Memorials. (After listening to Madama Butterfly on the radio).

                    1.

My paintings are the poems
I cannot write,
Songs without words
Preserved in stillness.
Likewise the photos,
Static portraits of far off times
Silent
Silent
Ice cold                           silent.
Memorial stones bereft of flowers.

                    2.

Your signature
                              In my pocket book
Is dated 1967.
A vivacious moment in a too short life
Preserved forever on a yellowing page.
None of the photos that hang on the wall
                                              Are vivid
As this singular word
Shaped to the rhythms
That danced in your voice.

                  3. 

My paintings are the poems
I cannot write,
Butterfly carcasses
Pinned behind glass.
They shadow the stories I cannot speak,
The sorrow      too deep      for language. 


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 4th. - 5th. 2018.                   

Trevor J Potter's Art: Last Night I Became Aware of the Beauty of Wood. (...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Last Night I Became Aware of the Beauty of Wood. (...: 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 gla...

Delayed Spring.

A week of snow prophesied.

You say you want to move in with me?
Also, that cotton ring was really gold.

Love can be difficult,
People are not so straight forward, Ivy.
A change of season every minute.

Sirius scratching a chill clear sky
Confirms the weatherman,
His crystal ball seems accurate.

Yes, you had better move in quickly,
Your home is just too far from here,
Parked under a grove of icicles,
The makeshift roof leaking.

Your presence on the sofa in the front room,
Would bring the glitz of Easter
So much closer,
And no, I do not mind if you play Mother,

That is if I am not too dull and awkward,
Too long in the tooth and grouchy
To accommodate the changes,

The wind too often from the east.

Your presence on the sofa in the front room
Would make my house feel cosy,
Not just a draughty storeroom.

Yes, you had better move in quickly,
Burn your caravan, sell your dogs and chickens.
Even if the snow should last a year
Your smile would melt the frost that wrecks my garden.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 26th. - 27th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Media Savvy Eve. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Media Savvy Eve. (Revised).: The girl in this photo is ecstatic. One kiss, there will be a child, Two kisses, maybe not. But whatever happens next Her life is marke...

Media Savvy Eve. (Revised).

The girl in this photo is ecstatic.
One kiss, there will be a child,
Two kisses, maybe not.
But whatever happens next
Her life is marked forever,
She has broken all her rules
Because the serpent wooed her.
She has burnt her books and boats.

She has snatched the serpent`s gift
To find that it defeats her,
Breaks her will to shards
Reflecting different options,
Spins her mind to rubble.
Joy and pain revealed as twins,
Entirely indistinguishable
In this restless greed for love,
For self annihilation.
The serpent slithers deep into the earth.

The need to keep a record meant her mobile
Was kept on hand to snap each awkward detail,
Text her friends with updates and reviews,
Reveal some edgy pics.
Her first night out of Eden.
God absent from the garden.
Adam in his cups.
Unscheduled interactions morphed into epic news.

This lass was not the first girl on the block,
Lillith beat her to it by an epoch,
But had to scarper when her children proved
Too much unlike old Adam;
In fact it seems the serpent left his mark,
And then returned to sneak a second bite.
In spite of her bravado
Eve simply lost her nerve
And stayed true to her partner.

The apple stung her lips like Bombay Mix,
So sweet she had to share some with old Adam,
Who loved the taste, but guessed that Eve was scared,
That snake had almost nested in her heart.
For this her partner named the reptile evil,
The trickster that had cheapened Paradise,
And dragged it to his level. Adam packed the bags,
Eve ditched the phone and gathered up their kids.
They, Hand in Hand with wandering steps and slow
Now seek a simpler Eden.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 31st. - February 14th. - 23rd.  - 24th. 2018.
Note 
The penultimate line printed in italics is from Paradise Lost by Milton. Lilith had children, and Eve, being naturally gregarious, was secretly in touch with them, although Adam was not. Adam and Eve were still innocents when they were banished from Eden, but they had gained self knowledge by eating the forbidden fruit, and thereby lost their ignorance. Innocence and ignorance are two very different things.

(1) My Mother`s Dinner Service. (Rewritten). (2) Willow Pattern.

                    1.

   My Mother`s Dinner Service.


I keep returning to these, my favourite plates,
To study every detail of a picture
Transferred onto the white underglaze
In a factory in the English West Midlands.

It must be strange to live in such a world,
To cross that blue, three arched antique bridge, or
Snap a blue branch off that leaning willow
And shave it into a rod.

Profit was obviously the initial motif,
And to create a legend is not a common thing,
Yet these plates soon became my porcelain library
Of tales no scholar filched from Chinese scrolls.

When a boy I spent hours studying these plates,
And often wondered what it would be like
To be an outlaw changed into a Swallow
Soaring free above a calcium white lake,

My blue wings lifting me into the stillness
Of a sky the same colour as the lake,
My rescued love singing close beside me,
Her persecutors dumb struck on the bridge.

The inauthentic details in this picture
Were meant to tell no story, or so the artist thought
When he first put a blue pen to white paper.
Yet, the more I look, the more I think I see.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
17th. - 18th. February 2018. - May 25th. - 26th. 2018.

                    `2.

        Willow Pattern.


I am this shadow

You cannot hold me

Only observe the outline


Transformed into birds
We soar high above the arched bridge
Into the white sky
Briefly our song is heard
Among the Weeping Willows

The huntsman skims a stone
To shatter a fleeting image
But his aim is faulty
We have already flown far and wide
Out of reach

Later in another country
Transformed into our former selves
We sip green tea together
The simplicity of the ceremony
Instills a profound peace


Holding hands in the dark

The certainty of our love feels stronger

Than the rocks that make up the mountains


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
19th. November 2012.
The first three lines written 22nd. august 1972. 

Although written nearly six years apart, I think that these two poems compliment each other perfectly.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Looking in the Mirror. (New Version)

Trevor J Potter's Art: Looking in the Mirror. (New Version): I do not recognize the face in this photograph. The person I was last summer is not the person I now am, Or wish to be, this bright mid w...