Tussy. .

Tussy was not buried,
Not swaddled by black earth
Evolving into hillocks and
                        dark hollows
Gradually, season by season
As the Elms fell and rotted,
New saplings were planted,
The moss sprayed out of existence,
And flowers broke through
                 the paving stones
Like little cries for help.


Tussy was not buried.
Her urn remained on view
Upon a Library shelf
For fifty years, or more.
A fading blood red ribbon
Tied around the pedestal.

Tussy was not buried.-
Dark in its box of glass,
Its tomb of crystal,
Her urn stood, a polished trophy
Among the books and posters,
To be stared at by strangers.

Stared at by a little child
Who did not know who Tussy was,
Who did not understand that death
Is absolute and final.
A child who did not understand
That hope and joy can turn to ash.


I so wanted to break through the glass,
Place the urn close to my heart.
Hold it tightly like a baby,
A new life traumatized by birth.

I so wanted to break through the glass,
Talk to the woman that I imagined
Slept in her urn of ancient wood
Like an infant in a cradle.


But more than time and death now come
                                        between us,
More than the gathered thoughts of half a
                                              century;
Themes that have filtered through my ageing
                                                 brain
Like driftwood, or flecks of light and shadow
Dancing on the evening tide,
The ebb and flow of history.
Thoughts born in the decades after Tussy died
Invoking war and terror.


Now Tussy sleeps deep down in London clay,
Locked in the tomb of her illustrious father,
Karl Marx, economist and philosopher,
Her exuberant mohr with the mane of a lion.
A lifetime after a ruthless lie destroyed her
Tussy was buried with dignity and honour.

And today in Highgate I feel much closer to her
Than when a child in the quietness of the library,
Bored with the books I studied her polished urn
As though it contained mythologies, a sainted martyr
Whose vibrant voice had long ago been silenced,
Silenced by suicide, or perhaps a squalid murder.


Now as I falter on the brink of my dissolution,
A post holocaust cynic passed the age of seventy,
I realize that Tussy and I have much in common,
A belief in civil rights, true justice and equality,
A refusal to judge our neighbours by race or by religion.


Perhaps this wind twisting the leafless branches,
Soft whispering through the spring grasses,
The flowers that bloom in the cemetery
Between decaying grave stones,
Fashions a language that somehow can unite us,
The words of the dead and the living grafted together
To make one gentle music,
A miracle of the heath and of the woodlands,
The wildness that Tussy dearly loved.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 10th. - 14th. - 16th. - 30th.2017.
Extensively re-written April 20th. - 21st. - 23rd. 2018. - December 3rd. 2019

Tussy was the family pet name of Eleanor Marx, the youngest and favourite daughter of Karl Marx.

See Saw.

       See Saw



strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and
strong and
           and
           and
                  stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
                  stable
                  stable
strong and
strong and stable
strong and
strong and stable
strong and
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and
                  stable
                  stable
                  stable
                  stable
certainty
certainty
certainty
certainty
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and stable
                  stable
certainty
certainty
certainty
certainty
strong and stable
strong and stable
strong and
           and
                  stable
           and


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 9th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Sterile Area. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Sterile Area. (Revised).: Between truth and lies, Fantasy and Reality, The Sterile Area X Rays all things With the white light Of the void. Here we spend our l...

The Sterile Area. (New Long Version).

Between truth and lies,
Fantasy and Reality,
The Sterile Area X Rays all things
With the white light
Of the void.

Here I spend my time,
Neither on the inside,
Nor on the outside,
But somewhere in between,
The No Mans Land of day to day existence
Where nothing real is spoken
And thoughts are packed in ice.

The cameras film all angles,
The tapes are kept on file,
There is no dark place to hide.
I have even started to believe
My laptop is a nest of spies,
And my phone can read my mind.

Dreams are all I have
To keep me in touch with life,
The true sound of my voice,
The music in my heart.
I have junked the television set,
Quit reading the Sunday Times.
I want my dreams to be my own,
Not those the Press supplies.

I want to find the self I was
Before convention grabbed my throat,
Pinned me to the wall and tried
To quarantine my mind.

Between the truth and lies
The white light of the void
Wipes clean all that is real
From off the slate of life.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 1st. - 2nd. - 3rd, - 11th. -12th. - 18th. 2017. 

Written , initially at great speed, after hearing Anthony Howell read his poems about prison life.

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).:                     1       London - June 1966.        I broke my promise, I did not visit you, I sat all alone in the pub Nursing my...

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).:                     1       London - June 1966.        I broke my promise, I did not visit you, I sat all alone in the pub Nursing my...

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: London - June 1966.(Revised).:                     1       London - June 1966.        I broke my promise, I did not visit you, I sat all alone in the pub Nursing my...