The Gift of Music. (Completed Version).

I played the recorder,
People laughed,
They said the electric plank was the only thing,
Rock n Roll would dominate the future.
But the recorder is a beautiful instrument,
A pipe that rings like dulcet bells
Softly echoing through ancient hallways,
Or Skylarks and Swallows on Midsummers Eve
Greeting the sun with mellifluous voices
From the shelter of my garden.

When I found I loved you
I gave you my recorder,
It lay in your hands more easily than in mine,
And your blue eyes laughed when you began to blow,
Shape in the air your elegant dances.
Being a Gypsy you are a gifted player.
The whole house filled with the scent of roses,
The deep south sweetness of new picked oranges,
The rumpus of children in their room upstairs,
Your music is ancient and wild and delightful.

At night in my arms the silence claims you,
But deep in the silence I hear your songs,

Songs without words that would have slept in the shadows
If I had not given to you my prized recorder.

And Rock n Roll? It is an old mans thing.
It seems so distant from who we are.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 28th. 2019. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 - 3 & 4. Illustratio...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 - 3 & 4. Illustratio...:       Under the Bridge, Poem 1. Under the curved bow of this bridge The river, a placid mirror Reflecting nothing. The fisherman, cas...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Short Poem About Bees. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Short Poem About Bees. (Revised).: I keep a nest of bees under my bonnet, Where they reside, restricted and yet free, Safe as houses, long miles from fields of wheat Soake...

The Broken Sanctuary. (Revised).

We did not expect to find these pictures on our computer.
Now we understand how cruel pornography is.
It is the clawing of the sacramental out of the human
And thus transforming the naive, the quietly innocent
Into a cheap commodity,
Something to be sold on line.
A kiss in the dark is merely a kiss in the dark
When viewed from this perspective,
And the long happy hours that we secretly spent together
Changed into a peep show by a sly, self righteous photographer
Peering in through our window, Leica pressed to his nose.
He can only see what the digital camera sees,
He can noway perceive the mystery, the tenderness of this love
Between such very different, and diffident, lonely people
Born decades apart, and in two antagonistic cultures
That so rarely come together,
The Roma and the city dweller.
All he can see is a man and a dark haired woman,
Her bridal gown neatly laid out on the table,
Their naked bodies entwined on the hotel bed.
We did not expect to find these pictures on our computer.
We cried for days when we first caught sight of them.
But the truth that we own cannot be found in hazy photos,
So we take life as it comes, and try very hard to forgive.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 20th. - 21st. 2019.
Partly inspired by various modern takes on Petrarch.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 & 3. Illustration fo...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 & 3. Illustration fo...:       Under the Bridge, Poem 1. Under the curved bow of this bridge The river, a placid mirror Reflecting nothing. The fisherman, cas...

Under the Bridge. Poem 3. New Long Version.

Movement and silence
Frozen in time,
The mountain has caste no shadow.

There are no shadows in this picture.
The sky, a white and blue mirror
Reflecting nothing.

The water absorbing white and indigo
Is brother and sister to the serene sky
That lacks both sun and moon.

Merchants crossing the bow shaped bridge
Were sketched for no apparent reason
Except to make the bridge seem real,

More real than the inkling of a dream
Fixed forever on wood and paper.

I turn the calendar to the wall.
I can no longer look at this picture.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 8th. - 17th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Homage to Karole Armitage.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Homage to Karole Armitage.: Blonde dancer Express with living sculpture A clarity sublime More cogent than simple messages Sprayed on concrete balustrades Of cram...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Californian Buddhist Wedding.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Californian Buddhist Wedding.: The cicadas in the distant gardens presaged heat. In those moments the world seemed transfigured by hope As we stood side by side on the ...

Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 - 3 & 4. Illustration for the month of June on my Japanese Calendar. (Three poems and a Coda).

      Under the Bridge, Poem 1.


Under the curved bow of this bridge
The river, a placid mirror
Reflecting nothing.

The fisherman, casting his line, stirs no ripples.
The cargo boats seem fixed upon the water
Although the oars dig deep,

Dig deep through the glassy sun glitzed surface
With great effort,
But the boats seem never to have moved,
Never to have known a harbour.
Their cargoes are bound for nowhere
Although the crewmen sweat and heave.

Travellers climb the steep curve of the bridge
As though it were a mountain.
They cling onto the railings for dear life.
And yet they also seem to travel nowhere,
The bridge the start and finish of their journeys
However hard they struggle:
No roads are visible on either shore.

I cannot accept this river does not flow,
I want to lob a brick into the stillness,
Then watch the waves break loose.

                            *

     Under the Bridge, Poem 2. 


Sketched with simple brush strokes, black and white,
Mount Fuji dominates the far horizon,
A prayer in stone that cannot be erased.

Overarching the foreground the bow shaped bridge
Appears huge when compared to the distant mountain,
So small beneath the evening clouds.

The bow of the bridge seems to span the world,
But it is only a footbridge built with cheap wood
That crosses a river of no importance.

All things that folk build are merely temporary,
We are no stronger than Beavers slowing a stream
With dams that a fierce storm will break,

But Mount Fuji shall remain until the rocks catch fire
In the final conflagrations of the sun.


                           * 

     Under the Bridge, Poem 3.


Movement and silence
Frozen in time,
The mountain has caste no shadow.

There are no shadows in this picture.
The sky, a white and blue mirror
Reflecting nothing.

The water absorbing white and indigo
Is brother and sister to the serene sky
That lacks both sun and moon.

Merchants crossing the bow shaped bridge
Were sketched for no apparent reason
Except to make the bridge seem real,

More real than the inkling of a dream
Fixed forever on wood and paper.

I turn the calendar to the wall.
I can no longer look at this picture.


                         *

    Under the Bridge, Poem 4.

                  Coda.


Stillness and movement delicately combined
To create a tense tranquility
That puzzles both the eye - and mind,
Transform this painting into something that is more
Than a simple depiction of river - bridge and shore,
It is as though the world is frozen for a moment,
A moment stilled until the picture fades
And I remove it from my kitchen door.

The blues and whites have melted into grey.
The people seem less vital than they were
When first created by old Hokusai
As he worked his magic on the fragile paper.
It is as though, with precise art, he found a way
To depict clearly the weirdness of Satori, -
Stillness and movement delicately combined
To create a tense tranquillity in the puzzled mind.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 18th. - 21st. - May 6th. - 7th. - 8th. - 13th. - 17th. - 24th. 2019.