Two Bitter Songs from January 1981. (Revised).

                            1

Song - You Need a Guru.



Your body is young
But your mind much younger;
You hide in the dark
Like a child below stairs.
You cannot share dreams,
nor talk to a stranger,
Your life is a nightmare of uncontrolled fears.
Who are you?
How could I talk to you?
How open up to you?
How tune into you?
You need a Guru
To unplug your ears.

Today I accept you,
But tomorrow I`ll fear you
Because when I touch you
You break into tears.
You refuse to have friends in the house for a party,
But speed off to a rave
and crash all the gears!
What can I do for you?
How can I break through to you?
Perhaps make love to you?
Find the truth of you?
You need a Guru
To unplug your ears.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
18th. January 1981.
Revised 13th. April 2015. - 15th. February 2020.

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                    2.

Song - You are a Plastic Person.



You never give, You only take;
You never buy, You only steal;
You have never touched a raw nerve
Because you cannot feel.
You have never seen the difference
Between the abstract and the real,
I cannot name a single day
When you cooked a decent meal;
You are a Plastic Person
That`s all you are,
You are a Plastic Person
It will not get you very far.

You never love. You only hate;
You never talk, You only scream;
You are like a shadow puppet
Dancing on a paper screen;
You sit beside your bed all day
Jingling your tambourine;
You never give an inch of space
But always hog the scene;
You are a Plastic Person
That`s all you are,
You are a Plastic Person
It will not get you very far.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 23rd. 1981. - February 23rd. 2013.
October 24th. 2014. - April 2nd. 2015.
February 15th. 2020.
First written during the prolonged break up of an always difficult relationship. I was taken to the very edge of a nervous breakdown and these two songs represent how I felt at the time. I do not like them but they are painfully honest.

(1) Easter 1966, New Version. (2). Elegiac Dawn.

                           1.

Easter 1966. For J P. (New Version).


Girl
I remember the warmth of your love in a cold house:
The April wind rattling the sash windows:
The street dogs yelping.

We seldom linked our fingers, cuddled or kissed;
For hours we lay side by side writing ballads,
Their words long since forgotten.

One night we wove two wedding rings from strands of cotton;
But the plaintive wail of passing trains
Told of unplanned journeys.

Twice we consulted the cards, measured our life lines.
Your fate seemed tied to the north,
Mine to the City, close by the docks and the river.

My life has been lived out in London,
Yours in Belfast, right through the dark of the troubles,
Decades devoid of pity. A shadow has fallen between us.


Girl
This poem is an intimate letter
Encrypted into the night
On the keyboard of my computer.

I have not, for one moment, ceased pining,
And time does not value compassion.
Please send a few words tomorrow.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 11th. 12th 2014. October 7th. - 8th. 2014.
April 6th. - 7th. - 8th. 2015.

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                              2.

                  Elegiac Dawn.


Obscurely in autumnal light
Dancing figures on the lawn
Attend the death of youth.

Clutched by gloved hands
November fruits
Wither and pall,
Decaying beyond all hope or use
Before they have fully grown;
They shrivel and blacken then fall apart
In the frosty light of dawn.

Summer brought new hope
But summer was brief;
Love waned and sickened in November light;
Love learns to die while being born.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Sketched September 15th. - 16th. 1976.
Rewritten and completed, April 4th. 2015.

Written after looking at sculptures by Henri Mattisse.

To Cynthia From Trevor.

The faintest echo of a long ago friendship


Your name


whispered into the stillness


The emptiness of tonight


which is all that we now have




Cynthia




I miss you




I miss you








Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 1st. 2015.

In Loving Memory of Cynthia Lennon 1939 - 2015, who I used to meet with John in London in the 1960`s, most often in The One Tun Goodge Street.

(1) A Myth of Love Returning.(Revised). (2) Eclipse. (3) Easter Daffodils.

                        1.

A Myth of Love Returning.



Last month I watched you walk across the still water
In the dark cavern
Under the concrete city.

You glided like a Sufi Saint,
Gliding out of this dimension
With consummate ease into another,
A rich mosaic of lights and laughter.

Now I sit alone by the waters edge
Watching the shadows rise and fall
Like the frigid ghosts of ancient visions,
The visions you talked of in your sleep.

I sit and tremble in the darkness.
Sit and wait for your safe return.
Perhaps you will bring the light that you promised
Across the centre of the lake.

The light that opened the flowers of Eden
In the first days of Creation
When all the creatures lived at peace,
Fed from the hands of Eve and Adam.

And then, my love, we could plant anew
The sacred grove that once grew here
Lit from the chalice that glowed like the sun.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 30th. 2015. - May 11th. - 12th. 2017.

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                        2.

                  Eclipse.


An eclipse is never total -
The sun circles the errant moon
With a bright corona -
Glinting like a wedding ring
Displayed on a black cushion

The next time I kiss your outstretched hand
I shall search for stars in your downcast eyes


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
March 19th. 2015. - May 11th. 2017. 

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                         3.

              
                Easter Daffodils.



                   Easter daffodils
                     in my garden
Remind me of the first time that we kissed
                   At the seas edge



Trevor John Karsavin Potter
March 30th. 2015.

Fatal Secrets (Revised Version).

Consigned to anonymity -
The skeleton of King Richard the Third -
A wrecked oak lying in the undergrowth
The top hacked through by a crude axe
Branches snagged
Caught in the fetid marsh
The last leaf fallen

Even now
The final question has not been ventured -
The most important information
Lodged in the morticians pending tray
His little black box -
We need to know what happened in the Tower
That sultry summer evening
But so far no one has blabbed

Leaning forward to stare into the vortex
The heroic patience of the archaeologists
Certainly impresses
Keeps us on our toes -
But the harsh light of forensic technology
Has yet to guide us closer to the truth
Or laser open an unexpected clue

Crouched down low beside a tangled hedgerow
I watch a single Kestrel swoop and glide
High above the edge of Bosworth Field -
No other signs of life disrupt the landscape -
Irk the mist drenched morning -
Except perhaps a fitful summer breeze
Smudged by hints of woodsmoke
Nudging some nearby thorns


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
August 12th. - 13th. 2013.
March 22nd. - April 22nd. 2015.

May 1945 - March 2015.

That morning I asked my mother,
"Why have the big bangs stopped?"
I was barely two years old
And accustomed to the noise of war,
North London`s V2 Alley
Just a mile or two away.

She did not answer;
She was busy assessing the qualities
of the sudden, new found quietness,
The soft mellow buzz of the summer.
She was listening out intently
For the terror that never came.

She had once before known peace,
But all my life I had listened to gunfire,
The staccato crack of aircraft engines,
The abruptness of rockets exploding.
This quietness was strange in my young world,
New and very frightening.

I have grown accustomed to quietness now,
And can sleep at ease in my garden;
But every night I consult the headlines
And read of children in Gaza and Syria
Besieged in war torn cities,
And I know exactly what they are feeling.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 18th. 2015.

For all those people who understand what it feels like to be born and nurtured in wartime..

Loss in November, Missing You.

          White sunlight slanting
       Through cracks in the door

            Late roses in bloom
           Dry leaves piled high

                A shadow of ash
            Smeared on a window

                A touch of lipstick
                Traced on a glass

The photographs      I took last summer
       Lean against      an empty vase

       Already the colours are fading



Trevor John Karsavin Potter
November 7th. - 16th. 2012. - 
March 1st. - 14th. - 16th. 2015.