the temple garden
Even the sound of water is banished



Wavelets of grey sand brush
The ancient rocks

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

               2

Sombre Winter Poem.



Bowl

White water reflecting

A fractured smile


 
    On the grass

    Frost settles

    Untrodden



How many winter moons to wait

Before your fingers press unbidden

The glass door

      --------------------------            
   
                     3

           Late November.



The mush of autumn clings to my shoes
leaf mould mixed with broken feathers.
I scrape my heal as I enter the house,
Reality            belongs           outside.


    The trees suddenly are skeletons
          Scratching a white sky -
           Summer is long gone.


Must I grow old before the Lark returns?
Never mind.    I have planted a hundred
                   Spring bulbs.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
20th. November 2012. -  23rd. November 2012.- 26th. November 2012.

Willow Pattern.

I am this shadow

You cannot hold me

Only observe the outline


Transformed into birds
We soar high above the arched bridge
Into the white sky
Briefly our song is heard
Among the Weeping Willows

The huntsman skims a stone upon the water
To shatter a fleeting image
But his aim is faulty
We have already flown far and wide
Out of reach

Later in another country
Transformed into our former selves
We sip green tea together
The simplicity of the ceremony
Instils a profound peace


Holding hands in the dark

The certainty of our love feels stronger

Than the rocks that make up the mountains


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
19th. November 2012. The first three lines written 22nd. August 1972. 

3 Poems. A Slip In Time. / Clown Portrait./ Dusk Mood.

                           1.

                 A Slip In Time.


I`ve revamped my space to corner some elbow room,
From convenience living to a cottage kitchen,
Eighteenth century at least.

Irregular flowers lean out of cut glass vases.
A sluggish wasp head butts the window pane.

Our household cat shunts her primeval memory,
Sometimes the weight is light,
Sometimes it weighs her down.

She misses the wasp by the breadth of a feline whisker,
A slip in time saves nine.

I prepare my frugal supper.
The potatoes are all home grown, likewise the peas.
I have adopted the simplicity of an earlier era.

But the computer remains on the table, squat and grey.
A virtual world packed into a plastic pod,
It helps me to complete my skittish poems.

A key is pressed, my space becomes a sanctuary,
Each little room a compact universe.
What can be gained if privacy is lost?

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

                2.

      Clown Portrait.


You requested a picture?

I have painted it.

My Clown smiles happily down
From off the back room wall
In a scintillating splatter of colour.
He certainly maketh my day
And therefore I hope that soon
He shall be making your day also,
Out shinning your Braque and Picasso;

(Don`t forget that tiny Kandinsky, 
Humour always wins the day). 

Meanwhile I can only wait
Until rejoicing I hear once more
The chimes of your voice ringing sweetly into the hallway
As you enter the quiet house.

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

                        3.

               Dusk Mood. 


The midday heat        burns your delicate beauty
You sit in the shadows waiting for the light to fail

 
        I always walk out in the evenings
   The air so pure blessing the sulphor day
               Of cracked images
                 With a cool cure
            Of patient resurrections


              Hold my arm my love
      We`ll doff our caps to the swans
       Curling their necks from the sun
               Closing their wings


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
(1) October 22nd. - December 1st. 2012. (2) November 15th. 2012. (3) July 1st. 1965.

First Love.

You come into my room

Feet silent

                 like falling

                                  petals



The red leaf rests

                           at last

                      upon the lake

Next month the snow



 Your smile expels the night

Cherry blossom in black rain

 Two Larks            in flight


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
28th. - 29th. October 2012.

Betrayals and Redemption. (Revised).

Infidelity creates poetry,                but don`t try it.
Love that is certain overcomes pain and treachery
But innocence is kinder, less wearing to the nerves,
And in no way corrosive.
We fuck ourselves up when we sleep around, so true
                                                                              My Baby,
Must I remind you? No, not really, and I am not angry about
                                                                   those other men,
Their expertise in the sack is of little concern to me,
Nor the bitter legacies they have scattered far behind them,
Like dropped newspaper cuttings on the sidewalk.-
                                                            I am just a little narked,
That is all;
                Well, that is all that I can ever dare admit to.
I know that you have coveted them in some shallow, simple way,
Like the bling proffered by rich men on the make,.
But our love has always seemed much less provisional than that,
                                                                              my lovely,
Or at least I hoped to think so.
& yet my behaviour has not always been so perfect ,
                                                                           believe you me,
Accepting inferior offers when they just happened to catch my eye
Like off the shelf Lost Leaders.
But I have always only                                      ever wanted you,
My only full term lover.
And so kiddo, perhaps we should now snuggle up and get our act together,
We have broken all the rules, but from now on, let us keep them
Inviolate and certain.        We have never lived at peace without each other.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
13th. November 2012. - August 23rd. 2014.

When reading my poems it is important to know that my first love is Theatre..

Homage to Karole Armitage.

Blonde dancer
Express with living sculpture
A clarity sublime

More cogent than simple messages
Sprayed on concrete balustrades
Of cramped    hermetic   tenements

Blonde dancer
Shape the energy
Of disorder into line

Re-defining warped conventions
Of outgrown      ancient memory
Into modern metaphors -
Graffiti etched in time

Sharp schemes
That refine the grace of nature
Expressed by Watteau`s Lover 
Into fluid     caustic     rhyme

More cogent than simple slogans
Daubed on concrete balustrades
Of cramped   hermetic   tenements
Graffiti shaped by mime

Blonde dancer
From urban squalor
Retrieve the classic line


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
25th. November 1985 - 7th. November 2003. . 

Loss in November.

              1.

White sunlight slanting
Through cracks in the door
Late roses in bloom


Blind
The old men shuffle
On sticks and stones
Rag Dolls in the wind
tottering           falling
Prisoners to fortune
All bones broken
          Carcinogenesis


Red leaves
                  humped high
On smoking cones
By laughing children
Eyes bright and clear
Tinged     with malice


             2.

       Now listen
I sit by the door
       consulting a void
Glass smashed
                on the carpet
Old photographs
                           faded
The song of your voice
Lost from the hallway


Without you here
The autumn is hateful
A shadow of ash
Smeared on a window


It is five years today
Since we burnt our letters
And you walked through that door
Alone


A touch of your lipstick
Traced     on the mirror


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
November 7th. - 10th. 2012.;