(1) Chinese Porcelain. (New Version). (2) On The Dance Floor.

                 1.

    Chinese Porcelain.



Reflected in the mirror behind us
As we set up another selfie,
The collection of earthenware pots
Displayed on the highest shelf
Above the worktop in my kitchen,
Delicate Chinese porcelain
Placed next to Irish stoneware
Rough as the hills of Antrim.

And I wonder, as we peer at the photographs
Flashed up on the miniature screen
Held tentatively in your fingers,
That such a roughcast face as mine
Thumbed out of the clays of London
Does not seem an incongruous partner
To the gracefully sculpted contours
Of your refined Parisian beauty.

I turn and look up at the porcelain
That once seemed so perfect to me,
And note how the finest of glazes
Can be flecked with miniscule flaws,
And that an often praised figurine,
May in a moment seem awkward and ugly.

You stroke my face with deft fingers,
Elegant as a ballerinas.
Perhaps I should replace my collection
With artifacts of your choosing.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 19th. - 21st. - November 30th. 2015.
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                    2.

    On The Dance Floor.


Dressed to kill,
Stuck in a hive of strangers,
Waiting.

Legs
White as china clay
Shown to advantage.

Dress,
Black as a priests habit
Hiding nothing,

Only the top of a stocking,

Only the sting.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
19th. November 2015.

(1) Red Hawk. (2) The Casual Desecration of Quietness. (3). November 26th. 2015. (Revised)

               1.

       Red Hawk.


Red Hawk circling overhead
Watching the stillness move:
Winter can be beautiful.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 23rd. 2015.
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                2.

The Casual Desecration of Quietness.


This field is just too beautiful to be here;
Concrete houses must be built right now
To box newcomers in,
Row on endless row,

So bring on the diesel diggers,
Uproot the grass, the trees, the meadow flowers;
Smash the flagstones,
The path on which we took our tranquil walk

Last Sunday morning early
To watch the lapwings wheel
Above our heads
In ever decreasing circles.

This scene is forfeit now, a memoir to be confided
To a closed book; a plain truth left unsaid.

Reality is a manmade concept,
The lapwings simply are.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 19th. - 20th. - 25th. 2015. 
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                3.

  November 26th. 2015. (Revised)

            Morning.


Outside my bedroom window
The streets are bright as summer;
The trees wear withered shrouds.

             
             Evening.


You gently place your hand
upon my shoulder.
Grey moon sheaved in mist.
Still the bare trees.


               Night.


My room a magic box of quietness.
Your soft breath strokes my cheek.
The telephone rings in a far off land.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 26th. 2015.

The Red Hawk is dedicated to Malcolm Evison.

(1) Young Lovers.(2) Park Street 1 a m. (3) Breaking Through.

                 1.

 The Young Lovers.


The beautiful people in this photograph
Would now be more than one hundred years old;
Shadows printed on paper
Looking at me, seeing nothing.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 19th. 2015.
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                   2.

     Park Street 1 a m.


Face in the dark,
Chalk white on black
Slightly smudged.

We move closer;
A porcelain mask
Defined by moonlight
Slowly emerges.

Can this be
The woman I met
This morning
In the park?

You walk on by,
A stately presence
In no way artificial.

I call out your name.
You smile.
The mask shatters.
White shards streaked with black.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 16th. 2015.
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                    3.

     Breaking Through.


Between bare trees
The lights of houses;
A chessboard of lanterns
On a cold, raw night.

                *

I knock, then enter your room;
Gone again the cold nights,
Gone again the sorrow.

                  *

Face turned away;
A single tear
Under her eyelash.

                   *

Her hand in her sleeve,
A single leaf
Spared the rough wind.

                   *

Patterns of moonlight
Across her face;
Torn, the silken drapes.

                    *

You came to me in the hot night
Dressed in a kaftan of patterned lace,
A glass of water in your hand.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 11th. - 14th. 2015.
July 4th. - November 12th. 2015,

Paris 13/11/2015.

  Paris 13/11/2015.


Paris, City of light,
City of Love,
City of Elegance,
Soaked in the blood of the innocent
By the soldiers of unreason
Plying their trade in the night.

The destroyers of true beauty,
The haters of human liberty,
The purveyors of vicious tyranny,
The shock troops of the dark.
Fighting against enlightenment
On behalf of a cruel mythology
Not found in any ancient book.

I am not angry with the murderers,
I pity them, but loathe their deeds.
I weep for their mothers and fathers
Searching the mortuaries of Paris
For the remnants of their sons,
Searching for the heaps of torn flesh
Among the bodies of the murdered,
The innocents that they killed.

Paris, my second home,
Once more the shadows are spreading
Through your elegant streets,
Your tree lined boulevards.
Turn on the spotlights with full power
So that we do not lose our way,
Do not succumb to the dark.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
14th. November 2015.
For all my French friends, especially Grace, Sylvie and Siegfried.

Armistice Sunday Pilgrimage, 2015.

The trees are dropping old disguises
Exposing naked veins and taut arteries
That climb November air to scratch the clouds
With delicate dancing,
Deft etching of ephemeral patterns
In the foggy atmosphere.

The blackened roots absorbing brackish water
Snake deeply into earth gnarled tentacles
That burrow deeper than blind moles,
Or fierce artillery shells.
The discarded fancy dress of summer leaves
Lie in heaps upon the path
Awaiting the broom, the black sack and the fire.

We do not honour winter, nor do we desire
Frost scintillated nights with smoke stung air
Scouring cold lungs, scourging red raw eyes.
This sombre month of mourning has its place
Among the fallen poppies; the broken dreams
Of all our yester-years.

This is the month for planning, for planting deep
The scraggy saplings, the spiky climbing roses
That could one day shape arches over the path
To shade the wicket gate.
Under this shade I might pause to hear the song
Of a single nightingale,

                                       A lone bird winging
High above where howitzers once roared
And set tall woods ablaze.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 8th. - 9th. - 10th. 2015.

Three Poems. (1) Dangerous knowledge. (2) Zen Love. (3) Grace Notes.

                 1.

Dangerous Knowledge.



My friend has posted me a virus.

It is very dangerous
and could perhaps kill.

It is a poem.
Short and vibrant.
Just a line or two.

Maybe it will infect the whole echo system,
Bouncing off ideas along the way
As it infests ancient mindsets,
Destroys cultures,
Evolving infestations in every nook and cranny.

This poem is a love poem.
It is about boy meeting girl.

No guns are mentioned.
Bombs.
No hate filled propaganda.
It is about one small event one quiet Friday
Behind the locked doors of a burnt out library.

This poem must be cut down in its tracks.
Shot like a rabid dog.
Shunted to the morgue.
We just cant have a poet who spins a story
About the real life making of a baby
Cavorting his cantos all over the internet.
Such candour just wont do.

Thus another virus flops.
One more germ is pasteurized.
The latest plague put to flight

Before it shuts down all the valid systems,
Crosses all the wires

Leaving just one amber light.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 5th. - 6th. - 8th. 2015.

Written in response to Facebook not allowing me to read my friends innocent poems.
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                 2.

           Zen Love.


Before the pen touches the paper
The poem is written.

Before the clock strikes the hour
The hour has passed.

Before I met you for the first time
We had loved.

Before the moment you were born
We knew each other.

Your face observed behind smoked glass.

Your voice a distant murmur.

Before you kissed me in the park
Your shadow veiled the sunlit path.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 2nd. - 4th. 2015.
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                      3.

             Grace Notes.        (A Meditation).


I was not aware that night how you dance,
sway like a reed restless in the wind,
sway to the rhythm of my heart.



Perhaps my heart skipped the occasional beat.

Perhaps my heart was not as steadfast as yours.

Perhaps my heart resonates to the thrum of the wind.



I was not aware that night how you dance
although we stepped lightly from sunset to dawn,

I was only aware of your face pressed to mine,

the pulse of your breath on my cheek.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 4th. - 5th. 2015.
December 12th. 2015.