Futility. (New Version).

I cut open the Gourd
to reveal a wasteland of seed

One thousand plants that shall never be grown

Ten thousand mouths that shall not be fed

A taut womb barren
but cursed by hope

Mothers crouched among the ruins of Gaza

Eyes bright with hunger
Lips black with pain

Ten thousand veiled faces
imploring the sun

Ten thousand scarred hands
lifted in prayer

The voice of Rachel shrieking in Ramah

The beauty of Iman calloused by gunfire

I cut open the Gourd
to expose the raw flesh

The skin is rough to my fingers like sandstone

The small oval seeds remind me of tears


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
July 10th. - 11th. - 14th.  - 15th.2014.

This is a poem of protest, within the history of my family there are, and have been, Christians, Muslims and Jews. There are also secularists, and the family is mainly left wing or liberal in politics. I feel torn apart by the conflicts in the Middle East. The nations with the most efficient, brutal and powerful armies do not get my vote. It is the oppressed civilians I care about. The blood soaked children crying in the hospitals.

Three Poems. (1). Sufi Meditation. (2). June Night. (3). Post Modern Beauty. (I am the Duchess of Malfi still....).

                        1.

              Sufi Meditation.


Muted colours of a Pastoral Symphony;
The language of simplicity.

Fingers touching the hem of a sleeve.
A glance that does not need explaining.

All things straight forward,
Stone walls defining territory.



But that is in a far off country;
A distant time zone.

Here we only know the desert,
Contours splintered in the heat haze;

All things roughly covered over,
Nothing straight forward.



I draw the face of Rumi in the sand;
A gust of wind scatters the fine grains.


Trevor John karsavin Potter.
June 20th. - 21st. - 24th. - 25th.- 27th. - 30th. 2014.

========================

                        2.

                 June Night.


Last night
Midsummer rain awoke us

Black petals
Softer than eiderdown.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 23rd. 2014.

============================

                       3.

         Post Modern Beauty. 

(Duchess." I am the Duchess of Malfi still".
Bosola. "That makes thy sleep so broken". 
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi: Act 4.)
                       =====

Mona Lisa`s face without the smile, yet flawless,
never to be scarred by age or exposure to the sun.
Groomed for the cat walk, the camera`s prying eye.
A fashion plate image refracted through amber glass
as the doors swing open wide, spilling the wintry air
deep into the pub. She was not seen to enter then, but
for a moment her face flickered in the alcove mirror
like a faded video image.

                         Candle light obscured her finest features,
Giovanna moved among the deepest shadows.

                                     Unsure for a moment where dreams
begin or vanish, or when reality transmutes into an impromptu
theatrical performance, I put down my glass and left the sanctuary,
hoping to spy her in the milling throng.

                                                                           Was that her
there, dancing among the shadows? Dancing alone in the ribald 
crowd?

The Barflies jostled each other like madmen in a Tragedy.
                                                       
                                                          I reached out to touch her shoulder;
but only the air seemed tangible, seemed real. I turned back into the alcove,
lonesome and defeated.

                                                       Something within me had died.
That delicate hint of perfume was perhaps the trace of a memory,
and yet I am certain that someone did mention her name. But then 
again, my hearing is somewhat decayed, I could have been mistaken.

Her face had quit the mirror.             The door slammed shut in the wind.

A shrill laugh echoed in the porch outside.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 5th. - 6th. 2012.
June 28th. - 29th. 2014.

The One Tun, Part Eight. New Rewritten Version.

Devon blue. The sunlight frisking flecks of dazzle across the waves. Torbay placid, the yachts gently bobbing, Moses Cradles resting on the waters.I am sitting on the harbour wall waiting for the sleeping town to wake up. Barely one hour after dawn in June, the sun already hot and brilliant. I had traveled overnight by train from London, the rail carriage stinking of stale smoke and damp. In 1965 British trains were, to my knowledge, the dirtiest in Europe. It was good now to be out in the fresh air sipping Orange Squash and eating the last of the sandwiches. The food had been packed for me the evening before by Mrs. Harris. I was trying to locate her runaway daughter. A rumour of a possible sighting had hastened me down to the West Country. I sat on the harbour wall trying to focus on my next move, but I was almost too tired to think. A crowd of seagulls were clamouring overhead, keen to steal some remnants of my banquet.

I was no stranger to Torquay. I had family living in the centre of the town, but today I did not want to be seen by them; I could not be diverted from my mission. Zoe had run away from home once before; my task was to try and locate her before the police were informed by her father. Her family and friends did not want her to be locked away as a young offender. She was a feisty, articulate and highly intelligent fifteen year old, not a feral street kid bereft of hope and ambition. The law enforcers did not always recognize the difference. Unfortunately the boy she ran away with was rumoured to have a heroin habit, so we had to act quickly. I could see the keys turning in the locks and the iron doors slamming tight, the guard dogs barking.

She had left London holding a small travel bag and a kitten. We had all been together in the Classic Cinema Tottenham Court Road. Her artist brother paid for the tickets. The kitten behaved remarkably well. From time to time he would wiggle and take a peek at the giant screen, but made no attempt to break free and scarper. This fur ball was not my friend however, I received a small scratch when I tried to hold him while ice cream was purchased. Suddenly Zoe announced that she needed the toilet. Apparently both the kitten and the bag had to accompany her. She did not return.

I became uneasy after just a few minutes, but her brother was so deeply engrossed in the film that he hardly noticed the time passing. Once out of the cinema however he rushed straight to the nearest phone box and started to ring as many relevant numbers he could think of. No one could tell him where Zoe was. We enquired at The One Tun, but the early evening crowd were clueless, a state of affairs that we should have expected. Some did know the truth however, but were sworn to secrecy. She was at number 12 Tottenham Street, a five minute walk from the pub and her obvious destination. So obvious in fact that we did not think to search there. That tenement block was the bolt hole of Fitzrovia`s remaining Beatniks and illiterati, probably the most bohemian address in London. Zoe and her companions remained there for only one night. They were soon on the road to Devon. At some point on the journey the kitten decided enough was enough and took his own route to liberation. Cats and hitch hikers are not good companions. The boy friend did not last much longer either, which was probably all to the good.

Rufus and I returned to his parent`s home to break the bad news. and within a few hours we had both commenced our travels, separately searching for his sister at opposite ends of the country. I did not find her in Torquay, but just a few miles along the coast in Plymouth I caught sight of a note she had penciled on the wall of a pub. "I am the only sane person in this place," a typical Zoe observation. She was probably right about that sweaty hole in the wall.

After nearly three weeks of travel and living off her wits she returned home to Hyde Park Mansions, tired and unrepentant. Within hours the police were informed, and she found herself locked away in the Young Offenders Institution a sort of naughty school kids zoo in a quiet part of Paddington. Fortunately she did not have to stay there long, A relative she greatly loved became her official guardian. She moved into his home in Kingston Upon Thames. He took her on camping trips to Istanbul and Afghanistan. He was a Hippy before the concept had been invented. Zoe had won the freedom to be the person that she wanted to be, a gift that she prized above all others. She remained an extraordinary person for the rest of her unconventional life.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 19th. 2014.  - August 9th. 2020. 

       .    

Two Poems (1) West Country Woman. A Song. (2) The Painting.

                1

West Country Woman.


West Country Woman,
Hair wilder than moorland bracken,
Face redder than solstice fire;
I will not forget your peppery laughter,
Your sealskin hands,
Your restless eyes.
You touched me to the quick
With your snide and insolent words
That Sunday last November.

You had lit a flame in the heather,
A raw, storm frenzied beacon,
To draw my barque to the shallows
Where the jagged rocks lay waiting,
Stone dragons concealing their claws.

I had once dreamed you were my lover,
But I now know you are merely a robber,
A snatcher of hearts and of chattels,
A wrecker of ship loads of lives.

I once dreamed that we two should marry,
But your tongue is a thorn bush of lies.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 10th. - 11th. - 12th. - 13th. 2014.
Torquay, Devon.
Amended January 11th. 2020. =============================

                  2

        The Painting.


black on black on black on black
black dissolving into grey
black on black on black on black
white
grey
blue evolving into grey
white
black on black on black on black
grey
blue
no semblance of a human face
no trace of me or you


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
June 16th. 2014.

Recalling a visit to an art gallery with Layla.

Four Poems (1) Californian Buddhist Wedding. (2) A Fragment. (3) Dreaming in October. (4) Human Traffic.(Revised)

                        1.

Californian Buddhist Wedding. (Revised Version).


The cicadas in the distant gardens presaged heat.

In those moments the world seemed transfigured by hope
As we stood side by side on the tranquil beach
Hands barely touching;
The silent stars spun a glittering web beyond our niche in time.

Speaking few words
We watched the moonlight shimmering a fragile path
Upon the surface of the waters,
A magical path that few have dared to follow.

Like discarded fragments of our former lives
The stones that we collected on the shore
Were flicked across the tops of breaking waves.
Bad memories should not linger to deceive us.

Suddenly you kissed me,
A tentative kiss, like those that children give.-
Slowly we climbed back up the concrete stairway
And entered the quiet house.

That morning when we whispered our solemn vows
In that Buddhist Temple high on the green hill,
We had been changed forever by simple words.
No secular laws were needed then to bind us,
Only our fearless honesty.

But now grey walled Manhattan claims your time;
And here I sit and watch the London rain
Darkening the cold window.
December nights are long and strangely empty.
The pallid moonlight seldom splits the clouds.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
17th. - 30th November 2012.
5th. - 6th. June 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 28th. 2012.

==================================
                       
                        3.

           Dreaming in October.


Dust motes drifting in sunlight
A soft veil of quietude.


Will I hear your footsteps on the garden footpath
Before the leaves have fallen?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 1st. 2012. - June 4th 2014.

===========================
                   
                        4..

      Human Traffic.


Tinned meat
Pressed into cars and buses
Fly blown in the sun

Travelling can be fun

Free born Human Beings
Trained to taste defeat
Victims of our produce

We are what we eat

Trapped in mobile boxes
We eye a copper sun
And sizzle in the heat

Travelling cant be beat

Reduced to scarecrow fillets
Spit roasted
Overdone

We await the quick denouement

Neatly packaged
Trussed and hung


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 6th. - 7th. 2012. - June 5th. 2014
June 7th. 2015. - January 7th. 2016.

The One Tun, Part Seven. Revised Version.

Colonel was a fawn Great Dane, docile but loud of bark. He was also as tall as a man when standing on his hind legs. He lived at the Duke of York, a bohemian pub situated at the end of Charlotte Place, a darkly atmospheric alley in Fitzrovia. Whenever I ventured into that alley, Fagin and Bill Sykes came to mind, especially on foggy autumn evenings. I found the atmosphere so oppressive that it cut deep into my imagination. I saw footpads and burglars everywhere, skulking among the transvestites and moody beatniks. I even convinced myself that a real life Nancy was being done to death as I passed beneath her window. The buildings were jerry built Georgian, just the right style and period. I never felt at ease in Charlotte Place.

Colonel was a celebratory far and wide. He had starred in the 1959 Hammer Horror film The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock Holmes had put an end to his reign of terror. Colonel looked wonderfully fierce in his gruesome mask, and played dead with due decorum once the blanks had hit home. Not fully grown at the time, he none the less appeared huge and dangerous on the big screen. We who knew Colonel loved him to bits; strangers were less sure of his safety record and tended to keep their distance.

Colonel was now an old stager, long retired from cinema glory, but his charisma was undiminished. He had a party trick that few dogs, however highly trained, could hope to emulate. He barked Time on cue.He placed his forelegs firmly on the bar, raised himself to his full height and deafened the nearest ear. Strangers would promptly drink up and flee. Regulars barged through the melee to hustle a final pint.

My relationship with Colonel was polite. We acknowledged each others existence, and once or twice he allowed me to accompany him on his daily stroll. As with most city dogs, pedigree or otherwise, the carefully organised outing rapidly disintegrated into a grand tour of all the local lamp posts. However, to walk out with Colonel was accounted a great honour. In his glory days he was the best dog to be seen with in the whole of Central London. Crowds parted to let him pass. Any human seen in his company was accounted a personage of some distinction. He conferred lustre on whoever strolled beside him.

One day, walking serenely and alone down Charing Cross Road, I was suddenly made aware of an excited hub bub in the vicinity of Leicester Square Station. I turned to observe the commotion. Something was causing the crowds milling around the entrance to jump and scatter. "Is there a fight taking place?" I thought. "Perhaps a murder". No, it was Colonel, thrusting through the throng, head down, tongue lolling. Some distance behind him my friend Anna clung to the lead for dear life. "He saw you and took off", she said laughing. This remark instantly boosted my sense of self worth. Colonel had not only recognised me, he had decided that I was worthy to be seen in his company. The exertion had made Anna thirsty, so we decided that a visit to a Coffee Bar was in order; but what to do about Colonel? After a few minutes dithering we concluded that the best place to try our luck would be Bunjies.

Bunjies was a Coffee Bar and music venue situated at the end of a steep flight of steps in a cellar. This popular establishment was staffed by students earning a little cash, and they tended to be tolerant of unusual situations. We decided that it would be polite to ask about the dog before he made his presence felt, so I left my companions in the street and rushed down the steps alone, hoping to find a waiter when I hit the bottom. I crashed through the entrance straight into the arms of a bearded student holding an empty tray. The poor chap was a little surprised. Fearing censure I blustered some rapid fire twaddle about not being drunk, and had just managed to gasp the word "DOG" when Colonel came galloping down the stairs, dragging a nonplussed Anna behind him. Two shocks in half a minute can unnerve the calmest man, the waiter was no exception to this rule. He stood frozen to the spot, struck dumb and apparently about to faint. Fortunately, after a long and nervous silence, he regained his senses, and use of his vocal chords. It turned out that he was a dog lover brought up in the wilds of Wiltshire. Indeed, he was so taken by Colonel`s magnificence that he allowed us to stay. He even presented the canine celeb with a bowl of water free of charge. Like most famous people, this Great Dane simply lived off his charisma.

Colonel quickly settled into this new habitat, took charge of his space. After just a few minutes he decided it was time to take a nap. He stretched himself out full length on the stone floor, blocking access to three large tables. A couple of unwary ladies tripped over him, spilling their drinks, but he did not turn a hair. As befitted a Hound of the Baskervilles, Colonel was completely at home in this subterranean environment.

The walk back to Fitzrovia was uneventful. I took my leave of Anna at Goodge Street Station. Money was in short supply so I decided to go home. Besides, my mother would have cooked a meal and I was feeling hungry.

Anna was a serious minded girl of Polish descent. We often sat together in the One Tun discussing philosophy and religion. I did not know her well, but was always glad of her company. Anna`s intelligence was more profound and acute than was common on that scene. Taking heed of her often acerbic advice steered me clear of difficult people and situations. A number of unsavoury persons mingled with the crowd, genuine thieves and footpads, and it was hard for me to judge the good from the bad. Anna was canny, she observed everyone and knew everyone; her judgement was infallible, or so it seemed to me. She was reputed to be nursing a broken heart, and this may have sharpened her awareness of the world around her. It was hard to believe that she was then barely seventeen. She could have been a decade older.

The last time that I saw Anna in the pub she had to rush away unexpectedly to sort out a domestic problem. She gave a little wave, and then was gone. Her other world, the one that I had no notion of, had finally laid claim to her.

Colonel was not the only celebratory in our midst. The One Tun was stuffed full of musicians including The Beatles. It was also frequented by actors from Olivier`s newly formed National Theatre Company. They enjoyed the love of freedom that made this place so lively. And then one evening Sir Laurence himself walked in, and my young life took a serious turn.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 29th. - 30th. - 31st. 2014. 

.    

Three Poems. (1).Glasgow, May 23rd. 2014. (2). The Mermaid.- A fantasy for Josephine. (3).Debussy.

            1.

Glasgow, May 23rd. 2014.


Suddenly perfection
Is burned beyond recognition,
A pile of blackened embers
Smouldering in the street.

Farewell my lovely,
A hundred years of history
destroyed in half an hour,
And ten thousand bright
                       tomorrows
Now can never be.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 23rd. 2014.

Written on seeing pictures of Glasgow School of Art on fire.
===============================================

            2.

   The Mermaid. (Revised Version).


You are my little fish
Darting through the black waters
Of the midnight river.

Stunned by your beauty
I plunge my arms deep into the swirling currents
To grasp your lithe energy,

Your liquid strangeness
Now weaving away from me
As though I were a hunter,

A fisherman with a net.-
"Gotcha!" I cry, as I snatch you from the waves
With a deft coordination
Of nerve and muscle.

You lie as still as a sick child
On the bank of the starlit river,
Eyes focusing on nothing.
I fear that you are dying.

I reach out to embrace you,
But you snare my outspread fingers
As though they were more precious
Than platinum or silver.

This sudden movement scares me,
Such elemental abrasiveness
Defeats all understanding.

How can I give you back to the dark stream
Now that your ethereal beauty
Has stunned me out of reason?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 22nd. - 26th. 2014.
================================

                 3.

           Debussy.


Revealed by artifice and
moonlight
That gastronomic delicacy
A smidgen of freshwater snail
Sliding filigree arabesques
                       Delicately
Discreetly
Upon a pale blue port hole
In the melancholic midnight
Of the Esplanade Aquarium.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 10th. 2014.