Trevor J Potter's Art: February Trees.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: February Trees.(Revised).: Plane trees in the mist. Filigree patterns of axons; Of fine capillaries. Veins reaching up through the winter sky Under the skin of mi...

February Trees.(Revised).

Plane trees in the mist.
Filigree patterns of axons;
Of fine capillaries.
Veins reaching up through the winter sky
Under the skin of mist,
Skin transparent like the skin on my hand,
My pale old hand
Holding this plastic pen while I write,
Note down before the early sun climbs high,
The beauty of this moment.

The words I write down to describe this moment
Spread across the page like knotted veins,
Veins of thought on paper made from wood pulp
Processed from managed forests.
(I myself could not cut down a tree
Unless I planned to replace it with another).

I reach up my hand to touch a leafless branch.
I find a single bud breaking through
The thick rind of the bark.
When summer comes the verdant leaves shall cover
These dark veins spreading up towards the sun.
Up towards the star that gives us life.

I put down my pen.
I study my right hand, my gnarled arthritic fingers.
Study the pale blue veins underneath the skin.
These veins knot and spread just like the tangled branches
Of the old Plane trees in this patch of woodland.

A patch of trees wedged between two roads
Where I can walk, safe from the rush of traffic,
And find some peace of mind beneath these boughs.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 23rd. - 25th. - 26th. 2019.
I started out to write a haiku, but the poem just got longer and longer.

Family Photographs..

These photographs are merely cheap paper icons,
Mementoes to hang up on a wall,  display in a book.
Mementoes that fade in a decade or two,
Even when kept pressed between covers.
These pictures lack the depth of personal memory,
They are surface images
                                That tell only half the story,
Give hints of what seems possibly true.
Yes you may see my collection of family photographs.
But the beauty I knew?  I can only tell you with words.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
February 21st. - 22nd. 2019.

October 19th.2021

Trevor J Potter's Art: Europa.

Trevor J Potter's Art: 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 ho...

Sophie. ( Born a century ago today, May 9th. 1921)

I press the key.
A face I do not recognise lights up the screen.
A girl with candid eyes,
High chubby cheeks,
                                   roughly scissored hair
Scruffed up by a sudden gust of wind.
                                             A southern girl,
Citizen of the ancient town of Ulm;
Her smile so fierce it could defeat all sorrow,
Disarm all foes,
Force her critics to rewrite their verdicts,
Turn SS Guards to Christ.
Sophie Magdalena Scholl, executed 1943
Because she dared to spell out truth to power,
Tell the Nazis that their war was lost;
Tell out loud the crime of Stalingrad;
Tell out loud the gassing of the Jews.
A girl so honest that even Roland Freisler
Felt the ice of truth skewer through his heart
As she stared back at him and did not waver,
His savage deeds mocked by her gentle words.
Perhaps he was the traitor after all,
Perhaps he was the wrecker of the law,
But he was the judge and therefore must condemn her,
Send her to death at twenty one.

I am ashamed to say that until this Sunday morning
I had never heard of Sophie, or her brother,
Their White Rose Movement that dared to out face Hitler
With Christian Love,
                                  With solid Facts and Reason,
With the fearless honesty of thoughtful youth.
"What we wrote and said is also believed by many others,
They just don`t dare express themselves as we did"
She told Judge Freisler as he screamed the spiteful verdict
And sent her swiftly to the guillotine.-
I was born just two months after she was murdered,
And the freedoms that she cherished built my Europe
Out of the graves and ashes of her era;
Out of the ruined cities, the festering wounds of Auschwitz.
She hoped that through her death thousands would be awakened,
Would face down tyranny with words and actions,
Would outlaw fascism for ever more.
But out of their foxholes and bunkers dark gods are re-emerging,
I hope that I dare face them down as powerfully as she did.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 10th. - 11th. 2019.

In memory of Sophie and Hans Scholl, young people who made a massive difference.

A Bitter Isolation.

Brexit has clipped my wings,
I can no longer fly,
Soar over mountains and oceans,
Dance with the stars.

Brexit has dragged me earthwards,
Trapped me on an island,
Dropped me into quicksand
That will slowly suck me under.

I used to be a dreamer,
And some of my dreams came true
When I waltzed to the Berlin Philharmonie,
When I sang in La Fenice.

But now my dreams have been broken,
Torn up and thrown to the wolfhounds
By mobs who spit on reason,
Who love to hate their neighbours.

I love every inch of Europe.
I love every inch of Asia.
My dream was a single community
From Galway to Vladivostok.

But now, like ancient Prometheus,
I have been deprived of all the freedoms;
The freedom to soar like a lark,
The freedom to know my own mind.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 9th. 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Night Train. (Revised Version). (2) History Le...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Night Train. (Revised Version). (2) History Le...:                     1 .            Night Train. Outside the carriage window The night has become spectral, A ghost factory of forensi...

(1) Sharp Winter Light.(2) Meaux.

              1.

Sharp Winter Light.

A delicate, ethereal, early morning,
Bright sunlight reflected through still water,
Through thin ice.
Nothing substantial,
Rock solid, immutable.
Nothing how we believe it should be.

The morning air seems to glisten with crystals,
Ice crystals in the atmosphere,
Invisible to us
But leaving clear traces.
The sky a mirror reflecting blue oceans,
A mirror dazzling deep in God`s eye.

I open the front door and enter the house,
I step out of the sunlight into the shadows,
Into the private space I created.
Out of the World view,
The world and his wife.
I retreat from the jarring confusions of street life
Where peace of mind is a no go area
And I am just a face in the crowd.

But today the street scene outside my front window
Seems to be new made, transfigured, exalted.
I stand at the window, stunned by the beauty
Revealed in a place I thought brash and mundane.

A delicate, ethereal, winter morning,
Everyone that I meet wears a broad smile.
When I enter the house I am a sleepwalker,
Someone cut off from friends and relations.
Someone cut off from the bustle of life.
But today I stepped out into the sunlight
And saw the world as it truly is,
Exquisite and sacred,
Fragile and dazzling,
Paradise in my very own street.

At that moment my heart began to thrum fiercely
As though I had joined an ecstatic dance.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 30th. 2019.


              2.

        Meaux.

Dear Mrs. May
I want to live in Meaux,
My lovely Meaux.
Why do you stand in the way?
Why do you stand in the way?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 4th. 2019.