Prospero. (A Companion poem to "Miranda".)

Miranda
My eyes are full of stories
That you could read
If you glanced back over your shoulder
For just one moment.

Meantime
I sit in the corner by the bookcase
Watching you quietly walk
Out of the Living Room
Into the unlit hall.

Yes
The scope of my realm is small,
No larger than the ground floor of my house,
The curtains closed,
The front door bolted,

The carpets thick with dust.
Yes
This is the world I own,
My private magic island
Fashioned from bricks and mortar,

The only world you know.
Meantime
The storm my books unleashed is changing all things,
Smashing the shoreline, tearing trees apart,
Wrecking ships in the harbour,

Bringing your future husband to seek shelter
In the cave where the logs are stored.
You will find him there tomorrow,
But tonight you must sleep alone
Unaware of the vows you will take.

If you could look through my eyes
You would know all this,
Miranda,
But you have always lacked the foresight
To seek beyond the walls

Of our home that is smaller than most.
I need only a handful of books
To study to shape the future,
But you need far more than I have.

You need the voice of a stranger
To call you out of your dark room.
You need the freedom to love.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 18th. 2018.

I do not like Prospero very much, I think he is a bit of a control freak, but sadly, I seem to understand him far too well. Perhaps I will prefer Caliban when I make a study of him.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Magic Carpet. (2) Note to Poem.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Magic Carpet. (2) Note to Poem.: Why don`t you just jump onto your magic carpet? Hitch a lift on the wind? No cancelled trains. No queues for petrol. No traffic jams we...

(1) Magic Carpet. (2) Note to Poem.

Why don`t you just jump onto your magic carpet?
Hitch a lift on the wind?
No cancelled trains.
No queues for petrol.
No traffic jams wearing out the brakes.
You could be with me in merely half a minute,
Flying from door to door,
From bedroom to bedroom.
The carpet parked securely under the table
As though it had always lain there,
An integral item of my Dining Room.

Your voice is just an echo down the line,
And the photographs you send me, flat unfocused images
That lack the living warmth
Of your sleeping body snuggled up to mine.
Oh how I miss the laughter and the tears,
The shared Sufi trance of peaceful nights
When we just cannot let go of one another,
A Sufi Heaven is when I am with you.

Why don`t you just jump onto your magic carpet?
A Paradise Garden woven just for us
On a great loom in Safavid Isfahan.
Craft magic woven for us
Six centuries before we were born.
Love, I am not cut out to be an ageing hermit,
And your rent free metal caravan, that sieve,
Is no fit home for you,
Nor for your pack of troublesome, brown eyed,
Long haired Lurchers
That poach rabbits for your table.

Women make the most competent airline pilots,
Or so you have often confided,
That is why the magic carpet is not in my keeping,
But was entrusted to you.
The barometer is now forecasting perfect weather,
Perfect for flying.
So now is the time to pack your scant belongings,
Unroll the carpet and speed due south to me.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 9th.2018.

Note. My daughter Natasha suggested that reading this Poem was like actually taking a ride on The Magic Carpet, instantly moving from place to place, moment to moment. This for me is most evident in how the carpet is one instant flying from Leicester to London, and the next is in situ under my Dining Room table.  This is how Magic Carpet journeys are supposed to happen, one moment the carpet and passenger are in one location, the next they are in another. To me this is a kind of visualization of telepathic communication, a form of communication that I have experienced many times, especially with people I love. Modern science has yet to prove, or disprove, that telepathy actually happens, but we know less about the human brain than we do about the Solar System and far off galaxies, and we know almost nothing about other dimensions, black matter, etc. I have never allowed science, public opinion, local custom or religion to close my mind. Magic Carpets are of course only symbols of aspiration, but on Persian Carpets are woven symbolic patterns representing the Garden of Paradise. Maybe that is a destination we all hope to achieve, hope to achieve through the powers of genuine love, which is always both spiritual and physical. God Is Love.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 11th. April 2018.

Amedeo Modigliani.

These faces are not masks,
The thick layers of make up
Accentuate beauty,
Change fault lines into graceful
                                  highlights,
Flatter strong cheek bones.
The jobbing critic must have
                  screwed up his eyes
When confronted with such
                     graceful opulence
Dragged from the streets of Paris.
He did not see what even I can see
As I hurry passed.


And look how sensitive the glance
                                      of her eyes,
This girl with the raven hair
Looking shyly back over her shoulder
Into the gaze of the artist
As he maps her exposed body
Stretched awkwardly onto the old
                                      single bed.
He works with the skill of a cartographer,
Or a surgeon. His concentration absolute
As he guides the fine brush.


He studies her body with the eyes of
                                        the sculptor
He once was
Before the stone dust scoured tubercular
                                                  lungs
And forced him to revert to paint.
Perhaps he paid her more
Than the customary five Francs.
Perhaps he just could not afford to.
Something about her makes me think
                                                  this girl
Was a favourite model,
Someone he cared for more than a means
                                                to an end,
Someone he respected
And would speak to in the street,
An equal not just an employee.
A young girl who saw through his professional mask,
Who was aware of his vulnerability.
Something in the tilt of her head
Tells me this is true.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 3rd. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: This Maundy Thursday Night. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: 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 ...

Palm Sunday 2018. (At Home).

I love my house
My monastery
My hermitage upon the hill
Where I can sit and read my books
Paint my pictures
Write my stories
Dream my dreams in solitude.

I love my icons on the walls
The Cross of Christ
The smile of Buddha
The saints in their gilded worlds
Tallis on the radio.
I love the simple things of life,
Solid chairs and tables.

I love the strength of wood and stones,
Simple food on china plates
Tea fresh from the farmer.
I love the look of ancient books
Parables in ink and paper,
They lose their lustre in the sun
Like daffodils at Easter.

I love the heft of Cranmer`s words
Rock solid in their meaning.
I love the choirs of migrant birds
Singing in my garden.
I love the stillness in my house
When I kick off my weathered boots
And close the door behind me.

I love my house, my quiet place,
My church without an altar.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 25th. - 26th. 2018.
The best present I received last Christmas consisted of packets of tea straight from a farm in India. (I do not use the word Plantation because that reeks too much of the British Empire). Also, in many ways I prefer Lent and Holy Week to Easter Day, probably because it is a time of study and contemplation. The pale beauty of the daffodils symbolise this time of year for me, after Easter the gaudy fairground colours of summer come roaring in.

Trevor J Potter's Art: A Non Creative Walk About. (Revised)

Trevor J Potter's Art: A Non Creative Walk About. (Revised): I took a poem for a walk Around the houses, Looking for a place to settle, To store our goods, Our clothes and chattels, To safely cal...