(1) A Moment of Understanding. (2) Hydrangea.

A Moment of Understanding.

 The Buddha Nature within me

and

The Christ nature within me

Are the Holy Spirit

Are One and the Same.

Together they teach me Compassion.

Together they lead to Nirvana.

This has been so since my birth.

This has been so since before then.

Buddha within me -

Buddha before me -

Buddha beneath me -

Buddha above me.

Saint Patrick on the wind swept mountain

Saw what Bodhidharma knew.

Christ within me -

Christ before me -

Christ beneath me -

Christ above me.

Only the words are distinct - are different.

Only the words are a problem.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

29th. September 2020.

         Hydrangea.

These flowers are no longer soft,

They have the texture of brown paper,

As rough to the skin as late October winds.

 Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

29th. September 2020.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Listening to Scriabin.(Completed Poem) (2) The...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Listening to Scriabin.(Completed Poem) (2) The...: Listening to Scriabin. (Completed Poem). Burdened with sound The air becomes dark, like the depths of the ocean; Slow waves moving over...

The Discarded Photograph.(Completed Poem).

When, by chance, I picked up the photograph,

I thought I had picked up a portrait of you

Laughing by the seaside, but private, as you

                                                        always are,

Flowers in your hair band, a Russian novel 

                                     balanced on one knee. 

The tent was quite familiar - quite your style -  

An old Welsh blanket hoisted on four sticks -

Hoisted loosely between the breast shaped

                                                     sand dunes

To make a snug, a private little squat

To be secreted in.

I really thought this portrait was of you,

The ink black birthmark printed on the cheekbone; 

Fine blue eyes under lacquered lashes;

Gilded hair cascading over shoulders;

A platinum wedding ring.

Every detail brought you clearly to my mind,

The scent of you, the touch of you; your young

                                                 half naked body

Curled up on the settee next to mine.

But then I noticed the photo had been tinted,

The dye applied with great care by an artist

Expert in the craft;

An artist who plied this craft from time to 

                                                               time

To put a few half crowns in empty jam jars. -

I slide the picture back where I had found it,

Lodged between two novels,

Two pre-war novels, left out, I hope by chance,

Among discarded beer cans and pizza packs,

Left out to rot upon the churchyard wall. -

You say I was meant to find this pile of books,

But I dispute this; I had not passed the church 

                                              for several weeks,

And I rarely stop to pick through unloved things,

Not even hardback books once sold in Woolworth

To young ladies of my mother`s generation.

But I am glad I found this photo, although I dare

                                                             not keep it;

I do not own her past, so I must let her go.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

July 23rd. - 26th. - September 24th. 2020.

December 12th. 2020. - October 9th. 2022.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Washed Out by Rain. (Revised & Completed) (2) ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Washed Out by Rain. (Revised & Completed) (2) ...:                         1 .    Washed Out by Rain. The world is silver grey. Wall paper world. The rain falling steadily, Washing ou...

Satori in the Time of Covid. (Revised)

 A sudden moment of inexplicable joy,

The sky white with light on a cold dull day.

Sad Rooks, vagabonds hunched in skeletal

                                                     trees,

Fretfully cawing:

Shoppers hooded, leaning forward into the

                                                     wind

Unaware of the strange beauty of the sky.

The sudden white light illuminating clouds

Fat with ice crystals.

Ice is grey and black when trapped in clouds.

Sackcloth clouds have dragged in a phoney

                                                  winter,

Three long weeks before the autumn equinox

Roughs up city squares, brown fields and red

                                        brick houses

With a thief`s impunity.

The thief that sneaked in through the hall and

                                                 kitchen

then cleared off fast with my phone and

                                                camera

comes painfully to mind.

My next door neighbour had left the back gate

                                                    open.

My next door neighbour has plenty to answer for.

So how come this short lived moment of real joy?

This shattering joy, inexplicable and astonishing!

The clouds aglow as though lit up by fireflies.

The garden incandescent with red roses.

The morning air quite still, dream heavy, free

                                   of diesel fumes.

Time weighed down with silence - my heart beats

                                     loud and clear.

How come this interaction with Satori?

How come such peace in this year of

                                                   Covid?

When I think things through I cannot find an answer,

I`ll just hunker down and get on with my day.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

September 7th. - 16th. - October 11th. 2020.

A Note for my Diary. (Newly Revised).

A book of Chinese poems on my lap
I sit in the church waiting for the clock to strike.

Today is a day for reading.
Yesterday, a day for skyping
Gave me no space to sit alone and think,
To take off my mask in a quiet and lonely corner.

I wasted many hours on the telephone
Failing to organize an on-line meeting,
But I did find time to write a ten line poem,
Which is something - I suppose.

Now I sit alone in this cold suburban church,

A book of Chinese poems on my lap.

I will have to leave when the clock strikes 2 - I`m told -

Time for prayer is strictly regulated.

I am not at prayer now - just simply being alone.

I pretend the clock aint getting on my nerves.

When the doors are locked I shall stroll into the park

And yell Tu Fu at the sulky Autumn skies.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 15th. - 16th. 2020. - October 11th. 2020.

December 5th. 2020. - October 9th. 2022.

(1) Listening to Scriabin.(New Version) (2) The Wrecker.

Listening to Scriabin. (New Version).


Burdened with sound
The air becomes dark, like the depths of the ocean;
Slow waves moving overhead
Interrogate the sun.

The audience sways gently to the swell and fall
Of the Poem of Ecstasy;
A tight packed shoal tugged and rocked by currents
Stronger than instinct.

This, perhaps is what the Dervish looks for
When he spins and whirls in meditation,
Not transcendence, but quietly physical,
This, perhaps, is the death of reason.

Some think it is better not to be born at all,

Not to be separated from the stillness

That hermits seek among the icy mountains:
Some think it is better not to know such music.

Burdened with sound

The air becomes dark, like the depths of the ocean;

The audience sways gently to the swell and fall 

Of the Poem of Ecstasy.


 Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 29th. - 31st. 2020. - September 29th. 2020.
October 12th. 2020.

Developed from a poem sketched 20th. April 2015.

                       *      

             The Wrecker. 


Last night I tossed a stone high in the air,
It has not hit the pond yet,
The surface calm, unruffled,
The moon a perfect picture.

Perhaps if I had skimmed the stone across the stillness,
The ripples would be spreading
Hour upon hour upon hour,
Tearing the picture apart.

If the pond were a crystal plate I would have to smash it,

Smash it to glittering shards,

Moonlight on tremulous water. -

Perfection, for some reason, breaks my heart.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 14th. - 15th. 2020.

September 11th. 2020.

Falling in The Fall
Leaf
        upon leaf
        upon leaf -
The lives of all I have
                          loved
Becoming yesterday -
Becoming next years
                 leaf mould -
Rain scented
          Springtime
                 leaf mould -
Earth from which April
                        Tulips
Shall lift their emptied
                           cups.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
 September 11th. - 12th. 2020.      

Dry Web.

I opened the door of the outside toilet
And was flicked in the face by a spiders web.

Perhaps I am the dream food for arachnids,
Dinner - tea - supper for a hundred years;

No more of hunting for migrant insects,
No more of spinning silk through space.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 6th. 2020.

Dharma Naturalist. (Revised)

Reading Gary Snyder -
Or Gary Snyder reading me -
The simplicity of his poem
Daring me to look
At Quail - at Duck - at basalt cliff face
With an innocent eye,
The eye of a one year infant,
Or the eye of a hare in the wheatfield
Peering acutely
Intently
Ecstatic
But not dreaming - nor guessing - nor
                                                thinking
But as though she were simply a camera
                           Focused on all things,
On the landscape as it happens to be.


If I were a true Zen poet,
As Gary Snyder is a true Zen poet,
The snap of a twig underfoot
Would be heard as the young hare hears it
In the yellow depths of the wheat field -
Hot August - cloud dappled - midday.
But I am not a true Zen poet,
And must study every sight I encounter,
Check facts - take notes - then file them
                                       discreetly away.


Meanwhile - out of sight - not hiding, 

The young hare - attentive - observing,
Watching the world she inherits 

Cool - fleet footed - alert.

Watching the fields and the hill sides 

She is absolutely akin to,

Sister to wind and to rain.
Observing the world night and morning

With the curiosity of a naturalist,

But with no reason to allocate names.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
September 3rd. 2020.

Hares hop - jump great distances - run fluently at great speed.I have tried to incorporate the movements of the Hare in the structure of the poem. 

Mill Hill Ridgeway. (Newly Completed Poem).

(The greenest of suburbs are haunted by ghosts)


I love to walk in these fields at midnight,
Feel the earth breathing beneath my feet,
A stressed out mother deep in slumber.

I love to sit still on the south facing slope,
Watch galaxies pulse through magical skies,
A trillion heart beats in the tumult of space.

I love especially the warm June nights
When I can hear wandering foxes cry
Over distances only the fiercest would travel.

This is my dream time, private and holy,
When I can look further than daylight allows,
I sense the depths lost far beneath silence
Where linger the echoes of ancestral voices,

Labourers who gleaned where middle class houses
Now litter lost fields once yellow with corn,
Close by Wilberforce built a plain brick chapel,
A Low Church Parish for hard up farmers.

I love to walk on these hills at midnight
And dream of my forebears struggling for bread.
The slopes overlook where the old farm nestled
Among English elms more graceful than spires.

But the trees are all gone, and the smug little houses
Now huddle together, row upon row
In the valley where horses once whinnied their praise.

Oh I wish I could bulldoze those snide little semis
And restore the valley to tractor and plough.

Meanwhile I walk the last of the green hills,

Down tracks where shadows seem to whisper my name. 

 Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 5th. - 6th. 2018. - September 1st. - 2nd.  -  5th.- 6th. 2020.
Completed October 16th. - 25th.2022.