Movie Time Memories.(Revised and newly Completed Version).

The colour movies really choke me up,

They seemed so cutting edged, so packed with truths,

So real and to the point, when we first saw them

In the studio

Just a week or two after the wrap up date.

Now, half a century on, they look washed out, surreal,

Fading enigmas from a bygone age

Soaked in the yellow haze of fantasy and fiction.

We lived our lives in that world before it faded

Into legend,

A lost planet, further out than Mars - Andromeda`s

Wheels of fortune -

Where once we danced - made love in secret - ran laughing

Through Hyde Park,

The songs of Cohen and Dylan shaping the ways we thought,

Ginsberg in our duffle bags - sunflowers on our minds.

That was our year of love as we lived it, not how the films portray,

Their imagery bleached by time into a blur.

You were the flower child who sang like an angel.

I was the boy with a camera who talked for hours.

But to know you now as you were then, I simply close my eyes, 

And ignore the faulty images that the plasma screens display.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

27th. - 31st. March  - April 1st. 2022.

Nostalgia.(Completed)

Nostalgia kills.

I have spent all week dreaming of the past,

Of friends, who when I look at photographs,

Or movie clips in black and white,

Remind me of the boy I used to be

Before advancing age, debts, and the deaths of loved ones,

Restricted the horizons I can see.

My God, that girl was lovelier than the smile

On the caring face of a Florentine Madonna

Painted as the Quattrocento dawned.

Yet she was fiercely modern, just look into her eyes

As she sings into a static microphone

Spotlit harshly on the studio floor.

But the cameras could not read her as I knew her,

She was my mate, we often sat together

In the snug bar of our pub, unnoticed by the heaving

                                                       throng of drinkers.

Unnoticed there, but cheered by crowds all venues that she toured

In Britain, mainland Europe, the USA,

A star and yet so little understood.

Back home in London, cooking Guinness Curry

In the tiny kitchen of my parent`s flat,

We played mind games, and talked in endless riddles

To spin Cats Cradles of Looking Glass ideas

That danced, like glitter, in the air between us.

Our youth now lives intensely in our memories,

No photograph, no clips from TV programmes

Can match the vivid free shows in our minds,

Dream pictures I now see while writing out this poem.

I turn the radio dial. Music has moved on as music must,

I now rarely know the names of bands and singers,

Except those that dominate the news headlines,

My taste is firmly fixed in the nineteen sixties.

Events pass by and soon could be forgotten.-

Too many birthdays.- Too many broken vows.

My friend still sings. Her songs are darker now,

But the wit that sparks her eyes is just the same.

 Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

March 26th. - 30th. - April 24th. 2022.

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Trevor J Potter's Art: The Statuette of a Laughing Buddha.: I brought him home in a little blue box, Mi - lo - fo, The Laughing Buddha, Fat as Falstaff and twice as merry, Hey merry down derry, hey...

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I Hardly Noticed Winter. (Revised).

I hardly noticed the winter this year.

A shadow passing by my bedroom window -

                                                        perhaps?

Yes the wind blew and took away half my fence,

But that could have happened in late August,

Or early July.

No - the winter did not impinge much upon

                                            my life this year,

Just a shadow passing by my bedroom window.

I must admit I dream a lot when I`m alone,

The past and future interacting - a riot of moving

                                                          pictures

Deep inside my brain.

Yes, I did not notice the winter much this year,

But the dreams have been more vivid than expected,

Like a sudden slap taken on the face,

Raw nerves of hope - of dread - and of contrition

Exposed to self contempt.

And a deep regret for love not understood.

I`ve never got our love right Marianne.

But your presence has impinged upon my dreams

And made me think about the paths not taken,

And the paths we took that led to loneliness.

But hope comes with the Springtime, don`t you know,

And this morning when I opened wide the curtains

The sunlight flooded deep into my rooms.

I blinked, and every shadow seemed a mirage.

Yes, I hardly noticed winter pass this year,

But this dazzling morning took me by surprise;

A brilliant dawn revealing dark interiors,

Leaving no place to hide.

Dreaming of the past is not a helpful occupation

Unless a chance of reconciliation is implied.

 Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

22nd. - 23rd. March - 5th. April 2022.

Two Short Poems Sketched at Midnight.(Revised).

                      1. 

Spring equinox this weekend;

I wonder why the winter passed so quickly,

I was beginning to enjoy the dark 

                       2.

Saint Patrick`s Day already;

My birthday soon, don`t make me think about it;

I would rather be an eagle soaring far

Without a clock or visa,

Without the power of radar to direct me

Toward somewhere I do not need to go.

Growing old is something I`m not good at,

Just leave me be to contemplate the view,

A grounded eagle, wing clipped and tarsus chained,

But with a mind that looks far over mountains,

The fields and villages, the lakes reflecting stars. 

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

17th. - 18th. March 2022.

A Sort of Credo. March 2022.(Completed).

Debussy in my soul.

Bob Dylan on my mind.

Delius in my senses. 

Mondrian all around.

Art defines the world for me.-

Not politics, - Not war.

I was born in nineteen forty three.

A bomb blast knocked my mum downstairs

In the black out - all lights turned low,

And so the house seemed built of shadows.

My mother then was six months pregnant,

She would never use the garden shelter,

It was damp and feted, a rats hotel.

Upon my back there is a mark

From when her belly hit the bannister.

A nearby house became a tomb.

My mum, determined I would never be

An airman or a private soldier,

Taught me to draw, to copy pictures

Found in books and magazines.

I spent late hours listening to music,

My head tucked underneath the blankets,

Feigning sleep when father looked in.

He had been a sailor.

He believed in brute force.

He tried to restrict my use of the radio - & books.

Debussy in my soul.

Picasso on my mind.

Art is my refuge,

My motivation.

Delius in my senses.

Mondrian all around.

I live to paint pictures

Vibrant with colour,

Defying this epoch

That is violent to the core.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

March 14th. - 15th. = 16th.  2022.

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Goodge Street Finches.

The pub was my safe space.

I drank very little but read lots of books

As I sat quietly in the smoky forum,

Those early evenings before the music started.

I read Persian poetry - not just Omar Khayyam,

I was in love with the east, especially Azerbaijan,

The fire temples, mosques blue as the sea.

I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace,

And therefore was considered a devotee of Tolstoy

By friends who were beginning to dig into Trotsky,

Revolution being their cup of tea.

I read Alan Watts, his Way of Zen

Severely slowed down my intake of Guinness

As I puzzled and puzzled over one hand clapping.

I found out I did not have to seek beyond Europe

When I settled down to The Cloud of Unknowing,

A home grown book that opened my mind

To vistas that Buddha had yet to show me.

I have no idea how I read all these books

In the spaces between devouring rumours,

Chatting up girls and bantering with friends

Who thought I was weird because I loved books.

But I was the one at the heart of that scene

Who helped to write songs we all loved singing

When the crowds packed in after 8 pm.

When the chatting stopped and the music started.

And that is how I made sense of the nineteen sixties

Believing I could integrate fun and learning.

Believing that peace could conquer the world

With songs and books, not squaddies in trenches.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

March 8th. - 9th. 2022.

I am too angry to write about Ukraine,

Too angry and full of tears,

So until I am ready I shall write about other things,

That is when I can put clear thoughts down onto paper.,

When I know I can do good with what I write.#

God Bless Ukraine. God Bless the lovely people of Ukraine.

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