Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) A Dream of Deep Midwinter. (Revised) (2) Note...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) A Dream of Deep Midwinter. (Revised) (2) Note...: Butter coloured moon, Midnight December, A single light in the coldest of skies Shining above the Christmas rooftops, The bare boned tr...

(1) A Dream of Deep Midwinter. (Revised) (2) Note to Poem.

Butter coloured moon,
Midnight December,
A single light in the coldest of skies
Shining above the Christmas rooftops,
The bare boned trees,
The frosted windscreens,
The silent houses.


Children sleeping on pins and needles,
Bedazzled by Santa,
The thrill of his secrets,
The glint of his spells.
The houses snuggled deep into shadow,
Festive lights behind closed windows
Blinking through the smoke of dreams.


Flimsy curtains of broken promises
Keep at bay the frozen night time,
The implacable solitudes of infinite spaces,
The invisible stars.
We hang up stockings and bolt the doors
This dark and haunted Christmas Eve,
Fearing what we cannot imagine,
Loving what we make believe.


My window ajar, I study the heavens,
Butter yellow moon in a cloudless sky.
A fox slinks by, urbane and crafty,
Avoiding street lamps, moving fast.
Two cats, on guard upon a wall
Scratch the air as he passes;
While in the houses, fast asleep,
Children dream of knights and castles.


I quietly latch the bedroom window,
Then draw the curtains tight.


Trevor John. Karsavin Potter.
December 28th. - 29th. - 30th. December 2017.

Note to Poem.

Our streets and houses are dreams we have created to shut out the real world, the impersonal bleakness of the Universe. We have blotted out the night sky with bright urban lights, only the moon now clearly visible, and our houses have become extensions of our composite personalities, dream worlds purchased with hard cash. When we mourn, the whole house mourns with us. At Christmas time, the house becomes the Spirit of Christmas, or Santa Claus if you so wish. The festivities last until at least Twelfth Night, when we ask the Magi to bless our homes. In truth, Christmas is not finally over until Candlemas. A Happy Fifth Day of Christmas and a Good New Year to everyone.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 29th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1)The Still Hours. (Revised). (2) Today is the S...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1)The Still Hours. (Revised). (2) Today is the S...:               The Still Hours. Two Chinese girls studying porcelain, Their fingers dance with delicate precision. Fragile sprigs of Win...

(1)The Still Hours. (Revised). (2) Today is the Shortest Day.

              The Still Hours.


Two Chinese girls studying porcelain,
Their fingers dance with delicate precision.
Fragile sprigs of Winter Jasmine
Troubled by December wind.

Monochrome porcelain does not change
While century folds deep into century.
Slow wave folding into wave
Then breaking on the shore.

These girls seem wiser than their years,
They almost fear to lift the bowls,
Simplicity loaned to their safe keeping.

Jasmine fades in April sunlight,
Windblown blossom on wet snow
Unnoticed falls.

The porcelain bowl I dropped at school
Chimed like a bell, but did not break.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 19th. - 26th. 2017. 

                    *

 Today is the Shortest Day.


Today is the shortest day;
An ink stain on pristine paper
No razor can erase.

I snuggle tight into my dream
Waiting for a hint of light
To glow between the curtains.

Ice shimmering on a distant lake,
A single streak of winter dawn
Glinting low on the horizon.

A ripe bruising of dark cloud
Dissipates from off the surface
Of a sky chill with silence,
The flocks have long since arrowed south.

Today is the shortest day,
A comma on an empty page,
The story not yet written.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 21st. 2017.

Advent Eve.

Remembered fears become real once more.
Bare trees stoop,
Bleached skeletons flayed by Arctic wind,
Starving paupers hunched in snow,
Spittle frozen to their beards,
Ice on cracked faces,
Cracked cadaver lips.
Spiders trapped in frosted amber
Crucified on fractured webbs.


Spiders webs on frosted glass,
Thin grey hair
Of homeless women,
Crossing roads they walk to nowhere,
Every door is locked against them,
Threadbare coats flayed into tatters,
Voices cracked
Each word a prayer.


November dying in the embers
Of bonfires built to burn dead leaves,
Torn up roots
And hacksawed branches,
Masked effigies of Fawkes and priests.
Remembered fears are real once more.
Homeless children crowd around me
Begging money,
Begging bread.
I have leased my life to empty promises,
I have nothing more to give.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 30th. - December 1st. - 2nd. - 12th. 2017.

Midwinter Loneliness.

Ice on my footpath
A mirror to be melted
So that you can return

At night I recall
You snuggled beside me
Warmer than firelight

Your smile when you touched me
Cracked open the dark

I think this crushed snow
Is simply a metaphore
Reflecting our sorrow

I must now spread hot ash
Over the ice
To make the path safe


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 12th. 2017.

Wonderland Love Song.

I am your Cheshire Cat.

You can scroll down quickly
So that I disappear
Right off your screen
If you like,
But my image will remain
Locked in your mind,
Afloat in inner space
Just like the face
Of the magical feline of Wonderland.

I am not a virtual inhabitant
Of your hand held plastic world
So small it can fit
Tight in the pocket watch
Of a frantic off white rabbit.
My claws are real,
Larger than average claws,
And can draw red blood
From the falsest of false hearts.

I am invisible, zapped out
By you,
But just for one moment.
Whichever path you may take,
Left or right or wherever,
You shall find me waiting,
Curled up on the warm hearth
Of any strange house you may enter,
Perfectly at home as always.

So turn off your fake small world,
Unplug your permanent headphones,
Hear my real words
Whispering out of the darkness,
Straight off the yellowing pages
Of the paperback book you once loved.
I am the smile that cannot be faded,
Your first kiss under starlight
When the whole universe seemed to swirl you

In a dance above the clouds.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 8th. - 9th. 2017.

(1) Love Talk? (2) Weeks After the Party. (3) End House.

                   1.

          Love Talk?


Holding hands across the table,
Talk of coats, hats, and shopping.
Eye contact direct, but dazzling.
Just cannot say "I love you".


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 4th. 2017.

                  2.

  Weeks After the Party.


I am still picking remnants of last summer
From off the front room carpet;
Flecks of golden foil
Dropped by laughing children,
All their toys broken.

Meanwhile outside in my urban garden
Tiny dark green shoots
Disturb December leaf mould
Weeks before the solstice:
Easter tidings etched on Advent sorrow.

I drop the flecks of foil into the waste bin
Then stare out of the window.
The fading past and doubtful future seem
Just one quick glance apart.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 4th. 2017.
             
               
                  3.

         End House.


The old lady`s end of terrace
Has been converted into flats.
Gone the chats across the fence.
Gone the Winter Jasmine.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 4th. 2017.

(1) Not Quite a Ghost. (2) Sunday Morning.

                    1.

        Not Quite a Ghost.


And as you walked away from me
I remembered the child that you once were

Four hours gone
Your expensive scent remains
In the textures of the back room
Transforming every fabric
Into a Succubus of memory

Even the indoor rose bush
Has flowered out of season
Adding a delicate tenderness
A pure ethereal beauty
To the heady mixture

Outside in the rain
The dead leaves on the garden path
Spiked into broken threads
By your high heals turning
As you turned to wave goodbye

A child waving from a distance
No adult could encounter
Your blue eyes wet with sobbing
Your white umbrella knocked and turned about
By a gust of wind


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 28th. - 29th. 2017.

                    2.

       Sunday Morning.


Alert and assured
I walk downstairs
To greet the sun

This is my happiest hour of the day
Before car doors bang
And the telephone rings

Now 1`m at ease with the whole wide world
Pouring the coffee
Counting the roses
Honey melting on my tongue -
You asleep in our darkened bedroom
Curled in your basketwork of dreams

But the moment your hand rests on my shoulder
I cease to be who I think I am


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
November 4th. - December 1st. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Three Poems. (1) Bad Music. (2) Bond Street. (3) P...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Three Poems. (1) Bad Music. (2) Bond Street. (3) P...:                     1.            Bad Music. For you, I am bad music. I am the song you don`t want to sing Any more. I am the love l...

Three Poems. (1) Bad Music. (2) Bond Street. (3) Pygmalion.

                    1.

           Bad Music.


For you, I am bad music.
I am the song you don`t want to sing
Any more.
I am the love lyric you need to forget,
Throw over,
Turn off at the socket;
The ear worm that drives you crazy,
Echoing through you,
Jamming all systems.
I am the repeat switch on your old player,
The switch you can never reset.

I am the number crossed out in your phone book;
The recorded message lamely unanswered;
The secret whisper into your pillow
As the nights draw in
And you bury your head deep in the blanket.
I am the cold wind shaking your window
As you set the alarm and put out the light.

I am your memory of that moment last summer
When a stranger smiled, and you smiled back.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 26th. - 27th. 2017.

                    2.

           Bond Street.


This little book of poems?
Great art in my pocket,
Rembrandt compressed into words.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 17th. 2017.

                    3.

           Pygmalion.


I live alone
With my dream of you

A pale figurine
I dare not touch

In case I lose my grip
Then stumble

Cutting my fingers
On the scattered shards

I live alone
With my dream of you

Afraid to face the consequences
Of seeing what I dare not see

Of knowing what I dare not know


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 27th. 2017.

Brexit Babylon.

The sacred icons of the Tory Party
Lie broken in the inner sanctuary
Of the British psyche,
And no one cares to mend them.

Their burnished frames and gilded haloes
Blackened by the stench of cities
Sinking under the hollow god
Of sanctimonious piracy.

Young people with a social conscience
Despise the sacrificial altars
To capitalist supremacy,

They have ceased to crave the morning sun,
They seek the lights of democracy,
Of Human Rights, of absolute equality.

They dream a world with no hard borders,
No phoney saints in Tory colours
Scrawling lies on Campaign Buses,
No oligarchs, no poverty.

The sacred icons of the Tory Party
Lie broken in the inner sanctuary
Of the British psyche,
The votive candles burning low.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 24th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) 9AM. 22nd. November. (2) Sad Dance. (3) Leila....

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) 9AM. 22nd. November. (2) Sad Dance. (3) Leila....:                      1 .   9AM. 22nd. November. The sun is different today, An electric winter sun, A brilliant white spreadsheet On...

(1) 9AM. 22nd. November. (2) Sad Dance. (3) Leila.

                    1.

  9AM. 22nd. November.


The sun is different today,
An electric winter sun,
A brilliant white spreadsheet
On which the clouds are printed.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
22nd. November 2017.

                    2.

           Sad Dance.


My God, you are beautiful,
The pavements sing like children
When you walk on them,
Your black high heels
Tapping out Bach and Chopin.

It would be a sin to make love to you,
But you are not perfect,
A prized black tulip
Compressed between the fingers
Of a crazed admirer,

Your smile like a thin pressed crease
On a sheet of brown paper
Pulled tight over a birthday gift,
A box packed with whispered secrets.
Indeed, you are no Madonna,

But when I dance with you
In the privacy of your first floor bedroom
To the sad strains of a Slovenian love song,
I seem to be holding the whole of creation
In the circuit of my arms.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 18th. - 19th. 2017.

                     3.

                 Leila.


When I woke up this morning
I was dreaming of you,
Your light delicate hand
Always on my shoulder.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 22nd. 2017.

These three poems seem to belong together, a little family of verse.

Anna.

The fat old lady smiled at me,
The single smiling face in a silent crowd
Of Soviet musicians and their guardian angels
All dressed in silver grey suits.

After I had sung,
(Something by Brahms, or was it Tchaikovsky?),
My teenage treble out glistered by the grand chandeliers
That hung in the semi darkness
Of the great domed smoky ceiling, they all applauded,
But none as sincerely as Anna.

Years later, as we talked in her small apartment,
Swamped by hot house flowers and the scent of brewing tea;
The plain shelves filled with books I loved to look at,
But could barely decipher
Because I had not been encouraged to study my father`s language,
I slowly became aware she had once been an exceptional beauty,
Photographed, sketched and painted by artists in Moscow and Paris.

Anna has been dead for fifty years,
And I have read her Requiem, her Wind of War, her Poem Without
                                                                                              a Hero,
In English translation, (unlike my sister, I still cannot read a word,
Cannot come to terms with the bleak originals),
And so I experience her voice as a deaf man might hear music,
A distorted, muted echo that clogs up syntax
But does not kill the pain that honed these poems of Terror.

Anna, it is not the gulag that first comes to mind
When I think of you waiting in line in the Leningrad snow,
Head bent low with sorrow,
It is the hard won smile you gave me, two decades later
As I stood on the stage, imperfectly speaking your language,
But stunned by the love in your eyes.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 17th. 2017.  

A Fairytale. (Revised).

Crossing the steel bridge to the market
An ordinary girl, yet full of poems
Red in tooth and claw:

Unruly babies, not yet nurtured,
Already spitting fire, like dragons
Deep in her world, her womb,
The echoing shadows,
The darkness where, in the beginning
All of life is formed, articulated
In secret, all the lanterns out;

Here dwarfish gods
Make sacred swords
And birds speak plain to purblind heroes,
The seas are born, the Kraken roars,
The mountains fall apart.

Crossing the steel bridge to the market
An ordinary girl, her hair in ribbons,
Sings out raw poems to the crowds;
                                                                                    (The girl sings).
Come and buy                                                                          
Come and buy
You lost and lonely
Come and buy.

But no one would give her a well thumbed penny.
No one would give her a candid glance.                               
                                                                                   (The crowd reacts).
                                   
                        Her accent aint local. American? Perhaps she`s Polish?
                        An asylum seeker? A benefits cheat? - NAH,
                        Someone who slipped under the wire? More like.
                        Bet she`s a Gypsy. - A religious freak.
                        How dare she squawk those hard luck stories.
                        How dare she beg our hard earned pay.
                       Come away children! Move! Come on! Out of her way!

But all the children of Camden Town
Danced around her hand in hand,
Sharing their sweets with her and laughing,
Scorning their parents acrid anger.
And when she raised her old tin whistle
They heard a music no adult could hear,
The notes so high pitched they could have been silent,
The notes so sweet the Angels grew jealous.
And when she said it was time to come home
They danced with her over the bridge.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 21st. - 22nd. 2017.
November 14th. - 15th. 2017.
December 4th. 2017.

My Housemate.

I am not alone
I am not lonely
There is a single spider
Living on my window
A quiet Buddha
Watching the world go by

Most other folk
Would swipe him with a duster
Would squash him flat
I cannot do that
I love his stillness
He is quite safe here

Perhaps if I could learn to live like him
All that I need would drop into my lap


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 14th. 2017.

Icelandic Music.

Painting ice with music
So like walking head down into the wind
But surfing it also.

Thus it was when riding white angel horses
Lost in each others arms all through the night
The white wings beating above us.

Thus it was when we kissed in the shimmering dark
The stars ice splinters adrift on windows
Small flecks of light.

We slept that year in the chill of your cabin
The leafless trees whispered outside
Love poems bereft of words.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 9th. - 10th. 2017.

Written whilst listening to Bjork on the radio. 

Standing Aside.

Girl, hair kept long,
Flowing like a river
Over the landscape of her body
Down to her narrow ankles,
Her sturdy dancer`s feet.

Eyes, equatorial blue with longing,
Peering sadly at the grey shore
Of our northern island.
Eyes, sad oceans, deep with thwarted love.

Tonight I watch her sleeping on the sofa.
I promised her to keep watch until morning.
Perhaps she dreams that ship she often talks of,
Sailing inland seas and winding rivers
To a dark, uncharted land of broken vows,
Far darker than this loneliness that taunts me.

She has been quite distant to me since she moved in,
Arriving with her back pack and her kitten,
A frightened huddle of fur wrapped in a towel.
We have both lived lives chained to aspirations
That have dragged us far out of our comfort zones.
We thought that love is easy. It is not.

I tip toed across the room and touched her shoulder.
She protested, then curled tightly in a ball.
I had forgotten that sleep is a private space,
A Safe House with locks on every door.

Sleeping apart is not how we had planned it,
But there is a sort of fear that mimics shyness
And keeps even soul mates at arms length:
Those whom we long to love we dare not touch.

Girl, hair kept long,
Flowing like a river
Over the landscape of her body
Down to her narrow ankles,
Her sturdy dancer`s feet.

Perhaps one day we can live much simpler lives.
Quietly observing the world. Minding our own business.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 29th. 2016.
October 11th. - November 8th. 2017. 

This poem has been developed from an earlier work that never fully hung together. This new poem says what I was trying to express in the previous version. 

Sword. (Revised).

I raise your Samurai sword.
Unlikely as it seems, I admire the feel of it,
The heft of it,
Weight subtly balanced to your strength,
The dance of intuition
So dominant in your mind.

Only you can master it,
Float it on the air,
Float it like a whisper,
A wordless, wistful sigh.
It is not tarnished with deceit.
It seems a force of nature.

I love the fierceness of it,
The elegance of cold steel
That can slice an infants hair,
Cut a man in two.
The balance is almost perfect,
Allied to your steadfastness,

Just like our bitter sweet love.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 3rd. - 4th. 2017.

(1) Thinking of You. (2) Crows.

                  1.

     Thinking of You.   


Thinking of you.
So sorry.
Just cannot sleep.

Thinking of you
Restless.
Dead leaf. Red bird.

Thinking of you
Sleep walking
Still cannot find you.

Thinking of you.
Heart aching.
Bleak wind. Wet summer.

Thinking of you
By the lake side
Not knowing why.

Thinking of you
Restless.
So sorry.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 29th. - 30th. 2017.
--------------------------------------

                   2

               Crows.


I listen to the cawing of the crows.
The calendar contracts,
The leaves are falling,
November is tomorrow.

I listen to the cawing of the crows.
Time to dim the lights,
Park the car,
Lock all the doors;
At this time of the year I run on empty.

I listen to the cawing of the crows.
They cling like rags
To leafless branches,
Seeing further than I see;
Sounding warnings.

I listen to the cawing of the crows.
My world shrinks to one room.
I close the window.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 31st. - November 3rd. 2017.

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.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Soul mates. (New version. Truth is a many splendor...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Soul mates. (New version. Truth is a many splendor...: By the lakes edge the flash of electricity in the air, cracking the night sky apart, breaking my window. Your face, caught in the mirr...

Soul mates. (New version. Truth is a many splendored thing)

By the lakes edge
the flash of electricity in the air,
cracking the night sky apart,
breaking my window.

Your face, caught in the mirror
just before our first kiss
as we crashed out of our loneliness, landing softly
on the unmade king sized bed in the back room.
It seemed that we had fallen through our own reflections
like Alice Through the Looking Glass.
Free falling through a hail storm of disconnected images
of who we thought we were, our half imagined lives;
the kings and queens we dreamed up in our pre-teens;
the jolly Bodhisatvas that preached aeons before
the sceptics we now are.
Your face, caught in the fractured mirror;
pale moon between dark clouds.

For years my nights were troubled by inchoate dreams
Of a young woman that I had never met,
or at least I do not think so.
                                       Her perceptions were forensic.
She seemed to know every detail of my life style,
the ins and outs of my daily drudge,
and she spoke to me like a wife with many a bone to pick.
This was long before I bumped into you at the Casareccia,
when I nearly dropped my coffee in your lap.

Pseudo Romantics call this Loving at First Sight,
but I might suggest second sight would be more appropriate,
a thousand aeons of deep knowledge pre dating the kiss
that smashed to smithereens our preconceptions
and broke every mirror that reflected former times.

I turn out the light, we curl up close together, our tangled hair still wet
from the journey home, the road a torrent, a cudgel strike of rapids
warring down the hill, the traffic at a standstill.
That rush hour in the rain seemed to take a lifetime.
Ten decades fighting squalling head on winds.
                                         Perhaps a thousand aeons?
Or was it just ten minutes?
Who cares? What does it matter?
Folk tales of life and death, of dark immortal longings, don`t concern us,
and Bodhisatvas rarely come to Hendon.
This crumpled double bed is world enough.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 4th. 2016. - May 5th.2017. - September 27th. - 28th. 2017.

We all live in our dreams, our preconceived notions, that is our reality. Truth is a many splendored  thing.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1). November 11th. 2014. (Longer Revised Version)...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1). November 11th. 2014. (Longer Revised Version)...:                 1.  November 11th. 2014. The silence drifted over England Like the smoke from a cannon After the echoes had faded. ...

Pre - Natal. (First Version).

Crossing the steel bridge to the market
An ordinary girl, yet full of poems
Red in tooth and claw;

Unruly babies, not yet nurtured,
Already spitting fire, like dragons
Deep in her world, the echoing shadows,
The darkness where all life is formed
In secret, all the lanterns out.

Here dwarfish gods
Make swords for giants
And birds speak plain to purblind heroes,
The seas are born, the Kraken roars,
The mountains fall apart.

Crossing the steel bridge to the market
An ordinary girl, her shoes worn out,
Crying poems to the wind;

Come and buy.
Come and buy.
You lost and lonely
Come and buy.

But no one would give her a penny.
No one would give her a look.
She was just a poor girl, a useless malingerer,
Someone to kick because she was down.

But all the children of Camden Town
Withdrew into silence when she turned away.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 21st. - 22nd. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Three Poems (1) The Bather. (2) Deep Night. (3) Se...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Three Poems (1) The Bather. (2) Deep Night. (3) Se...:               (1)       The Bather. Your body, a black wand Seen against white blossom. Teak bending in the wind.               (2...

Three Poems (1) The Bather. (2) Deep Night. (3) September 1st. Sparkling Sunshine.

              (1)

      The Bather.


Your body, a black wand
Seen against white blossom.
Teak bending in the wind.


              (2)

      Deep Night.


Sleeping hand at rest in mine;
Powerless, gently turning,
Black leaf on white water.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 19th. 2017. (Poems written as a pair).

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

              (3)

September 1st, Sparkling Sunshine.
        

I open the curtains.
The light rushes in.
The house resounds to the clamour of bells.

Scared by these sounds
The ghosts depart,
Fidget their wings then swoop like doves
Up to the loft             to wait for the night.

This afternoon I shall stroll in the park,
Sit by the fountain,
Drink lemon tea.

As I drink the tea I shall taste the day,
Bitter but sweet,      a hint of Autumn.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 1st. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Provencal Magic 1957, A Meditation in Six Poems. N...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Provencal Magic 1957, A Meditation in Six Poems. N...: Poem No.1. In the Clarity of Daylight.  "The boy has an eye"  Picasso said, Standing in the doorway The prodigy at his elbow....

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 concrete path
Outside his bedroom window.
She watched them ghosting into the fading light,
A pellucid column of acrid paper smoke
Shifting in the glint of torches,
The shimmer of the August moon.

My words curled up into a dance of ashes
Pirouetting on the fretful wind
Like black leaves floating on the water,
Slow currents sieved through ancient sunken stones.
Water is forgiving, but fire is not,
And soon all my words were drifting upward,
Like prayers whispered to the setting sun.

She could never tell me why she burnt my letters,
Something to do with the shedding of attachment,
Something to do with changing who she was,
Just like a snake sloughing off dead skin,
Shape shifting into a new persona.

She could never tell me why she had to do it,
Something to do with clearing out old debris,
Something to do with dumbing down the past.
And for a while I would not lift the phone
Just in case she learned to speak the truth.

My family has the habit of keeping letters,
We do not think a life should be forgotten,
But her philosopher taught that he knew all the answers,
And she fell hook line and sinker for his bait.

And for a while, night after restless night,
I dreamt the four wan horsemen rode the wind
Above the roofs of London.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 5th. - 7th. - 10th. - 11th. 2017.
October 27th. 2017.

Sylvia. (Revised).

So this is where it happened,
In the rooms above this blue plaque,
Behind locked doors
On a freezing winter morning.
Here where the policeman stood,
The pressmen took their photos,
The neighbours talked,
A poet is remembered,
My teacher and my friend.

You are part of who we are now,
Lodged in our DNA,
In books and grubby mortar,
The crowded Underground,
The streets we hustle out of
To get from A to B.
You are part of the air we breathe in,
Just like Keats and Shakespeare,
Milton, Yeats and Shelley,
A sweet American girl
Cut down by raging sorrow,
Your cry not just an echo,
But etched into the marrow,
The solid London clay,
The back bone of our history.

I hear you in these wet streets,
In Regent`s Park, in Chalcot Square,
At noon on Primrose Hill.
Your voice is never silent,
But shivers through the small woods,
The tight North London suburbs,
The scrum in Camden Market,
The heights of Hampstead Heath.
A voice that cuts straight into
The hallowed euphemisms
We construct to section grief.

Today in Fitzroy Road
I stand staring at your window
Just like a three day tourist
With one less box to tick.
I recall my teenage self
Sat awkwardly at your table,
Your Biro in my right hand,
A thesaurus at my elbow,
But unable to write one word.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 31st. - November 11th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: August Bank Holiday, Bankside. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: August Bank Holiday, Bankside. (Revised).: Exposed by the tide The old quay rots On the grey beach. Commerce has moved east from the city, Colonising the broad wet lands Once r...

August Bank Holiday, Bankside. (Revised).

Exposed by the tide
The old quay rots
On the grey beach.

Commerce has moved east from the city,
Colonising the broad wet lands
Once rich with wild life
But denuded of people.
The cold reed beds
And swampy islets
Where the river slowly seeps into the sea.

And now
Where the porpoise once leapt the low wave
Tankers crowd into the bleak Thames estuary
Waiting to be eased into harbour
By the squat tugs
And phone calls in a mix and match of languages.

Today I stroll among the carefree tourists
Who bring their innocent carnivals to Bankside.
They snap blurred selfies where wherries once tied up,
And cranes were lowered to honour Churchill`s passing.
Beneath our feet, two thousand years of history
Underpins the pavement, but slowly crumbles,
Breaks down into slurry,
The liquid silt that shifts beneath the concrete
With the ebb and flow of the river.

"No thing is solid,
No thing is as we see it";
Mutters the ferryman
As the prow cuts into the neap tide,
The weight and tug of the currents
That buckle the placid surface.
"We honour pipe dreams
But truth gets hooked in the undertow".

The clock at St. Pauls
Chimes each passing quarter.
Exposed by the tide
The old quay rots
On the grey beach.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 27th. - 28th. - 30th. - 31st. 2017. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Paradiso. (New Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Paradiso. (New Version).: Our horses huddle in the August heat haze, Little piebald miracles on the verge of sleeping, Little vagabonds of the hills and valleys. ...

Paradiso. (New Version).

Our horses huddle in the August heat haze,
Little piebald miracles on the verge of sleeping,
Little vagabonds of the hills and valleys.
These sons and daughters of Olympian Pegasus
Ridden in dreams by wistful children.

Stars spin iridescent in the evening stillness,
They seem to sanctify the vacant spaces
No saint can contemplate without despairing.
Dusk descends early as summer grows old,
And a chill wind warns of a grey September.

The horses, they dream of those gypsy dealers
Who once rode them bare backed down the rapids
To sharpen dull wits for market trickery.
That was the morning we discovered Elysium,
The pounds cascading from out of our pockets.

That was the morning we bought the horses
From the gold toothed haggler
With eyes well hidden.
That was the morning we found that Elysium
Was barred and shuttered to folk with no income.

Tonight I am standing alone in my garden
And I think of the horses, tethered to fences
In a part of the country I now rarely visit.
They sleep beneath stars that could burn up the oceans
Or fill every planet with gardens of roses.

And I think of young Ivy, felled by a bully,
Lying unconscious, her black eyes unfocussed,
But ears tuned in to the murmurs of doctors.

Perhaps she dreams of our four little horses,
Piebald truculents feigning docility.
Perhaps she is dreaming of galloping bare backed
Into the rivers and over the hedgerows.

Perhaps she is dreaming of nothing at all,
But dances alone through the vacant spaces,
Dancing where no saint dare to wander,
But blessed by the power of a million suns.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 19th. - 20th. - 22nd. - 23rd. 2017.

For Ivy, drifting in and out of a coma.
She has been given a radio so that she can listen to music.
I have tried to integrate dream and reality in this poem.

Love.

Love is a fierce and dangerous thing,
A dark torrent under the skin,
Bruising the surface when we catch the stone
Thrown into the air by an unwary stranger
Just passing by,
Just passing time.

And we are lost in the mirror of the eye
Of a stranger who seems to study us
Like the old Red Queen confronting Alice
In the lost garden of talking flowers.
She sees nothing,
Only her features,

Features reflected back to her looking
But twisted as though by rippled glass.

Love is a fierce and dangerous thing,
A torrent rushing over the rapids
Breaking small boats upon the rocks,
Breaking them into a thousand pieces
That drift away
To vanish in a distant ocean.

Love can never be boxed and indexed,
Dammed at source,
Kept in order.
Love breaks every rule and makes none,
A dark torrent under the surface
Bruising the skin when the stone is caught.

And yet without love we are nothing at all,
Not even the echo of a strangers voice.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 17th. 2017.

Thamar.(New Revised Version)

The sound of thunder in the mountains.

Thamar walking in the garden,
A thorn in her heart:
A brother`s knife
Pressed deep into her naked belly
Spilling blood the colour of roses.

Incest was an Imperial custom

Sustained in Egypt - loathed in Judea. 

Amnon lies dead in the valley,
The sister he raped
Is white with ashes;
The baby clinging to her shoulder
Chokes on milk tainted with wood smoke.

Thamar would have married her brother;
Would have smashed the emptied wine glass
Under her heel
As she made her vows.
But Amnon`s love had turned to hatred
Because she offered him forgiveness.

The sound of thunder in the mountains.

The cries of soldiers drunk on murder.
Sabres dipped in Amnon`s blood
Brandished at the waning moon.

Thamar weeps in the sheltered garden;
The baby clinging to her shoulder
Alienates her even from herself.

She has felt the shadow of the wing of madness
Freeze the nape of her neck.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 14th. - 15th. 2017.
September 29th. 2017.

Note. I prefer the spelling Thamar to the more usual Tamar. I was surprised to read that King David would have allowed a brother and sister, (his Children), to marry each other to protect the honour of the wronged woman. The baby only brings desolation.

Trevor J Potter's Art: An Afternoon in January, A Suburban Street Scene. ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: An Afternoon in January, A Suburban Street Scene. ...: That neat old man toddling home, his bags bulging with tins of soup, is closer to eternity than he cares to ponder, his eyes fixed on th...

Trevor J Potter's Art: This Maundy Thursday Night 2017. (Completed Poem)....

Trevor J Potter's Art: This Maundy Thursday Night 2017. (Completed Poem)....: Kneeling in the silent chapel I study the blank walls where my favourite icons should be and sense the infinite shadowing me in a cold ...

A Miracle on the Northern Line. (New Version).

The woman with the red hair
Laughing in the tube train,
I do not know her story,
I only know her name.


The walking stick held tightly
By the old man at my shoulder
Burst into May blossom
When her fingers touched it.


The old man, being blind,
Could only smell the perfume,
He could not retrieve the blossom
That faded when he cried.


I tried to save the blossom,
Could only feel the cold air
Sifting gently through my fingers
As I stretched out my hand.


The woman with the red hair?
She sauntered off the tube train
At Bank for Monument Station,
Leaving not a trace behind.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 26th. - 28th. 2016.
July 29th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) Late Night Impressions. New Poem. (...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) Late Night Impressions. New Poem. (...:                             1.                  Late Night Impressions . Asleep in your wagon Our bodies almost touch But not quite ...

Two Poems. (1) Late Night Impressions. New Poem. (2) Old Faun and Sleeping Nymph.

                            1.
          
      Late Night Impressions.


Asleep in your wagon
Our bodies almost touch
But not quite
Our minds too far apart

Your anger never leaves me
The anger of a loner
Who needs to share her love
To share her life

To wake up every morning
Next to a perfect stranger


The flowers on your windowsill
Are wilting in the moonlight

One tulip fading in a vase

Death made elegant


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 18th. - July 27th. 2017.
Note.  The wagon was a traditional Gypsy Caravan, or Vardo.

                     -------------
                             2,
       
    Old Faun and Sleeping Nymph.


I have never before known such beauty.
The girl asleep in my arms trusts me completely,
And yet I am afraid my seventy years of error
Will project fraught memory upon her guiltless face
To make division where division should not be.
Meantime, I hold her gently in the half light,
Counting the starless hours as they exchange
Oppressive midnight for a misty morning,
When one pert smile is all I shall receive.

Shall I now wake her with a cup of coffee,
Or wait until the street lamps flicker out?
Or shall I snuggle deep into the calmness
Of this unquestioning love, so new to me?
It seems that she has sabotaged my will,
Taking all my strength by simply sleeping
Lodged in my arms, when I did least expect it.

It seems she owns this moment, so I must stay
Lost in her world, until she wakes to change it;
And then I must relearn in one quick minute
Who she is, and who I claim to be.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 23rd. - 24th. 2017.

Promenader. - After the Concert.

You dance down the street
Like a ballerina en pointe,
Head held erect,
Black curls lifted on the buoyant wind
Of this damp mid summer evening.


All the traffic lights in brexit London
Turn red as you dance in the evening rain
With your innocent verve masking a youthful
                                                     candour,
Your secret laughter
As you smile back at me
                            in the crowd behind you,
Lagging further and further behind.


The grinding traffic of stressed out London
Stopped by the glister
Of your instant fame,
The beauty of your oh so innocent
                                  dancing
As you skip between the toe deep puddles,
Shoes worn out by your swift heeled movement.


This is pure love expressed in dancing,
A young girl madly in love with living
Bringing the jaded town to a halt.
Lending the song birds in nearby Hyde Park
A chance to be heard in the sudden stillness
Of a city with all the motors cut out.


& in the midst of all this you are so unaware
That for a minute you challenged the world.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
19th. - 22nd. July 2017.

Miranda.

Love
You do not know how beautiful
                                       you are
Hiding behind your hair
                                 and glasses,
The brim of your hat.
Your slim pale body like a little
                                         house
Lost deep in the shadow of trees
On a magic island,
The blinds drawn down,
The doors closed tight.
Perhaps one day you will surprise me
                                  with a smile
Awakening birdsong,
Melting the icicles
That permanently hang from the walls
                                 of my homestead
Like an iron curtain.
Meantime I watch you picking at ideas
In the books in my library,
Throwing them up into the air like tennis
                                                       balls,
And not watching where they fall.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 13th. 2017.

A Non Creative Walk About. (New Ending)

I took a poem for a walk
Around the houses,
Looking for a place to settle,
To store our goods,
Our clothes and chattels,
To safely call our own.

I took a poem for a walk
Among the tall apartment blocks,
But all I found was sky high gates
Bristling with lights and cameras.

I took a poem for a walk
searching for a maisonette,
Spick and span, cool and comfy,
Safe from louse, from cat and mouse,
From the spy with plasma eyes.
A haven where my verse could grow
Safe and secret, hid from sight
Like an undercover lover;
Spring blossom snug beneath the snow.

I took a poem for a walk, but
There was no place where the poem
Could root and settle,
Branch and bloom.
No lean to filled with constant heat,
No oil lamp burning day and night,
No quiet suburban garden.
And so the poem lifted sticks,
Floated ghostlike on the thermals
High into transparent air,
Waving sadly as it went.

So now there is no poem I can walk.
My notebook, crumpled up but empty,
Sits inside my jacket pocket,
The left hand pocket stuffed with pencils.

So now there is no poem I can walk,
And I am lost, bereft and lonely,
Wandering through an empty land,
A place where verse cannot be spoken.

I took a poem for a walk
Looking for a place to settle,
A place to store our goods and chattels,
To love and call our own.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 30th. - July 8th. 2017.
March 23rd. - 26th. 2018.

Whit Sunday Morning. (New Longer Version).

I left the door open by mistake.
No thieves came,
No trespasser entered,
But the whole house was filled
With an unexpected light,
And birdsong thrilled the air.

I was waiting for the telephone to ring.
Good news spoken down the line
Could not out shine this singular moment,
Could not have similar power.

Words introduce complexities,
Replace a hug with too much banter.
The sunlight dancing down my hall
Out dazzles the tenderest kiss.

But I must think of you, my love,
Unconscious in the hospital.
The oxygen mask clamped over your face.
The sun locked out of sight.

If I could hide ten Nightingales in my coat
I would smuggle them into your curtained ward
Then let them loose to fly above your bed,
Cascading music deep into your night.

If such intensity cannot waken you
I will invite the thieves to wreck our house,
Steal all the silver, burn our precious books,
Bury your letters deeper than plummet sounded.

It seems the dawn, so vibrant this spring morning,
Was banished from your ward by doctors orders,
But then my love, our dreams, so often shared,
Have housed both Ariel and Caliban.

But rest assured, the front door remains open,
Sunlight, the Paraclete made manifest,
Breaks through all locks, fills our house with brightness,
To bid you welcome.

I will drop this poem down upon your pillow.
Perhaps my words will filter through your darkness.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 22nd. - July 3rd. 2017.

This is the completed version of the poem first blogged on May 22nd. this year. I was too upset then to fully complete the poem because of Ivy being in a coma. She still floats in and out of consciousness, but is slowly improving.

I Don`t Want. (A Fun Poem).

I don`t want a television.
I don`t want a mobile phone.
I only want a friend to sit with
So that I am not alone.

My cat was very nice to me.
My cat was very fat.
But now my cat has gone away
Leaving a vacant mat.

I don`t want a radio.
I don`t want a DVD.
I only want a black eyed lass
To snuggle up to me.

Meantime I sit here all alone
Staring at the floor,
Too out of sorts to read a book,
Or step outside the door.

My dog was very nice to me.
My dog chewed up the post.
But now my dog has gone away
Leaving me to learn the worst.

I don`t want a television.
I don`t want a mobile phone.
I only want a live in friend
Whom I could call my own.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 2nd. - 23rd. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Tussy. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Tussy. (Revised).: Tussy was not buried, Not swaddled by black earth Evolving into hillocks and                         dark hollows Gradually, season by ...

The Grave of Anne Bronte.

They have given Anne a new memorial.
The epitaph I could read when a child
Is now crumbling back to sand,
Just like the nearby castle
And the very cliff it rests its weight upon.
The lead words chipped and broken,
Pulled away by the wind and rain
That slants across the steep brow of this hill
Like a cold veil between now and the eternal,
Between today and yesterday,
And the ghostly shadow that we name "Tomorrow".

The new memorial is a plain and simple stone
Set in concrete atop the little mound
That hides mortality from the always grieving,
From the eyes of pilgrims seeking solace,
From the boot prints of the casual tourists.
Rubbed out by the weather, the new words will also
                                                                      vanish,
Though probably not as quickly as the original.
Words cut into stone rarely last as long
As printers ink impressed upon cheap paper.

Anne was the Bronte we often underrate,
Although she was the fiercest of the clan,
Speaking truth with words that really hurt
Folk who hate it when the truth is spoken.
Her honesty has brought me to this grave yard
To sit and mourn her youth, but also to imagine
That I can be as honest as she was,
And not to hold my tongue when times get tough.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 26th. -28th. 2017.
Scarborough. 

Grenfell Tower.

The taste of smoke in the wind

Burnt plastic
Burnt wood
Burnt people

The taste of ashes deep in the mouth

The embers of terror
Of total annihilation

The blackened tower above the rooftops

A scorched carcase
The bones of perdition



Heralded by sirens
By ten thousand alarm bells

Police cars
Fire engines
Wheels screeching on tarmac

By helicopter blades

By distraught mothers shouting down cellphones
HELP
HELP
HELP
HELP

Their children pushed through wrenched out windows
From burning ledges
The molten rooftop
Into the outstretched arms of strangers

Heralded by sirens
By speeding ambulances
By flashing lights
By falling debris
The midsummer sun cuts through the smoke haze

With the implacable indifference of nature


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 20th. - 21st. 2017.

Once or twice I visited a beautiful Sufi woman who lived on the 17th. floor.
This was twenty or more years ago. She was a close friend and Sufi guide to
a friend of mine. I have had no news. I do hope she is safe.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Sterile Area. (New Long Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Sterile Area. (New Long Version).: Between truth and lies, Fantasy and Reality, The Sterile Area X Rays all things With the white light Of the void. Here I spend my tim...

Late Night Impressions.

You in the night.
Your anger never leaves me.

              *

One Tulip in a vase.
Death made elegant.

             *

Asleep in your wagon.
Your guard dog between us.

              *

Your face in the moonlight.
The scent of damp leaves.

              *

The vase is made of pewter.
The Tulip is fading.

              *

Our bodies almost touch.
Our minds so far apart.

             *

On the brink of the dawn
The silence seems to deepen,

Fill up with darker shadows.

             *

Oh how I miss your voice.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 17th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Tussy. (New Revised Version)

Trevor J Potter's Art: Tussy. (New Revised Version): Tussy was not buried, Not swaddled by black earth Evolving into hillocks and                         dark hollows Gradually, season by ...

Tussy. .

Tussy was not buried,
Not swaddled by black earth
Evolving into hillocks and
                        dark hollows
Gradually, season by season
As the Elms fell and rotted,
New saplings were planted,
The moss sprayed out of existence,
And flowers broke through
                 the paving stones
Like little cries for help.


Tussy was not buried.
Her urn remained on view
Upon a Library shelf
For fifty years, or more.
A fading blood red ribbon
Tied around the pedestal.

Tussy was not buried.-
Dark in its box of glass,
Its tomb of crystal,
Her urn stood, a polished trophy
Among the books and posters,
To be stared at by strangers.

Stared at by a little child
Who did not know who Tussy was,
Who did not understand that death
Is absolute and final.
A child who did not understand
That hope and joy can turn to ash.


I so wanted to break through the glass,
Place the urn close to my heart.
Hold it tightly like a baby,
A new life traumatized by birth.

I so wanted to break through the glass,
Talk to the woman that I imagined
Slept in her urn of ancient wood
Like an infant in a cradle.


But more than time and death now come
                                        between us,
More than the gathered thoughts of half a
                                              century;
Themes that have filtered through my ageing
                                                 brain
Like driftwood, or flecks of light and shadow
Dancing on the evening tide,
The ebb and flow of history.
Thoughts born in the decades after Tussy died
Invoking war and terror.


Now Tussy sleeps deep down in London clay,
Locked in the tomb of her illustrious father,
Karl Marx, economist and philosopher,
Her exuberant mohr with the mane of a lion.
A lifetime after a ruthless lie destroyed her
Tussy was buried with dignity and honour.

And today in Highgate I feel much closer to her
Than when a child in the quietness of the library,
Bored with the books I studied her polished urn
As though it contained mythologies, a sainted martyr
Whose vibrant voice had long ago been silenced,
Silenced by suicide, or perhaps a squalid murder.


Now as I falter on the brink of my dissolution,
A post holocaust cynic passed the age of seventy,
I realize that Tussy and I have much in common,
A belief in civil rights, true justice and equality,
A refusal to judge our neighbours by race or by religion.


Perhaps this wind twisting the leafless branches,
Soft whispering through the spring grasses,
The flowers that bloom in the cemetery
Between decaying grave stones,
Fashions a language that somehow can unite us,
The words of the dead and the living grafted together
To make one gentle music,
A miracle of the heath and of the woodlands,
The wildness that Tussy dearly loved.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 10th. - 14th. - 16th. - 30th.2017.
Extensively re-written April 20th. - 21st. - 23rd. 2018. - December 3rd. 2019

Tussy was the family pet name of Eleanor Marx, the youngest and favourite daughter of Karl Marx.

See Saw.

       See Saw



strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and
strong and
           and
           and
                  stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
                  stable
                  stable
strong and
strong and stable
strong and
strong and stable
strong and
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and
                  stable
                  stable
                  stable
                  stable
certainty
certainty
certainty
certainty
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
                  stable
certainty
certainty
certainty
certainty
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and
           and
                  stable
           and


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 9th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Sterile Area. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Sterile Area. (Revised).: Between truth and lies, Fantasy and Reality, The Sterile Area X Rays all things With the white light Of the void. Here we spend our l...

The Sterile Area. (New Long Version).

Between truth and lies,
Fantasy and Reality,
The Sterile Area X Rays all things
With the white light
Of the void.

Here I spend my time,
Neither on the inside,
Nor on the outside,
But somewhere in between,
The No Mans Land of day to day existence
Where nothing real is spoken
And thoughts are packed in ice.

The cameras film all angles,
The tapes are kept on file,
There is no dark place to hide.
I have even started to believe
My laptop is a nest of spies,
And my phone can read my mind.

Dreams are all I have
To keep me in touch with life,
The true sound of my voice,
The music in my heart.
I have junked the television set,
Quit reading the Sunday Times.
I want my dreams to be my own,
Not those the Press supplies.

I want to find the self I was
Before convention grabbed my throat,
Pinned me to the wall and tried
To quarantine my mind.

Between the truth and lies
The white light of the void
Wipes clean all that is real
From off the slate of life.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 1st. - 2nd. - 3rd, - 11th. -12th. - 18th. 2017. 

Written , initially at great speed, after hearing Anthony Howell read his poems about prison life.

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).:                     1       London - June 1966.        I broke my promise, I did not visit you, I sat all alone in the pub Nursing my...

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).:                     1       London - June 1966.        I broke my promise, I did not visit you, I sat all alone in the pub Nursing my...

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).:                     1       London - June 1966.        I broke my promise, I did not visit you, I sat all alone in the pub Nursing my...

Whit Sunday.

I left the door open by mistake.
No thieves came.
No trespasser entered.
But the whole house was filled
With an unexpected light,
And birdsong thrilled the air.

I was waiting for the telephone to ring.
Good news spoken down the line
Could not out shine this singular moment,
Could not have similar power.

Words introduce complexities,
Replace a hug with too much banter.
The sunlight dancing down my hall
Out dazzles the tenderest kiss.

But I must think of you, my love,
Unconscious in the hospital.
The oxygen mask clamped over your face.
The sun locked out of sight.

If I could hold ten Nightingales in my palm
I would bring them to sing at your window.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 22nd. 2017.
See June 12th. 2020, The Open Door.

A Letter to Miranda, Who Wears my Old Coat. (Revised).

We will reinstate the old bed.
The comfort of old things
makes life bearable.
That which is new is always
                              a stranger,
but you.


But you are my brand new friend, my lover,
newly minted;
surpassing the roster of predecessors
as gold out dazzles silver.
An untamed spirit from a distant island.
A bringer of magic and dreams.


So how is it that you are not a stranger?
More near than twin sister
                                  is to twin brother?
Than mother is to child?


Lost in our dream I can find no answer.
The key to the book of Prospero`s magic
is frozen in time;
locked in an era shipwrecked in shadow.


You have said you will come to stay at
                                                        Easter,
and would like the apartment to be just as you
                                                    viewed it
in that snapshot taken by your father
on a one off visit,          a decade ago.


Well worn items have a warmth about them.
The death of your mother made you hoard all her
                                                school books.
I will now arrange the comfort of old things
to put you at ease                    when you call.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 17th.
May 13th. - 14th. - 15th. 2017.
June 5th.  2017.

A poem written for Ivy.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) A Myth of Love Returning.(New Version). (2) Ec...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) A Myth of Love Returning.(New Version). (2) Ec...:                         1 . A Myth of Love Returning. Last month I watched you walk across the still water In the dark cavern Under ...

Europa.

Europa is escaping me.
Europa is escaping on the back of a bull.
And I have no new friend
to throw my ball to,
no new friend to play hopscotch and footsie
                                                         with,
no new friend of an equal mind.
I am left all alone on the stony beach
with Europa`s towel in my hands.


I skip and cry at the edge of the water,
skip and cry on the lonely shore.
The cruel sea does not reflect my sorrow
like the dark mirrors that are the eyes of
                                                      Europa,
the dark eyes reflecting all things.
The cruel sea is a thunderous grave
across which Europa has tearfully travelled
on the back of the bull that swims like a fish.


And I am cut off forever from her laughter.
Cut off forever from her constant kisses.
The delicate grace of her ensemble dances.
The come hither glitter deep in her eyes.
And I can do nothing now but sit and watch
the evening slowly darken the shore.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
8th. May 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Soul mates. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Soul mates. (Revised).: By the lakes edge the flash of electricity in the air, cracking the night sky apart, breaking my window. Your face, caught in the mirr...

Soul mates. (Revised).

By the lakes edge
the flash of electricity in the air,
cracking the night sky apart,
breaking my window.

Your face, caught in the mirror
just before our first kiss
as we crashed out of our loneliness, landing softly together,
free falling through a hail storm of dazzling reflections
that perhaps, were our previous lives;
the Bodhisattvas that came aeons before
the sceptics we now are.
Your face, caught in the fractured mirror;
pale moon between dark clouds.

For years my nights were troubled by inchoate dreams
of a young woman that I had never met,
or at least I do not think so.
                                        Her perceptions were forensic.
She seemed to know every detail of my life style,
the ins and outs of my daily drudge,
and she spoke to me like a wife with many a bone to pick.
This was long before I bumped into you at the Casareccia,
when I nearly dropped my coffee in your lap.

Pseudo Romantics call this Loving at First Sight,
but I might suggest, second sight would be more appropriate,
a thousand aeons of deep knowledge pre dating the kiss
that smashed to smithereens our preconceptions,
and broke every mirror that reflected former times.

Tonight we curl up close, like children out of the rain,
safe home at last after a lousy journey.
But how long has this journey taken? A thousand aeons?
Two thousand?                      
                      Or just a year or two?
                                                  And what does it matter?
Old theories of life and death do not concern us
                     now that we can spend some time together.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 4th. - 5th. - 7th. 2016. February 26th. - 27th. - May 5th. 2017.

At the Breakfast Table.

For a moment
a lovely pattern
inside my sugar bowl
caught my attention.

And then it had gone,
had shifted.

The dark sugar grains
slid
into something far more
ordinary,
more everyday,
simply utilitarian.

Something to make use of.
To dissolve without thought.

Quietly I sip my coffee
and wonder what strange
rare beauty
died to make this moment.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 1st. 2017.

Beyond Love.

Like small mirrors
Your eyes reflecting mine -
My eyes reflecting yours -
We became one person
At that very moment.


Walking side by side
Although ten miles apart -
Although without a phone -
I shiver when you think of me -
Touched by your distant mind.


Does distance improve love?
No - because when we first met
We then became each other -
Not even twins are closer.


The moment that you kissed me
Your heart drowned me in thunder.
And all the bluebells in my tiny garden
Rang out like chapel bells.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 28th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Violette. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Violette. (Revised).: My beautiful friend, The very first person I struggled to walk to When I was an infant. So little remains. Books littered with snapshot...

Violette. (Revised).

My beautiful friend,
The very first person I struggled to walk to
When I was an infant.

So little remains. Books littered with snapshots,
Blurred shadows printed on glossy paper;
Two girls standing in a doorway.

No where can I find your authentic smile,
The waves of laughter that shook the house
When you came to tea,

The vibrancy of your hug.

But these are the things that haunt me always,
Not the print of your name in a slab of marble,
Not the honours heaped on you after death.

In my mind I still see the girl with dark hair
Who swung me up high onto her shoulder
To kiss my forehead.

I could not imagine that you were a soldier,
That in less than eight months the Nazis would shoot you,
Crush your ashes into the rubble

Under the road into Ravensbruk.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 10th. - 11th. 2015. Original, very different version, titled 70 years After VE Day. 
April 25th. - 26th. 2017. Rewritten with new title and new ending.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Maundy Thursday Night 2017. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Maundy Thursday Night 2017. (Revised).: Kneeling in the silent chapel I study the blank walls where my favourite icons should be and sense the infinite shadowing me in a cold ...

This Maundy Thursday Night. (Revised).

Kneeling in the silent chapel
I study the blank walls where
my favourite icons should be
and sense the infinite shadowing me
in a cold wind of absence.

I fear that God is truly dead,
lost in the flickering shadows
where mournful candles burn,
but accentuate the darkness.
I face the vacant spaces
that haunt my inner life,
but I can sense no secret voice,
no echo deep within me,
no sign that I exist.

Faith is all I have to go on living;
Faith is all I have to outface death.
I am not the person I used to think I was,
all vain pretense has been thrown out,
                                            discarded;
chucked out like last years winter fashions.
I am that silent space locked deep within me,
the silent space that is all things and nothing.
Faith is all I have to help me now.

I look forward to this coming Easter morning
when fragile light will swathe the church in
                                                            colours
more varied than the threads in Joseph`s coat.
Such beauty can illuminate deep sorrow,
light up the void within the empty tomb.

The icons will once more be back in place,
shimmering among the ranks of votive candles
like gilded prayers, the gates to paradise
opened for all who seek their truth in art.
And for an hour or two  I may throw off
                                               the heartache,
these bleak corrosive whisperings of doubt.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 24th. - 25th. 2016. - April 16th. - 21st. - 23rd. 2017.
August 4th. 2017. - March 28th. 2018.

Good Friday 2017.(Revised).

For the first time this week there is no sun.
Dawn, a yellow paleness between grey clouds,
Spits of rain in the wind.
The noise of traffic on the M1 this morning
seems strangely muffled.
Sounds from another century half remembered
as I sneak back into bed, going nowhere fast.

I turn on the bedside radio;
Tenebrae Responses for Good Friday.
Gesualdo mocked by sorrow; his murders cruel,
                                                               and trite,
small tales of jealousy, of sneaky trysts in corners
when all the lights flicked out.
Murder has always been an everyday occurrence,
something to get away with if you are a Count,
a Commander in Chief, a Tetrarch,
but strictly forbidden to all the common folk.
Today we recall the darkness of Golgotha.
The music of Gesualdo crackles through the static.

The Man of Sorrows tests the nails and wood
with expert fingers before the hammers strike,
splitting his wrists and ankles with quick blows,
efficient, but cowardly.
This is a murder sanctioned by authority,
one of thousands designed to keep the peace
in a tiny fly blown province in the east.
The people are morose, stiff necked, plain spoken.
They believe the power of Rome can easily be
                                                                    broken.

This afternoon I shall kneel beneath the cross,
and wonder why bronze nails were struck so hard
into a man who spoke of peace and love.
Who cured the mad, the blind. Who washed the
                                                                 leper clean.
Who drove the petty traders from the Temple Court.
But herein gleams an answer, a candle in the night.
Love shines a light into the face of power,
and reveals an empty space where Truth should be.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 14th. - 15th. - 27th. 2017.

Palm Sunday 2017.

This avenue of trees
has become a cathedral of blossom,
a surge of white waves
high arching above us,
but never tearing the cliff face,
or crashing on the shoreline
in a roar of dissolution.

This avenue of trees
should be shading your running
as you sprint through the park,
football in hand,
no thought for the hospital
where you now lie sleeping,
your pale skin raw,
a veil torn by fire.

I sit by the lakeside
dreaming of you,
a child of the wild wood
danced by the west wind,
and grieve that my old hands
cannot mend the torn veil,
extinguish the flames.

The cathedral of blossom
is blown into fragments
by the wind that brings summer.-
White petals are tears
swept up by the gardener
as he clears the wide paths.-
When the tears have all gone
you shall walk from the hospital,
eyes blinkered but laughing.

Your birth was a miracle,
sister to Lazarus
born out of a darkness
that we thought was forever.
But were you born into pain?
There is no solace in nature
while the pain drags you backwards
out of the light.

This avenue of trees
spreads long cold shadows
as day turns to evening.
It is time to go home;
switch on the computer;
read through every message;
sit quietly and wait.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 9th. 2017.