Halloween London 1969 - 2016. (Revised)

Sitting in the window seat
Reading Anne Sexton
London far below me

Pre on line hegemony
Frost bright and bustling
Whole neighbourhoods one family

Kids itching to throw sparklers
Dogs barking in a doorway
Trick or Treat unheard of

This culture now dismantled
Out maneuvered by the wealthy
Fabricating Paradiso

Where we once sat by gas fires
In shabby one room rentals
Scoffing beans and bangers

Black sabbath on the radio
Ginsburg in our pockets
Sugar in our tea

This town where folk once chattered
On buses                  On the railways
Now pimped in paint for tourists
Or buried deep as Pompeii

Or dwarfed by plate glass canyons
Built of broken promises
Devised to harvest money
trick or treat writ large

I sit here by the window
And dream of my lost city
That housed both poor and wealthy
In one extended family

The town where folk said "pardon me"
When hustling through the markets
On a rainy Sunday
Before silicone technology
Made us blind to the street scene
And scuppered our humanity

Sitting in the window seat
Reading Anne Sexton
Exile on my mind


Trevor John Karsavin Potter 
First Version: October 31st. - November 1st. 2015.
This New Version: November 1st. - 4th. 2016.

This poem should be read out loud.

Trevor J Potter's Art: A lyrical Poem for Lily. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: A lyrical Poem for Lily. (Revised).: The night is so warm that I almost believe that I am standing on the rocky shore of Lake Como on midsummer`s morning, not strolling thro...

Trevor J Potter's Art: A lyrical Poem for Lily. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: A lyrical Poem for Lily. (Revised).: The night is so warm that I almost believe that I am standing on the rocky shore of Lake Como on midsummer`s morning, not strolling thro...

A lyrical Poem for Lily. (Revised).

The night is so warm that I almost believe
that I am standing on the rocky shore
of Lake Como on midsummer`s morning,
not strolling through London on All Souls Eve.

I am thinking - thinking - thinking of you,
snug as a chrysalis in your bed,
observing star clusters divide the night
between the emptiness and the light.

I walk in a daze through the silent streets,
and remember your voice down the telephone
as we conversed together for the very first time,
the sun rise out shone by the verve of your speech.

And although I have been told that love is purblind
the sound of your voice filled my mind with pictures
of a wild child dancing as she laughed down the phone
in a room I have never seen.

October retreats from dazzle to darkness,
but today we back tracked to the end of the Spring
when the world is ablaze with sudden beginnings
and even old biddies trip fleetly and sing.

And you are as young as this morning is new,
but the world that you love I was not born know.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 29th. - 30th. 2016.
February 21st. 2017.

Autumn Travails. (Revised).

Perhaps we are already in mourning.

The passengers all appear to be wearing black,
summer a diminished memory.

We huddle inside the commuter train,
jostled continuously from side to side
like parcels packed in speeding vans.

As has often been the case in my life
I appear to be the odd man out,
the pesky chap asking awkward questions,
burying the nail deep with one hammer strike.
Today I am dressed in yellow and green.
Black is far too formal for me.

October will begin tomorrow,
the golden month with serrated edges.
A knife in the belly of the gnarled year.
The snarl on the face of the future.
Even now the sun grows mellow, an overripe peach,
soon it will melt into the horizon,
dissolve beneath a bruise of clouds.

I stare sadly out of the window,
the city drenched in sudden rain.
Wild trees lean like dying widows
against decaying wooden fences.

The passengers all appear to be wearing black;
I find it painful to look at them.
I think they must all be undertakers
en route to a colleagues wake.

I touch your photograph in my pocket.
The cold white paper, cold as your kisses
that time you finally said "Goodnight".


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 28th. - 29th. 2013. - June 13th. - 14th. 2014.
July 22nd. 2015. - October 23rd. 2016.- May 9th. 2017.

This poem has evolved out of Autumn Travails / Winter Blues, a sketch of a poem written on a train in 2013. Everyone in the carriage appeared to be wearing black, apart from myself. I felt like a stranger in their midst, a foriegn visitor who was not quite accepted.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Autumnal Mood Poem, Bankside London; Lovers Stroll...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Autumnal Mood Poem, Bankside London; Lovers Stroll...:                        1. November sun A marigold shrouded in white mist Trying desperately to bloom. We walk hand in hand By the bla...

Breaking the Code. (Revised Version).

She sat next to me
like a cat
on a cushion purring,
her shoulder, touching mine,
slightly stooped
as she looked away,
far, far away,
into imagined distance,
the secret utopian hills
of her imagination.

I could not talk to her,
she loved too much the silence,
the silence,
strong and eloquent,
of that true companionship,
that only loyal children
and long term lovers know.
And the scent of her warm breath
filled the narrow bedroom
like the scent of autumn roses.

"I must leave now, it is nearly half past seven.
I will telephone you once I get to France,
I am staying overnight in Central Paris.
Oh, & please do not watch me as I leave the house,
saying goodbye is just a bourgeois convention".

She picked up her suitcase and strode to the door
seeming so confident as she went,
but her face was as pale as frosted glass.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 20th. - 21st. - 23rd. 2016.
December 17th. - 18th. 2016.