August 30th. 2013. (New Version).

"Today all Ireland is weeping
But, as usual
                No one is listening".

The pain of ancestral hurt
Enforced a sudden despair
When the news came on the radio.

Goodnight sweet Prince,
Frail memory cannot invoke you,
Silence now claims it`s due.

Your poems are rough hewn monuments
Slowly remade by the weather;
The cut throat winds of Ulster.

Even raw granite decays,
Worn down by frost and hail blast;
Fierce rivulets of melt-water.

What hope for human words
To survive the tumult of centuries
However deep the carving?

We can only pray, I suppose,
To hone the voice of our culture
Now that our teacher has left us.

We stood stone still by the radio
Hearing but not believing;
Bereft like orphaned children.

We must now truly keep the faith,
Honour his words of devotion
Whispered on the brink of life,

"Do not be afraid".


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
31st. August, - 26th. October 2013. 

This poem was started in County Fermanagh on the day that Seamus Heaney died and completed at The Rose Theatre Bankside two months later. The last line of the poem is a translation into English of the last words of the Great Poet. 

The tears of a Roma Child kidnapped by the State.

Mummy
Why is my hair blonde and your hair is black?
Mummy
Why are my eyes blue and your eyes are brown?
Mummy
Why is my skin pale and your skin is dark?
Mummy
Why are these strangers staring at me?
Mummy
Why are these strangers staring at you?
Mummy
Why have these strangers put you in chains?
Mummy
Why are these strangers holding me tight?
Mummy
Why won`t these strangers let me hug you?
Mummy
Why won`t these strangers let me kiss you?
Mummy
I don`t like these strangers.
Mummy
I want to kiss you!
Mummy Mummy
Where are they dragging you to?
Mummy Mummy
Where are they dragging me to?
Mummy
They are rough and brutal and rude.
Mummy
Are they hurting you?
Mummy
They are hurting me.
Mummy
They are shouting words I do not understand.
Mummy
I do not like their words.
Mummy
These people sound like animals.
Mummy
What is Greek?
Mummy
What is Roma?
Mummy
Am I Roma? Am I Greek?
Mummy
I want to be Roma. I want to stay at home. I want to be with you.
Mummy
I love you!
Please Please come back to me
My Mummy.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 23rd. 2013.
There has been an outbreak of virulent discrimination against Traveler Folk in the European Union over the last two years. Settlements have been destroyed or partially dismantled by local authorities in Italy and England. People have been deported from France. Blonde haired children have been taken into Care by local authorities in Greece and Ireland. Blonde gypsy children are not uncommon. People have intermarried openly and legally over many centuries. Also a Roma community works as an extended family, and therefore the adoption of children is often undertaken in an informal manner. Roma folk are often more polite than folk from the settled community.      . 

(1) October Foundlings. (2) Herne Bay Outing.- A sketch. (Revised)

                       1.

         October Foundlings.

You have come back to me too late,
Returning like a sparrow with one good wing;
Head down against the north east wind
To reach a half remembered homeland.
I cannot now distinguish right from wrong,
Or fathom how to solve intractable problems,
Those that we create to harm ourselves.
Perhaps we should simply rest and wait,
Wait for time to heal all aching wounds
With a kind hand, or the undeniable force
Of an unredeemed necessity.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
14th. October 2013.
------------------------------------==

                    2.

Herne Bay Outing. - A sketch.


Old people staring out to sea,
Companions with an opaque history
Hand in hand;
Cheep mobiles stashed in pockets;
Tissues up their sleeves;
Complexions smooth like uncooked pastry.


They criticise the young`uns on the beach
That pursue a truculent hound dog into the briny;
Or storm across half rotted wooden Breakers
Like a petulant free range army.
The littlest holler and scream at the crashing waves,
Whilst outflanking an ambush by cantankerous Seagulls
As though the flocks were rife with Bubonic Plague.


These are the holiday outings
that I always seem to remember:

October days colder than December:

Salt adding lustre to Shortbread;

Sand drifting into the tea.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
3rd. -  7th. -17th. October 2013.
November 18th. 2014.

Two Poems for Children. (1) The Wodwo. (2) For voice and Percussion.

             1.

     The Wodwo.


I am the Wodwo.
I am neither a tree nor a man,
Sand nor water.
I am neither spirit nor corporeal,
Earth nor air.
Wild as the Wilderness
I predate archeology.

I am the Wodwo,
Entirely my true self,
Nothing more
And nothing less.
I am certainly not a vortex,
Nor a vacuum,
I am really truly here.

I am the Wodwo.
I whisper through the bare boughs
Wordlessly,
And always at midnight
When the moon is full.
I learn all your secrets
But I can never speak them.
Sometimes I drop dead leaves
To spoil your dreams.

I am the Wodwo,
Watch out for me,
It may be entirely possible
That I am not a stranger,
Nor a shadow in your mind.
I may be the authentic You.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
October 13th. 2013.

---------------------------------------
             2.

For Voice and Percussion.


Who stole the silences?

Who stole the silences?
Who stole
             the Wodwo`s soul
From the moorlands
And the woodlands
In a sack
Upon bent back
Running running
             footsteps cunning
Fences leaping
Footpaths thrumming
Through the sleeping village creeping
Into shuttered bedrooms peeping
Overriding our deep dreaming
Balancing on thumbs and kettledrums
Balancing      hovering
Swaying        fluttering
Zooming        fumbling
Cringing in fear
             in a statuette`s ear
Out of the countryside retreating
Into the godless city creeping
Down the dingy back streets sneaking
Through the midnight shadows fleeting
Dark ways walking
Byways stalking
Half forgotten churchyards haunting?


Listen hard
              and you will hear
Phantom footsteps
              softly echoing

Diminishing out of our time.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 19th. 1964. - October 11th. 2013.

(1) October Sketch Book, Impressions of The Kent Coast. (New Version) (2) Duff Translations.(Revised Version).

                  1. 

October Sketch Book, Impressions of The Kent Coast.


The purple flowers of Autumn
Stand tall
On the salt scarred cliff
Like ragged vagabonds.

Bees hovering in the muggy air,
Sluggish,
Heavy,
Mourn the loss of summer.
Time weighs them down
But rest is not an option,
There is still too much to do.

The well appointed hive,
Clogged and sticky,
Emits a sullen music.
The old Queen
Gross,
Unwieldy,
Locked into the centre
Under the weight of her tribe.
She barely moves,
This crucible of the hive
Locked deep in tumultuous darkness,
Enslaved to a cruel fecundity.

Outside her narrow home
The purple flowers of Autumn
Sway in a soft sea breeze.
Small children flick the petals with fidgety fingers,
But do not attempt to pick them.

These children are galvanised by other priorities,
Games and parties; pleasure their reason for living.

They are busy rushing down onto the beach;
Flocking like querulous geese scudding the estuary;

Or a petulant swarm escaping over the shore
Chasing an inchoate dream.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
4th. - 5th. - 6th. - 7th. - 9th. October 2013.
Loosely linked impressions of Herne Bay.
-------------------------------------------

                     2.

         Duff Translations.


You recreate my poem
As you read it,
Memorize it,
Making it your own.

My carefully structured cadences
Hacked out of recognition,
Down graded,
Swiped,
Turned inside out,
No longer mine.

My clear straight forward imagery
Graffitied by your word games;
Your Catch All
List of sayings,
Tabloid speak.

A collage of random news bites
Inconsequently flung together
That mutate like Chinese Whispers
In your mind,

Or
Strange heretical flowers
Abandoned to grow wild
In a once well ordered
Garden,
The dreamscape I designed,

But
As printed on the page
My carefully structured poem
Remains entirely mine,
Inviolate.
It is simply hashed up in your head
When you wilfully misread it;
Customize it for your schemes:

And despite your worst endeavours
My words retain integrity,
My mind remains unchanged.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
16th. - 19th. August, 26th. September, 4th. October 2013.

(1) Autumn Travails, Original Version (2) A Fragment.

                     1.

          Autumn Travails. Original Version.


Perhaps we are already in mourning.

The passengers all appear to be wearing black.

We huddle inside this commuter train,
Jolted unceremoniously towards London
Like a jumble of nondescript freight.

As has often been the case in my life
I appear to be the odd one out.
I am dressed in grey.
Black is too formal for me.

October will begin tomorrow.
The golden month with the cruel edge,
A knife in the belly of the old year
Slowly draining the last warm dregs of vibrant colour.

Even now the sun grows mellow, indistinct;
Soon it will vanish completely,
Submerged under a bruise of Autumn clouds
Mauling the pastel skies.

The sun will remain dead to us.

The sun will remain dead to us.
Dead until the raw winds of March
Worry the gaunt trees
Out of their gnarled sleep;

Worry the dead colours back into life.

The sun will remain dead to us.
Dead until the dark bruise disperses
And warm blood pulses through the healed veins,
Pumped by a vigorous heart.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 28th. - 29th. 2013.
February 11th. 2014.
---------------------------------------------------

                    2.

            A Fragment.


The fragility of moonlight frosting your face
Reminds me of swans drifting through mist
Upon still waters


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
May 10th. 1984. - September 29th. 2013.

Loss.

Tasting your wine

                Inconsolable

Stung by bitterness

                I think of you

Holding the child towards me



My Love

Your absence darkens my world view

An iron curtain shutting down
The light that I had always lived by

As though I was not there



Tonight I miss you talking to me

Enigmatic

                Soulful

Almost priest like when you lied



I would note the oblique lilt of your laughter
Those times you sorted dried flowers in the kitchen

Your chair tilted back

The child asleep in your arms



It is too hard - too hard - to live alone
Bearing the weight of a memory
That
         I cannot now shrug off

With the ease that I shredded your photo



Trevor John Karsavin Potter
22nd. September 2013.
Part sketched 4th. - 7th. December 2012.