Train Ride.

                   

The woman in the seat right next to mine
Displays her pale green fingernails
That signify some danger, or so it seems.

Maybe she serves the horrid Noon Day Witch,
Sated with the blood of reckless children
Who just would disobey;

Or perhaps her hands are breaking into flower
As the train gets closer to her destination
Where her lover waits, his heart a nest of birdsong?

Her snow white face reflects no certain clues,
An impassive mask rebuffing all enquiries,
Keeping the world at bay.

I suspect there are no secrets to impart,
None to set black cats among the pigeons;
She is just a clerk returning home for tea.

But those pale green nails must give me pause for thought.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 18th. - 20th. - 21st. - July 7th. 2015. 

Two Surreal Poems. (1) Music Lesson.(Revised). (2) Halloween Haunting. (Revised).

                1.

      Music Lesson.



That morning early
You walked out of my room
With your guitar slung over your shoulder.

Well, it certainly appears that my rival
Has six strings
And a very elegant neck.

I cannot compete with such beauty,
I am old and somewhat tarnished,
Shaped like a Double Bass
and drooping every which way.

If you tap me hard, like a drum kit,
Or play on my nerves, pizzicato,
I will surely sound cracked and hollow; -
My good bow a jumble of horse hair,
My pegs flicked onto the floor.

But
If you decide to return, and I`m hopeful,
Just leave the guitar in the hall.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
18th. - 19th. June. - 6th. July 2015.

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                  2.

Halloween Haunting. A Cryptic Poem About Southwark.



Only good whores become saints.

The black cat with a human face
Stared out of the shadows of Park Street
Like a Winchester Goose turned bad.

I ran for the shelter of the market
But sensed that I was now hotly pursued
By a girl in a short crimson dress
Wearing a steeple hat.

It was at this instant that I decided
That marriage is a safer option
Than wandering the streets at night.

The brushing of your fur backwards
That Saturday night in the Snug Bar
Was merely a simple accident,
Not a revelation of my inner motives.

And when I brought up the Winchester Goose Girls
The reference was purely historic,
But perhaps the Hot Toddy was talking.

Love always comes at a price,
Especially for social misfits,
And a Party is no place to make friends,

We get woozy just staring at costumes,
And gabble inarticulate comments.

That red skirt did remind me of broomsticks,
But don`t you dare alter to please me,
I prefer the rough edges intact.

But remember, I do not like claws,
And I was not dropped to earth by a bat.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 3rd. 4th. 2014.
Rewritten June 19th. - July 6th. 2015.

The Bishop of Winchesters Geese were medieval prostitutes.
I hope that I have not offended any of the spirits of these fine Southwark ladies.

Victims. (1945).

The laughter that rippled through your voice
Like a delicate wave of sunlight;
The electricity of your kiss on mid summers eve;
The warmth of your loving hug;
The turbulence of life that danced in your eyes;
All this has gone now, quite vanished away,
Dispatched in a cart load of human ash
Spread over a Ravensbruck field.
And we who remain, heart weary and cold,
Lost on the far shore of the bleak North Sea,
Know only the ice in the eye of the wind,
Taste the raw salt scuffed in the breaking of waves
As they tear up this beach, where we stand, heads bowed,
Pale orphans of a mad, nihilistic god.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 15th. - 16th. 2015. 

Three Poems.(1) Beatrice and Benedict. (2) First Meeting. (3) Hallucinations of the Unicorn. (Revised).

                          1.

          Beatrice and Benedict.


Your name day has come round,
And your face shining, lit by an inner light
Even for me, your fiercest of enemies
Toying with murder in my cynical dreams.

But perhaps, although we care not, dare not admit this,
We are the dearest, the deepest, the firmest of friends,
Or perhaps, maybe even unequivocal lovers
Franchised by blood lust, the thrill of the hunt,
The tearing apart of our secret alliance,
The private anguish of an enforced separation.

This state of affairs we rarely admit
To friend, to foe, and especially ourselves;
We fear the raw edge of unendurable truth
Systematically cutting into the quick.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 16th. - 17th. 2015.

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                        2.

             First Meeting.


Stunned by the sweetness of your smile
My so obsessive rushing to and fro
Has instantly become irrelevant.
We are standing still, apart, quite motionless,
Captivated by an awkward sense of wonder.

The stars this morning are (perhaps) auspicious:
Well, according to the astrologers I refer to,
Those with gaudy charts in Sunday Mags;
And being of a Quixotic disposition
I tend to by pass common sense reality.

The leaflets advertising life insurance
That I dropped the instant you swung wide the door
Remain scattered at my feet.
I shall not now retrieve them
But, enthralled by the sadness in your eyes
I enter the quiet house.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
20th. September 2012.
3rd. - 14th. February. - 11th. June 2015.

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                     3.

 Hallucinations of the Unicorn. (Revised).


Carbon sky

Pewter rain
Scratching traces in the wind
Drain pipes oozing autumn mud

Berliner luft
(The over loaded Trabbies wheezing)
An extra cold November morning

The hunched bird silent on the ledge
White plumage
Folding

The girl
Concealed by two large fans
Stands beside a curtained window
Weeping

Her dread of death entraps her here

She dreams
But thinks that she is seeing
Her pianoforte      madly     swinging
Upside down
From the grey apartment ceiling

Perhaps it will soon fall on her
Wide wings breaking
Too weak to hold it up in space

The Kakadu
Thrusts her small curvaceous beak
Deep into her moulting coat
Much like the fabled Pelican

A need to self harm cracks her nerve
She has no young to feed on blood

(A video of a unicorn
Playing non stop on the wall
Keeps at bay the urban shadows)

The girl
Stares at the Kreuzberg street
And suddenly screams out my name

Trevor     Trevor     Trevor     Trevor

I turn and watch her third floor window
Break into a storm of feathers



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 21st. - June 1st. - 3rd. - 7th.- 11th.- 17th. - 19th. 2015.

Written after visiting the Making traces exhibition at Tate Modern, where I became reaquainted with and enchanted by the work of Rebecca Horn.I was also thinking of my friend Britta who introduced me to Berliner luft.

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.

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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.

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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.

(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.

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.