This Maundy Thursday Night. (Revised).

Kneeling in the silent chapel
I study the blank walls where
my favourite icons should be
and sense the infinite shadowing me
in a cold wind of absence.

I fear that God is truly dead,
lost in the flickering shadows
where mournful candles burn,
but accentuate the darkness.
I face the vacant spaces
that haunt my inner life,
but I can sense no secret voice,
no echo deep within me,
no sign that I exist.

Faith is all I have to go on living;
Faith is all I have to outface death.
I am not the person I used to think I was,
all vain pretense has been thrown out,
                                            discarded;
chucked out like last years winter fashions.
I am that silent space locked deep within me,
the silent space that is all things and nothing.
Faith is all I have to help me now.

I look forward to this coming Easter morning
when fragile light will swathe the church in
                                                            colours
more varied than the threads in Joseph`s coat.
Such beauty can illuminate deep sorrow,
light up the void within the empty tomb.

The icons will once more be back in place,
shimmering among the ranks of votive candles
like gilded prayers, the gates to paradise
opened for all who seek their truth in art.
And for an hour or two  I may throw off
                                               the heartache,
these bleak corrosive whisperings of doubt.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 24th. - 25th. 2016. - April 16th. - 21st. - 23rd. 2017.
August 4th. 2017. - March 28th. 2018.

Good Friday 2017.(Revised).

For the first time this week there is no sun.
Dawn, a yellow paleness between grey clouds,
Spits of rain in the wind.
The noise of traffic on the M1 this morning
seems strangely muffled.
Sounds from another century half remembered
as I sneak back into bed, going nowhere fast.

I turn on the bedside radio;
Tenebrae Responses for Good Friday.
Gesualdo mocked by sorrow; his murders cruel,
                                                               and trite,
small tales of jealousy, of sneaky trysts in corners
when all the lights flicked out.
Murder has always been an everyday occurrence,
something to get away with if you are a Count,
a Commander in Chief, a Tetrarch,
but strictly forbidden to all the common folk.
Today we recall the darkness of Golgotha.
The music of Gesualdo crackles through the static.

The Man of Sorrows tests the nails and wood
with expert fingers before the hammers strike,
splitting his wrists and ankles with quick blows,
efficient, but cowardly.
This is a murder sanctioned by authority,
one of thousands designed to keep the peace
in a tiny fly blown province in the east.
The people are morose, stiff necked, plain spoken.
They believe the power of Rome can easily be
                                                                    broken.

This afternoon I shall kneel beneath the cross,
and wonder why bronze nails were struck so hard
into a man who spoke of peace and love.
Who cured the mad, the blind. Who washed the
                                                                 leper clean.
Who drove the petty traders from the Temple Court.
But herein gleams an answer, a candle in the night.
Love shines a light into the face of power,
and reveals an empty space where Truth should be.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 14th. - 15th. - 27th. 2017.

Palm Sunday 2017.

This avenue of trees
has become a cathedral of blossom,
a surge of white waves
high arching above us,
but never tearing the cliff face,
or crashing on the shoreline
in a roar of dissolution.

This avenue of trees
should be shading your running
as you sprint through the park,
football in hand,
no thought for the hospital
where you now lie sleeping,
your pale skin raw,
a veil torn by fire.

I sit by the lakeside
dreaming of you,
a child of the wild wood
danced by the west wind,
and grieve that my old hands
cannot mend the torn veil,
extinguish the flames.

The cathedral of blossom
is blown into fragments
by the wind that brings summer.-
White petals are tears
swept up by the gardener
as he clears the wide paths.-
When the tears have all gone
you shall walk from the hospital,
eyes blinkered but laughing.

Your birth was a miracle,
sister to Lazarus
born out of a darkness
that we thought was forever.
But were you born into pain?
There is no solace in nature
while the pain drags you backwards
out of the light.

This avenue of trees
spreads long cold shadows
as day turns to evening.
It is time to go home;
switch on the computer;
read through every message;
sit quietly and wait.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 9th. 2017.

Making Lists.

Making lists is something most folk do
to try to fathom who they really are.

List A. 

I am 14 months old,
walking to Violette Szabo
across the front room carpet.

It is now my 2nd. Birthday,
plasticine tarts a disappointment,
no spitfires overhead.

I am 3 and a half, or nearly,
lifting high a huge bouquet
to a stooping Joyce Redman.

I have now turned 8 and a bit,
hearing an interesting story
of a girl who loved two sailors.

11 years and a day,
barred from playing a boy king
by a father wary of actors.

I am not yet quite 13,
and with Thorny for the first time
in a draughty gypsy wagon.

14 just come and gone,
I am singing the naughty Hansel
in Humperdinck`s Hansel und Gretel.

Now I have reached 15,
I must guide the Sugar Plum Fairy
around a stage close to the Angel.

16, my voice broke late,
like a mollusc I curl up tightly,
afraid to get up and whisper.

I am a wild and nerdy 18,
arrested by a kind policeman
for parking my seat in Whitehall.

21, a man of the world already,
writing my first love poem
to a girl I had yet to meet.

22, and with the Beatles.
Banging a tray in the studio,
or was it a tambourine?

Pause.

List B.

Fast forward through the crystal,
grey clouds smudge the pictures
that now slowly reform.

At 35, cold and wet in Ireland,
lying face down on the border,
bullets whiz over my shoulder.

A divorce. An argument with my lawyer.
Some extra mural babies
not spoken about to the neighbours.

72, grey haired and balding,
I still do not know which sailor
is my actual father.

I am 74 next Easter,
the girl in my first love poem
just called me on the phone.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 7th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) Sufi Love Poem.(2) A self Portrait....

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems. (1) Sufi Love Poem.(2) A self Portrait....:                   1 .      Sufi Love Poem. Your love is the only love That heals me. What was not is annihilated. What always was   ...

Two Poems. (1) Sufi Love Poem.(2) A self Portrait.

                 1.

     Sufi Love Poem.


Your love is the only love
That heals me.
What was not is annihilated.
What always was      abides.


Only with you am I healed,
Contented.
Only with you am I truly
Alive.
Lonely nights are ruled by chaos.
Loving nights   are calm and still.
What was not is annihilated.
What always was      abides.


In your beginning
                                   I was with you.
In my beginning
                              you were with me.
When lost to you
My voice is crippled;
When bound to you
We transcend music.
What was not is annihilated.
What always was      abides.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 28th. 2017.

The lines printed in italics are an adaptation of an old Sufi saying.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                 2.

      A Self Portrait.


I belong to three cultures,
English - Russian - Romany,
They wage an internecine war
Deep in my personality
As I struggle to differentiate
Between public and private morality,
Between what is good and what is bad,
What is sane and what is mad,
Between what is true and what is false,
Between mesmerism and reality.
And yet I could never be complete
Without this warfare deep inside
That swamps and holes long held ideals,
Then sails them home against the tide.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 3rd. 2017. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1). Selected Poems of Yevtushenko, First Edition....

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1). Selected Poems of Yevtushenko, First Edition....:                       1 Selected Poems of Yevtushenko. This book smells of decay, The pages are yellow, The covers have ceased to be ...