Pre - Natal. (First Version).

Crossing the steel bridge to the market
An ordinary girl, yet full of poems
Red in tooth and claw;

Unruly babies, not yet nurtured,
Already spitting fire, like dragons
Deep in her world, the echoing shadows,
The darkness where all life is formed
In secret, all the lanterns out.

Here dwarfish gods
Make swords for giants
And birds speak plain to purblind heroes,
The seas are born, the Kraken roars,
The mountains fall apart.

Crossing the steel bridge to the market
An ordinary girl, her shoes worn out,
Crying poems to the wind;

Come and buy.
Come and buy.
You lost and lonely
Come and buy.

But no one would give her a penny.
No one would give her a look.
She was just a poor girl, a useless malingerer,
Someone to kick because she was down.

But all the children of Camden Town
Withdrew into silence when she turned away.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 21st. - 22nd. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Three Poems (1) The Bather. (2) Deep Night. (3) Se...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Three Poems (1) The Bather. (2) Deep Night. (3) Se...:               (1)       The Bather. Your body, a black wand Seen against white blossom. Teak bending in the wind.               (2...

Three Poems (1) The Bather. (2) Deep Night. (3) September 1st. Sparkling Sunshine.

              (1)

      The Bather.


Your body, a black wand
Seen against white blossom.
Teak bending in the wind.


              (2)

      Deep Night.


Sleeping hand at rest in mine;
Powerless, gently turning,
Black leaf on white water.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 19th. 2017. (Poems written as a pair).

--------------------------------

              (3)

September 1st, Sparkling Sunshine.
        

I open the curtains.
The light rushes in.
The house resounds to the clamour of bells.

Scared by these sounds
The ghosts depart,
Fidget their wings then swoop like doves
Up to the loft             to wait for the night.

This afternoon I shall stroll in the park,
Sit by the fountain,
Drink lemon tea.

As I drink the tea I shall taste the day,
Bitter but sweet,      a hint of Autumn.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 1st. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Provencal Magic 1957, A Meditation in Six Poems. N...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Provencal Magic 1957, A Meditation in Six Poems. N...: Poem No.1. In the Clarity of Daylight.  "The boy has an eye"  Picasso said, Standing in the doorway The prodigy at his elbow....

Tabula Rasa. (Completed Version).

Under the watchful gaze of the philosopher,
The weight of his words,
She burnt all my letters,
My ham fisted hieroglyphs of love
On the concrete path
Outside his bedroom window.
She watched them ghosting into the fading light,
A pellucid column of acrid paper smoke
Shifting in the glint of torches,
The shimmer of the August moon.

My words curled up into a dance of ashes
Pirouetting on the fretful wind
Like black leaves floating on the water,
Slow currents sieved through ancient sunken stones.
Water is forgiving, but fire is not,
And soon all my words were drifting upward,
Like prayers whispered to the setting sun.

She could never tell me why she burnt my letters,
Something to do with the shedding of attachment,
Something to do with changing who she was,
Just like a snake sloughing off dead skin,
Shape shifting into a new persona.

She could never tell me why she had to do it,
Something to do with clearing out old debris,
Something to do with dumbing down the past.
And for a while I would not lift the phone
Just in case she learned to speak the truth.

My family has the habit of keeping letters,
We do not think a life should be forgotten,
But her philosopher taught that he knew all the answers,
And she fell hook line and sinker for his bait.

And for a while, night after restless night,
I dreamt the four wan horsemen rode the wind
Above the roofs of London.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 5th. - 7th. - 10th. - 11th. 2017.
October 27th. 2017.

Sylvia. (Revised).

So this is where it happened,
In the rooms above this blue plaque,
Behind locked doors
On a freezing winter morning.
Here where the policeman stood,
The pressmen took their photos,
The neighbours talked,
A poet is remembered,
My teacher and my friend.

You are part of who we are now,
Lodged in our DNA,
In books and grubby mortar,
The crowded Underground,
The streets we hustle out of
To get from A to B.
You are part of the air we breathe in,
Just like Keats and Shakespeare,
Milton, Yeats and Shelley,
A sweet American girl
Cut down by raging sorrow,
Your cry not just an echo,
But etched into the marrow,
The solid London clay,
The back bone of our history.

I hear you in these wet streets,
In Regent`s Park, in Chalcot Square,
At noon on Primrose Hill.
Your voice is never silent,
But shivers through the small woods,
The tight North London suburbs,
The scrum in Camden Market,
The heights of Hampstead Heath.
A voice that cuts straight into
The hallowed euphemisms
We construct to section grief.

Today in Fitzroy Road
I stand staring at your window
Just like a three day tourist
With one less box to tick.
I recall my teenage self
Sat awkwardly at your table,
Your Biro in my right hand,
A thesaurus at my elbow,
But unable to write one word.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 31st. - November 11th. 2017.

Trevor J Potter's Art: August Bank Holiday, Bankside. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: August Bank Holiday, Bankside. (Revised).: Exposed by the tide The old quay rots On the grey beach. Commerce has moved east from the city, Colonising the broad wet lands Once r...