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.