A Poem for Priscilla. (New Version).

Sitting in shadow
Watching the sunshine happen
In a different room,
A room with no ceiling
And full of flowers,
I think of you,
Dead in the ground four years already,
Your bright laughing eyes
Masked with peonies,
Your mouth full of smiles
Now sprouting red roses,
Your voice as quiet as a stone.
You were the first girl who took me seriously and stood by me,
Now I have no one who hears what I say.

Now the whole world is deaf to my longing,
Blind to my search for a happier life,
I am just an old codger sitting alone
In a dark little room with an FM receiver,
A Micro Wave to heat up my dinner,
An old plastic telephone.
I sit by my window and look at the flowers
In my neighbours garden, that I never can enter,
And dream of the wild guy I once used to be
Who danced with a girl with dark laughing eyes.
She was the first girl who took me seriously, she was the first girl who
                                                                                            stood by me,
Now I have no one who hears what I say.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 28th. 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Northern Poems (1) A Poem for Priscilla. (2) L...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Northern Poems (1) A Poem for Priscilla. (2) L...:                             1 .              A Poem for Priscilla. Sitting in shadow Watching the sunshine happen In a different room...

Liverpool.

Outside the rain splashed windows of the coach
The city went about the synchronised routines
Of week-a-day existence.
A crowd of schoolgirls, socks almost in the puddles,
Raised fingers and pulled faces as we passed,
And the occasional dog, ignoring awkward humans,
Dragged on the leash to find a reason to bark.
Once more I am back in Liverpool, the other city in my life,
But only for a moment, today just passing through
On the eight hour trek from Southport down to London,
From seaside posh to inner city smugness.
I like Liverpool in the rain, the dulling of the colours
As the grey clouds wash across the morning sky
Like muslin curtains drenched in dirty water.
Yes, I love the intimacy of the morning rain
Giving commuters a chance to curse and grumble
To neighbours they would otherwise not speak to,
And schoolgirls the right to shout and raise two fingers
To a coach full of people with sleepy faces.
This is the city where I learned to be a teenager,
Where, released from parental hindrance I wandered late
With my girlfriend through a blur of empty streets,
The clubs shut for the night, and the unseen ships
Wailing their mournful Siren Songs of longing,
A weird background music to our intimate talk,
And the occasional nifty snog in a darkened doorway.
I can`t go back to those times, they are far too long ago now,
And most of my boyhood friends are ash underground,
But Liverpool, you are still the blunt knife in my heart,
The deep red wound that, Thank God, can never be mended.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 26th. - 27th. 2019.   
For my friends who were in the Cavern when it was real.

Waiting.

A bright but cloudy afternoon.
Truculent flecks of rain dancing on cobwebs
That shimmer between wild rose trees
A delicate lethal beauty.

I walk in the garden, not minding the chill drops
That now and then flick against my skin
Enforcing a slight shiver.
I imagine arrows of ice, not the tears of traumatised children.

I am missing you, my girl, now trapped in the hospital
Until that morning when you can once more run,
Play ball with me for hours, turn cartwheels by the river.
Two years since you slipped and fell, it appears you are nearly better,

Or so the surgeon informs me, with simplistic anodyne words.
Meanwhile I walk alone, in the confines of my garden,
Waiting the expected call to make the box room ready;
Put flowers in vases; get out the carpet sweeper.

A nearby thrush suddenly starts to sing.
I wish this song was your voice, calling through the rain.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 18th. - 19th. 2019.

The Red and White Trainers.

Red and white trainers,
Brand new and glistening,
Luxury items designed to dazzle,
Catch the eye of a passing spectator,
Perhaps, even
Snare a lover,
As you ran by the river laughing and larking,
Scaring the birds so they flew off their perches
Up into a sky the colour of pewter,
The cool spring wind tilting their wings,
Frisking their feathers
As they ducked and weaved
Then skid-addled for cover.

And you, my lovely,
Half skallywag, half woman,
Enjoyed a transgressive moment of freedom
As you skipped through the cold waves,
Cartwheeled in the meadow,
All the time shouting
Look at me - Look at me,
How fabulous I am
In my red and white trainers.

But I, feeling old,
Too aware of your beauty,
Stood by, unmoving,
Heart breaking with wonder.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 12th. - 17th. 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Red Fuji. (N ew Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Red Fuji. (N ew Version).: July, month of the sun god. He opens the doors of his furnace To scorch our faces And turn the green land ochre. I take the calendar o...

Red Fuji. (New Revised Version).

July, month of the sun god.
He opens the doors of his furnace
To scorch our faces
And turn the green land ochre.

I take the calendar off the kitchen wall
To study a startling image of Mount Fuji,
An icon of power that burns my retina
As I stare into the fierceness, the searing slopes
Of melted rocks streaked with jagged shards
Of wounds and scars gouged by white hot lava.
A fiery cone, old as the earth is old,
That dominates a placid summer sky
Patterned with fleecy clouds.

I sense that it is evening, although the sky is blue
And the transient clouds frail as new born lambs
Lost in their wide new world.
Nothing in this painting is plain or simple.
It is the evening sun that turns the mountain fiery,
And the lava streams are merely gullies of snow
Left over from the freezing winter days,
But the illusion of a mountain made of fire
Is the terse reality of the artist`s vision.

There are no people portrayed in this painting,
No wise observers of the powers of nature,
No tired old travellers lugging heavy loads
From one part of the island to another.
If there was just one merchant trudging through the heat
Then perhaps this vision would cease to terrify,
But we, who live outside the time and space
That the artist Hokusai inhabited
Are left alone to imagine what he thought
When he first prepared the printing blocks and paper.

July, month of the sun god;
The whole world is on fire,
Or so it seems.
And we look on afraid       lost        and without hope.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 11th. - 12th. _ June 12th. - 14th. 2019.
Illustration for the month of July in my Japanese Calendar.

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

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Survivors. (Revised).: The whistling of the kettle seems to indicate That this lonely house is in fact my home Not just a rickety, ramshackle concrete shell Pe...

A Lass Unparalleled.

You walked in through the door and took over my life.
One moment I was an individualist without a care or a sous,
The next I had a partner for life.
                                                    I did not try to impress you,
I sat talking to your mother about the news and the weather
While she smoked a cigarette and ate my chocolate mousse,
But your silence told more stories than any word she spoke,
And your eyes never looked away from me.
                                                    That night we slept together,
Our limbs intertwined, your head lolling on my shoulder,
While the traitor clock ticked away the hours,
                                                              And a frosty moon
                                                Shimmered through the window.
                                Your mother fretted in her lonesome room,
She sought to be with me, but it was you who took me over,
With the absolute integrity of your love.
                                                You are a lass unparalleled, and I
Am honoured by your quiet and thoughtful presence.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 5th. 2019. 

The Survivors. (Revised).

The whistling of the kettle seems to indicate
That this lonely house is in fact my home
Not just a rickety, ramshackle concrete shell
Peopled by silent ghosts.

To counteract my loneliness I occupy my days
Contemplating images that my imagination creates
Deep inside the flick house that is my brain.
Nothing new materialises from my looking,

Every flickering image is just a memory
Viewed in such a way that it seems an original,
A polished fragment of my wishful thinking.
The more that I remember the sadder I become.

But it is not the dead folk that make me sad and wistful,
Their days are done, today is not their country,
They would be strangers in this lonely villa
That once they bought on spec, restored and furnished,

And quickly made their own.
It is the living folk that now I mourn, despair of,
Those who think that history is humbug,
Who would wreck my home to build a block of flats.

I belong here. I am a pensioner but I`m not selling.
My past cannot be pawned to bounty hunters.
This husk of a house is the story of who I am
Writ into wood and concrete with sorrow and with love.

The whistling of the kettle puts me at my ease.
I shall sit in my rocking chair and drink a cup of tea.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 3rd. - 7th. - 8th. 2019.
I was thinking of D Day Veterans when I revised this poem. Too often they are not treated with due respect by local councils and the state, but are fussed over by the media and politicians when a significant anniversary comes around.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Breaking the Code. (Revised Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Breaking the Code. (Revised Version).: She sat next to me like a cat on a cushion purring, her shoulder, touching mine, slightly stooped as she looked away, far, far away, ...