Tuesday, 2 June 2015
Harlequin and Companion 1901. (Versions One Two and Three). Revised.
Harlequin and Companion 1901. Version One.
Outside the circus the well lit bars seemed small and shadowy,
The features of the drinkers unclear, observed through smoked glass and absinthe;
But under the Big Top clarity dominates the scene,
The loneliness behind the wild laughter
Described in the curve of a lip.
The fingers also, forever making rude gestures,
Stretched out like the legs of a spider
Poised for an easy kill.
They appear ready to pummel and grip the face of the Harlequin,
Ready to draw fresh blood from the hard white mask.
It was the sadness of the clowns that enforced a change of focus,
Impelled the artist to paint black lines around faces
To impose isolation, radicalise a persona
And make it unique, a symbol, an icon.
Picasso,
Your originals impounded in bank vaults and offices,
Are now the preserve of boardroom investors,
The oil rich hoarders of virtual money.
But your images have long since been vital to the day to day scene.
Reproduced in art books, on ipods and plasma screens;
They are integral to our lives, more visceral than urban graffiti,
They thrust into our faces the tears of the poor.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Version One. 29th. - 30th. May - 1st. - 2nd. - 4th.. June 2015.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harlequin and Companion 1901. Version Two. (Revised).
Before the age of neon the nights were all smudge and colour,
The poor of the city observed through smoked glass and absinthe,
But now clarity has entered the urban scene.
The loneliness behind the Harlequin`s laughter
Described in the curve of a lip.
It was the sadness of the clowns that caught Pablo`s attention
As he painted black lines around haggard white faces
To impose isolation, to delineate a persona.
The understated ennui of these circus performers
Revealing the angst of life on the streets.
Tonight the city dazzles like a summer fairground
Packed with young people shrieking and laughing
As if pain never happens, hunger a mere rumour
Located elsewhere; but the background of shadow is dark and deceiving.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Version Two. 29th May. - 4th. - 7th. June 2015.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harlequin and Companion 1901. Version Three.
Two clowns sharing a lunch time Pernod.
Nothing to eat.
Nothing to say.
Life goes on as usual.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Version Three. 4th, June. 2015.
These three poems are to be read as a single group.
Friday, 29 May 2015
(1) Piaf. A Lyrical Mood Painting. (2) Two Parisian Paintings.
Summer moon
I wish that I was in Paris with my love
La vie en rose
The breaking of hearts by the Seine
Before our lips softly touch
And part
Chanson d`amour
Born of regret
Uncharted galaxies of longing
Dark streets wandered by silent strangers
Hunting for mementoes to post to America
But looking askance at the strident red lights
That burn all hours by Le Place Pigalle
Songs drifting stale smoke through crowded bar rooms -
Le Moulin de la Gallette - tourist shops and Bistros
Chansons de la passion Chansons du coeur brise`
Haunting Montmartre with unbearable sadness
Darker than vast distances that separate the planets
The depths that Van Gogh really knew
When we thought he was painting starlight
Hollywood of course got Van Gogh wrong
Missing out the whores and the drunken brawls
The syphilis that killed his brother -
The myth was filmed
The truth discarded
On the boulevards car lights dazzle my eyes
But I really prefer the quieter byways
Courtyards packed with trees and shadows
Ah Paris
Paris
The frail warmth of my lover in my arms
The night we strolled by the moonlit river
And talked of broken promises
Her long hair veiling her eyes
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Sketched June 3rd 1984.
Extensively rewritten May 29th. - July 8th. - 9th.2015.
A lyrical mood painting.
I wish that I was in Paris with my love
La vie en rose
The breaking of hearts by the Seine
Before our lips softly touch
And part
Chanson d`amour
Born of regret
Uncharted galaxies of longing
Dark streets wandered by silent strangers
Hunting for mementoes to post to America
But looking askance at the strident red lights
That burn all hours by Le Place Pigalle
Songs drifting stale smoke through crowded bar rooms -
Le Moulin de la Gallette - tourist shops and Bistros
Chansons de la passion Chansons du coeur brise`
Haunting Montmartre with unbearable sadness
Darker than vast distances that separate the planets
The depths that Van Gogh really knew
When we thought he was painting starlight
Hollywood of course got Van Gogh wrong
Missing out the whores and the drunken brawls
The syphilis that killed his brother -
The myth was filmed
The truth discarded
On the boulevards car lights dazzle my eyes
But I really prefer the quieter byways
Courtyards packed with trees and shadows
Ah Paris
Paris
The frail warmth of my lover in my arms
The night we strolled by the moonlit river
And talked of broken promises
Her long hair veiling her eyes
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Sketched June 3rd 1984.
Extensively rewritten May 29th. - July 8th. - 9th.2015.
A lyrical mood painting.
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Houses.
The houses are all innocence,
Little red brick boxes
Packed together like cases on a shelf,
Lined up spic and span in a nice neat row
Ready to receive the latest batch of people;
Honeycombs upright on a concrete pathway
Not yet oozing honey.
It is the people who stuff the houses up with character,
Gives them their interest,
Gives them their souls,
Gives them their grace and favour,
Life stories that settle the bills.
In that house over there for instance,
A man resides with his two fat wives
And a battleground of children.
And that neat house down the street
Contains a secret
That is not so sweet,
A mass murderer once filled its drains with corpses
While his girl friend made the tea,
She once made a cup for me.
And over the road, adorned in her fur trimmed hats,
The lady who quarantines cats
Is gradually stinking out the street.
The houses are all innocence indeed,
Its what we do with them that makes the difference,
How we make or break them,
Ship or shape them,
Let them tumble into ruins or keep them up to date.
My house is a case in point,
Something to talk about,
There is a crack across the window pane and it needs a spot of paint,
But who cares really, who really really cares?
A spot of paint can wait.
I am busy writing poems when I should be tending to such matters,
A poem is always urgent
Like the birthing of a baby or the baking of a cake,
A spot of paint can wait.
What you see on the outside is of no consequence at all,
Except to the nosey neighbours.
What is taking place inside is the true momentous story.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 26th. - 27th. 2015.
For Anne, who taught me how to trust my writing.
Little red brick boxes
Packed together like cases on a shelf,
Lined up spic and span in a nice neat row
Ready to receive the latest batch of people;
Honeycombs upright on a concrete pathway
Not yet oozing honey.
It is the people who stuff the houses up with character,
Gives them their interest,
Gives them their souls,
Gives them their grace and favour,
Life stories that settle the bills.
In that house over there for instance,
A man resides with his two fat wives
And a battleground of children.
And that neat house down the street
Contains a secret
That is not so sweet,
A mass murderer once filled its drains with corpses
While his girl friend made the tea,
She once made a cup for me.
And over the road, adorned in her fur trimmed hats,
The lady who quarantines cats
Is gradually stinking out the street.
The houses are all innocence indeed,
Its what we do with them that makes the difference,
How we make or break them,
Ship or shape them,
Let them tumble into ruins or keep them up to date.
My house is a case in point,
Something to talk about,
There is a crack across the window pane and it needs a spot of paint,
But who cares really, who really really cares?
A spot of paint can wait.
I am busy writing poems when I should be tending to such matters,
A poem is always urgent
Like the birthing of a baby or the baking of a cake,
A spot of paint can wait.
What you see on the outside is of no consequence at all,
Except to the nosey neighbours.
What is taking place inside is the true momentous story.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 26th. - 27th. 2015.
For Anne, who taught me how to trust my writing.
Sunday, 24 May 2015
(1) Christine.(New Version). (2) On Beachy Head.
1.
Christine. (New Version).
I remember the daisy chain I made for you;
You laughing like the small child that you were,
innocent as a Butterfly;
A curved black feather crushed between your
fingers,
A straw boater balanced on your head,
The crown torn open.
I thought that you would live
for ninety years.
But last night your friends cut through the door and found you,
A fifty year old woman face downward on the floor,
Two emptied vodka bottles by your elbow,
A burnt out cigarette stuck to your lips.
An unused railway ticket in your purse.
You looked just like a tattered fabric doll, a once loved toy
Chucked by a fretful infant.
And scattered all around you on the carpet,
The love letters that you had never posted
Lay in untidy heaps.
You had kept them in a bag under your bed
Stored with some fairground keepsakes, a handful
of dried flowers,
A beat up hat, the remnants of a feather.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 23rd. - 24th. - 25th. 2015.
June 20th. 2015.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
On Beachy Head.
Edge,
Such a final poem.
Maybe there was nothing to say after that.
Maybe it was time for the black sky to fall.
Beneath the white cliff wall the seagulls are wheeling.
Perhaps if I dive now I can catch one in flight,
Hitch a lift on a small wet back.
Edge,
The raw waves rustle through the rough hewn shingle
A broken lifeline below my gaze,
I am not as blind as the martyred Gloucester,
But my luck ran out at my conception.
There is no Poor Tom to break my swift fall;
No strong arm to reach out, to pull me back.
Edge,
Beneath the white cliff wall the wave surge
Saps my will power, rips my nerve.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 21st. 2015.
Christine. (New Version).
I remember the daisy chain I made for you;
You laughing like the small child that you were,
innocent as a Butterfly;
A curved black feather crushed between your
fingers,
A straw boater balanced on your head,
The crown torn open.
I thought that you would live
for ninety years.
But last night your friends cut through the door and found you,
A fifty year old woman face downward on the floor,
Two emptied vodka bottles by your elbow,
A burnt out cigarette stuck to your lips.
An unused railway ticket in your purse.
You looked just like a tattered fabric doll, a once loved toy
Chucked by a fretful infant.
And scattered all around you on the carpet,
The love letters that you had never posted
Lay in untidy heaps.
You had kept them in a bag under your bed
Stored with some fairground keepsakes, a handful
of dried flowers,
A beat up hat, the remnants of a feather.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 23rd. - 24th. - 25th. 2015.
June 20th. 2015.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
On Beachy Head.
Edge,
Such a final poem.
Maybe there was nothing to say after that.
Maybe it was time for the black sky to fall.
Beneath the white cliff wall the seagulls are wheeling.
Perhaps if I dive now I can catch one in flight,
Hitch a lift on a small wet back.
Edge,
The raw waves rustle through the rough hewn shingle
A broken lifeline below my gaze,
I am not as blind as the martyred Gloucester,
But my luck ran out at my conception.
There is no Poor Tom to break my swift fall;
No strong arm to reach out, to pull me back.
Edge,
Beneath the white cliff wall the wave surge
Saps my will power, rips my nerve.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 21st. 2015.
Tuesday, 19 May 2015
Parliament Hill Fields Revisited. (New Version).
Those kids you wrote about had hardly noticed you.
You were simply a woman standing on a hill
Notebook in hand,
Your expression slightly abstracted,
Slightly unconnected with the moment
That they completely occupied.
You were merely part of the landscape that they owned,
An object to be ignored, to be quickly shuffled around,
Or brusquely nudged aside.
You were a mother snatching an hour of peace and quiet,
Observing the city, the bomb scabbed human hive,
The battered streets
Spread wide in skeins of mist below the park.
But it was not the view that occupied your thoughts,
Not the smoke black towers, the gaps between the houses,
The nests of cranes like splinters in the sky; -
The embryo of a poem, conceived from signs and sound-bites,
Was forming brand new stories in your head;
Stories that spoke of children, alive or dead.
That moment was long ago, and the passing crocodile of infant egos
Has long since shunted out of primary school
To occupy the world of adult angst. Those kids have grown quite old now,
And your poem has been fifty years in print,
A text for first year students; a classic to be wondered at.
But those schoolgirls in the park that February day, -
Grandmums perhaps, comfy in post war flats, -
I doubt that few recall that classroom outing,
Or a woman standing windblown on Kite Hill,
A notebook in her hand.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
12th. - 15th. - 18th. - 19th. - 20th. May 2015.
Locally the hill is known as Kite Hill, because it is the perfect location from which to fly a kite.
When I was fourteen or fifteen I had the great good luck to spend an evening and a day in the company of Sylvia Plath. We talked about Keats, a new discovery for me at the time, and she impressed upon me the supreme importance of poetry. God bless her.
You were simply a woman standing on a hill
Notebook in hand,
Your expression slightly abstracted,
Slightly unconnected with the moment
That they completely occupied.
You were merely part of the landscape that they owned,
An object to be ignored, to be quickly shuffled around,
Or brusquely nudged aside.
You were a mother snatching an hour of peace and quiet,
Observing the city, the bomb scabbed human hive,
The battered streets
Spread wide in skeins of mist below the park.
But it was not the view that occupied your thoughts,
Not the smoke black towers, the gaps between the houses,
The nests of cranes like splinters in the sky; -
The embryo of a poem, conceived from signs and sound-bites,
Was forming brand new stories in your head;
Stories that spoke of children, alive or dead.
That moment was long ago, and the passing crocodile of infant egos
Has long since shunted out of primary school
To occupy the world of adult angst. Those kids have grown quite old now,
And your poem has been fifty years in print,
A text for first year students; a classic to be wondered at.
But those schoolgirls in the park that February day, -
Grandmums perhaps, comfy in post war flats, -
I doubt that few recall that classroom outing,
Or a woman standing windblown on Kite Hill,
A notebook in her hand.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
12th. - 15th. - 18th. - 19th. - 20th. May 2015.
Locally the hill is known as Kite Hill, because it is the perfect location from which to fly a kite.
When I was fourteen or fifteen I had the great good luck to spend an evening and a day in the company of Sylvia Plath. We talked about Keats, a new discovery for me at the time, and she impressed upon me the supreme importance of poetry. God bless her.
Friday, 15 May 2015
(1) Sappho, Fragments still tell us........(2) End of Spring.
1.
Sappho, Fragments still tell us.............
Sappho......................your voice always
...............................................................
Only......................................................
It is not your sexuality that intrigues me,
It is just that your poems are pure music
Designed to be sung in our hearts.
................................................................
......................................................indeed
................the briefest of fragments.........
....dropped among Samian Ware..............
.................discarded sandals.....................
..................................................................
..................................................................
.....the fetid remnants of an army cesspit..
..................................................................
Is this, perhaps, the future of all culture?..
To be part extinguished in rubble, and......
....half rotted excrement.............................
...................................................................
...........................but yes.............................
Our (responsibilities) .....always with us... .
............................travails in the underworld
.....irrevocable loses.....................................
So.................................................................
.....................................................................
........................................Sappho, I..............
............in my time........................continue...
and................................................................
.......aware of your guidance.........................
......................................................................
.......the wind touched Lyre...........................
............................................................O.......
..........the Lark overhead...............................
..............................................soaring.............
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 7th. - 8th. - 16th. 2015.
Written while listening to the results of the General Election.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
End of Spring
The Tulips are falling apart
Broken vessels
Losing their hold on the sun
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 15th. 2015.
Sappho, Fragments still tell us.............
Sappho......................your voice always
...............................................................
Only......................................................
It is not your sexuality that intrigues me,
It is just that your poems are pure music
Designed to be sung in our hearts.
................................................................
......................................................indeed
................the briefest of fragments.........
....dropped among Samian Ware..............
.................discarded sandals.....................
..................................................................
..................................................................
.....the fetid remnants of an army cesspit..
..................................................................
Is this, perhaps, the future of all culture?..
To be part extinguished in rubble, and......
....half rotted excrement.............................
...................................................................
...........................but yes.............................
Our (responsibilities) .....always with us... .
............................travails in the underworld
.....irrevocable loses.....................................
So.................................................................
.....................................................................
........................................Sappho, I..............
............in my time........................continue...
and................................................................
.......aware of your guidance.........................
......................................................................
.......the wind touched Lyre...........................
............................................................O.......
..........the Lark overhead...............................
..............................................soaring.............
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 7th. - 8th. - 16th. 2015.
Written while listening to the results of the General Election.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
End of Spring
The Tulips are falling apart
Broken vessels
Losing their hold on the sun
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 15th. 2015.
Monday, 11 May 2015
Violette.
My beautiful friend,
The very first person I struggled to walk to
When I was an infant.
So little remains, books littered with snapshots,
Blurred shadows printed on flimsy white paper,
Two girls standing in a doorway.
No where can I find your authentic smile,
The waves of laughter that shook the house
When you came to tea,
The vibrancy of your hug.
But these are the things that haunt me always,
Not the print of your name in a slab of marble,
Nor the honours heaped on you after death.
In my mind I still see the girl with dark hair
Who swung me up high onto her shoulder
To kiss my forehead.
I could not imagine that you were a soldier,
That in less than eight months the Nazis would shoot you,
Crush your ashes into the rubble
Under the road into Ravensbruck.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 10th. - 11th. 2015.
Rewritten April 25th. 2017.
Violette Szabo was the first person that I ever walked unaided to when a small child. This was at my maternal grandmother`s council house in Cricklewood, North West London. Although I was so very young I have never forgotten her vibrant personality.
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