Our Apple Tree has been Replaced by Concrete.. (Renewal NW2).

They are building tower blocks

where we used to plant

vegetables for the family table.

Dragonflies vacate the tiny stream.

I have in mind to learn the Frisian language.

Family roots dig deeper than we realise,

they tap into the source of hidden memory

beneath the skin of who we think we are.

Concrete tower blocks, caves in space

where modern Hunter - Gatherers hunker down

after forays into asphalt jungles,

are merely metaphors for transience.

The bones of villages, of towns and cities,

rot beneath green fields in many places.

Farmers gathering rice - wheat - or barley,

chat in dialects of ancient lineage.

I have in mind to learn the Frisian language,

to staunch the wound between my past - my present. -

Today I watch developers trash the marshes

where we grew our spuds - our beans - our roses.

When a child I was not taught the names of flowers,

I told myself the dragonflies are birds.

If I can learn the words my forbears spoke

I may then touch the truth of who I am.

Our apple tree has been replaced by concrete.

Dragonflies vacate the tiny stream.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

18th. - 27th. - 28th. October 2020.  

Late October Wistfulness.

The paving stones are ochre and red.

The swaying trees are dripping tears

Through a floating skein of mist

That swabs my eyes with webs and phantoms.

In my mind I am still cocooned in summer

Awaiting the rustle of new spread wings

To lift me out of this season of torpor

Into a forest of tropical colour.

Tonight the time turns backwards, not forwards;

The shadows lengthen at 5 o`clock,

They are sick with dreams, a smokescreen of fables

That blot out reason with terrors and rumours.

Trees shed their leaves because daylight is fading,

They are not concerned with the bonfires we light.

Crumbs that I threw on the footpath this morning

Have all been eaten by the passing birds.

I lost my way when childhood departed,

The dead leaves falling thick and fast.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

24th. October 2020. - February 23rd 2022.

Words are worth a whole world more than money. (Revised)

This book cost me only 80 pence.

It cost Li Po a whole wild life to

                                            write,

Cheap wine staining every folded

                                             page,

The glimmer of moonlight also hinted

                                                  at.

It seems the rarest art, the finest poems

Are seldom worth the price of ink and

                                            paper,

Unless a tycoon buys the manuscripts

And locks them deep inside a concrete

                                             vault.

The fact the poet died while reaching for

                                      the moon,

Or heaving up inside a New York Bar,

Seems to magnify the monetary value

Of words rich in love - in hope - in

                                             grief.

It is the joy of ownership that makes the

                                   tycoon tick,

Not the beauty of the poems, the fine calligraphy,

         the deft strokes of the brush.

Li Po drowned a thousand years before I bought 

                                       this book.

Drunk - he tried to hug the moon reflected in the

                                        Yangtze.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

October 20th. - 21st. 2020.

Renewal NW2.

They are building tower blocks

where we used to plant

vegetables for the family table. -

Dragonflies vacate the tiny stream.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

October 18th. 2020. 

Big is not beautiful. The smallest things are the most precious.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Dream Laden Spring. (Completed).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Dream Laden Spring. (Completed).: The morning after we celebrated your birthday the wind turned mild; pale daffodils rocked like dreaming children beside the quiet river;...

Fragile Portrait.

 My life pictured in a stained glass window

All the pieces in the wrong places

But still making sense.

I live a thousand lives in just one day -

Yesterday - tomorrow - all at once

In just one place - in one small drop of time -

A raindrop made up of a thousand rainbows -

A raindrop about to hit a pond

And merge into the slow flow of the water -

The pond reflects my face until a leaf falls -

My face shattered into a thousand fragments

Rippled on the dazzle of the surface.

Ripples of stained glass - bright pieces of a puzzle

Scattered out of sequence - but somehow making sense.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

October 8th. 2020.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Listening to You Read. (New Ending to the poem).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Listening to You Read. (New Ending to the poem).:                Listening to You Read (In Memoriam Anne Sexton and John Lennon). Listening to you read I become American, A citizen of ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Listening to Scriabin.(New Version) (2) The Wr...

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

Trevor J Potter's Art: A Note for my Diary. (Completed Poem).

Trevor J Potter's Art: A Note for my Diary. (Completed Poem).: A book of Chinese poems on my lap I sit in the church waiting for the clock to strike; Reciting is not easy as it could be With a mask t...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Satori in the Time of Covid. (Revised)

Trevor J Potter's Art: 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                 ...

Two Poems. (1) Missing Ivy.(2) Pathetique Sonata.(Revised).

          Missing Ivy.

Walking alone in the mountains

I think of you - so far away

Watching the cars go by.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

October 6th. 2020.

               2.

Pathetique Sonata.

Like Chinese poetry

This music confines sorrow

To a few black lines

Lines drawn on fine paper

By a wavering hand 

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

October 8th. 2020.

Trevor J Potter's Art: A Miracle of Rainbows. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: A Miracle of Rainbows. (Revised).: A Miracle of Rainbows, Part 2 of Rainbows and a Nightingale. That day I thought the sky was full of angels, Two double rainbows high abo...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Rainbows and a Nightingale. (New Ending).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Rainbows and a Nightingale. (New Ending).:       Rainbows and a Nightingale. (Summer 1967 Recalled). Although it is just passed midsummer, Wednesday the 1st. of July 2020, The ev...

Soft October Rain.

 The rain dances on my skin.

Lute strings imitate drum riffs

Tapped out on pavement and Birch trees.

Lute strings dissolving in tears

When they touch the earth.

The world is an intimate orchestra

To which we all belong,

To which we all add momentary key

                                             changes.

Lute strings - cool and delicate - dance

                                 against my skin,

Muted strings tap tapping out soft rhythms

Before the sun strikes through

                         the timpani of clouds.

There is a gentle solace in the fall of rain,

In the soft coolness of moisture on skin.

When the sun strikes through

                        harmony breaks apart.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

October 2nd. - 3rd. 2020.