By the Fireside. Poem No. 2.

Suddenly the skies are southern blue;
The dismal days are over, those sombre hours
We met under a permanent cloud
In smoke filled lounges
To scry the future in fading embers.

The sun has cracked the shell of winter,
And like the Phoenix soaring out of ashes
We drop two magic feathers in the lap
Of the purblind newborn year.
The crib should now be out of bounds to witches.

We throw our party hats upon the fire
Then snuggle up together on the sofa.
Last year I saw your face etched in the wood smoke;
Tonight you dropped your passport in the shredder;
It seems this house is world enough for you.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
25th. January 2014. - 8th. February 2018.
This poem should be read in conjunction with By the Fireside Poem No.1.

By the Fireside. Poem No. 1. (A Fantasy).

Suddenly the skies are southern blue;
The darkest days no more, those sombre hours
We hunkered down
In smoke filled alcoves
Scrying our fortunes in ash and embers.

The sun has cracked the ice lake,
The frozen water falls,
And like the reborn Phoenix soaring high
The infant year takes flight:
Wings of burnished amber catch the light.

Revamping the instant joy of fairground children
Running towards the ocean,
The perfect beach
Where wizard dreams come true,
We seek our fates,
Our unseen futures,
In smouldering remnants.

Last night I saw her face etched in the afterglow
As the room chilled
And the radio
Was unplugged at the wall.
A Pre-Raphaelite Angel face
Veiled in freezing mist.
Perhaps a dream woke early, filtered through
Before I closed my eyes and eased the sheets
Over my naked shoulders,
Or perhaps a spectre knocked upon the door.

A long cold journey, but some good news in June.
The clairvoyant yawned,
Raked the coals and ashes,
Then downed a glass of sherry.
Perhaps at last I shall outsmart the Ogre,
Steal the Golden Goose, get the girl.
Or perhaps, more likely, lose my grip and fall.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
25th. January 2014. -3rd. - 4th. - 5th. - 6th.  February 2018.
For Ivy.

Resurgence.

Thus we now discover Candlemas
Deep in this barren concrete city,
Frost white, not a trace of green,
Not a single sparrow darting:
Hand in hand through silent streets
We walk towards the darkened church.

Thus now we discover Candlemas
In a sudden arc of cold intensity
Piercing the depths of this February night
With the fire of revelation.
Barely illuminating hands and faces
Tapers drip hot pools of wax.

Yes now we are consecrate to Candlemas.
Ignoring the priest you kiss my fingers
And smile at me, saying nothing;
In your arms the child is sleeping.

Oh God, How I Do Love Thee! Love Thee!
The winter is dying, spring is now certain,
Soon the white snowdrops upon the Heath.
Oh God, How I Do Love Thee! Love Thee!
The choirboys intone the Nunc Dimittis
Exclaimed to Mary as she entered the Temple.
But I only care that your hazel eyes
Are looking, looking, deep into mine.

I have loved thee since childhood,
                                           Since our first frenzied schooldays
When we larked and we fought and we kicked and we screamed
And we biked and we sprinted across the high Heath.
We raced with our shadows like a pair of mad puppies,
                                          A disorder of fox cubs,
                                          A convulsion of geese,
Young poets of mayhem mocking the dull world,
Of parents and teachers and meddlesome priests.

Oh then we shouted and sang at the raw winter landscape
Our disconsolate, irreverent, disorders of praise,
Rare songs of new shaping rough hewn to our liking,
In that wild pagan language, the spiel of our youth,
A cross breed concoction of ancient and modern
Filched from Anne Sexton, Bob Dylan, James Joyce,
The Beatles, Bill Shakespeare, and expletives of choice.
Oh God, How I Do Love Thee! Love Thee! Love Thee!
Your smile packs the church with whole gardens of flowers.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 1st. 2011. - August 21st. 2012. - February 2nd. 2018.
This is a complete rewrite of a poem sketched seven years ago. I think I must consider it to be more or less a new poem, but with the spirit of the original intact, or perhaps even enhanced by the much tighter structure of this new version.

Last Night I Became Aware of the Beauty of Wood. (Revised).

Last night I became aware of the beauty of wood,
A beauty I had been taught to disregard
By parents in love with modern things,
With glass and steel, with artefacts of plastic,
With Formica tops covering leaky boards.

Last night I fell in love with polished wood,
Pale or dark, teak or pine, soft, or hard to cut,
It does not matter which;
Even the rough edged finish of the rocking chair
Is a delight to look at, to talk about, to touch.

Last night I threw out cushions stuffed with foam,
Stripped the plastic cover off the table,
Tore the tarnished lino from the floor.
Suddenly the whole house seemed to glow with life,
The dance of light on raw, and polished, grains.

From now on the table, chairs, the Chinese sofa
Shall remain on view; these simple hand made objects
Loved for what they are,
Items that made an honest craftsman smile
When he put by his chisel, lathe and saw.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
29th. January  - 1st. March 2018. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Parliament Hill Fields. (New Ending).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Parliament Hill Fields. (New Ending).: Those kids you wrote about had hardly noticed you. You were just a woman standing on a hill Notebook in hand, Perhaps a shopping list or...

My Grandmother`s Pictures.

The kettle had steamed up the kitchen window,
And I was reminded of the London fogs
Made magic by Monet, his old eyes laughing
At the dance of sunlight on flecks of anthracite
Shimmering through the cold still air.
He observed autumnal reds and yellows
Dissolving into mottled greyness,
A washed out greyness, so like those prints
Of Raphael`s tapestries owned by my grandmother.

The whole of my childhood compressed into filmic
Scenes that flashed on the screen of my mind
Like psychic visions, a split second clarity
Shining a spotlight deep into my past.
I recalled my grandmother dusting the teak frames
That embellished those prints, prints loved more than life
Because they kept her in touch with her childhood.

Her prayerbook, stored somewhere in my bookcase,
Is filled with Anglo Catholic markers
Given out free in the eighteen eighties
When she toed the line, minding the household rules.
Then she never played out with her friends on a Sunday
But stayed indoors by the coal fire reading
Christian almanacs, no novelettes allowed.
Yet, when I was a kid in the nineteen fifties,
Free wheeling my tricycle round her patio
Like a street theatre artiste out of control,
The radio had outmoded strict Sunday observance
And Christ was an artwork pressed behind glass.

This morning, when the kettle steamed up the window,
I had suddenly recalled the power that those prints
Had exerted over my pre-teen curiosity.
I was then accounted too childish and volatile
To wander the halls of the great V & A,
The Science Museum my Easter day out.-
Lost for words I stared for hours at the faded
Cartoon of the Miraculous Draft of Fishes,
And all the colours the years had washed out
Seemed to shimmer more brightly the longer I looked.

And ever since then I have lived each moment
Alert to the beauty obscured beneath shadow.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 15th. - 16th. 2016 - September 17th. 2017.
Extended and re-written January 16th. - 22nd. 2018.  

 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Montaigne. A fantasy. (Completed Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Montaigne. A fantasy. (Completed Version).: Montaigne slept above the stars in thrall to his dreams wherever they took him on their swift nocturnal wings. "I am a man and no...