Trevor J Potter's Art: Pauline. (New Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Pauline. (New Version).: Grief lasts for a lifetime. After fifty two years I am still grieving for you. When I saw your self portrait made from stained glass I...

Pauline. (Completed Poem).

Grief lasts for a lifetime.

After fifty two years I am still grieving for you.

When I saw your self portrait made from stained glass
I was suddenly back in your studio.

I was a kid sprawled like a rug on the wooden floor
Making weird marks on paper.

Your paper.
                    Your charcoal.
                                             Your coloured pens.

You watched amused as I drew lines and circles,
Not thinking at all what I was doing,
My hand out-speeding my grid locked brain.

The moment I started to think about what I was doing
You snatched the sketch book away from me
And slipped it into a folder.

I protested, but then I was too wilful to understand
That art, like love, can only ever be true
When it seems to be happening by chance.

                               *

The last time we met was in the hospital.
The white sheets covered you like a shroud
That you snuggled deep into to outwit the pain.

"Please don`t give up art", you urgently whispered.
"But how? - But how?" I cried into the dark.
"Just don`t give up.- Promise me! - Promise me Trevor."

And for forty years after I could not paint or write,
But now, most days, I put my pen to paper.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 5th. - 7th. - 10th. 2018.

October 22nd. - 30th. 2021.

For a long time I could not properly complete this poem because I felt I had failed to keep my promise.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Memory. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Memory. (Revised).: When I opened the window this morning I thought that I briefly saw you Admiring the miniature roses. But then, with a shock, I realized ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Train Ride.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Train Ride.:                     The woman in the seat right next to mine Displays her pale green fingernails That signify some danger, or so it seem...

(1) A Bright May Morning. (Revised) (2) At First Sight.

                1.

A Bright May Morning.


Increasing my sense of loneliness
Your voice echoes down the telephone
A lone flute heard in the distance
A far off bird calling for a mate
Heard in the morning as I struggle to sleep
Chilled by your absence

You told me you loved me when you telephoned
Out of the blue
                          this Monday morning
But now that the truth has at last been spoken
The waiting is crueller than it used to be
When I had jettisoned hope

In a week you shall be well enough to travel-
Your bed in the ward occupied by another-
Once you are here I shall switch off the phone


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 29th. - June 10th. 2018.
---------------------------------------

               2.

    At First Sight.


Across the atrium
Your eyes look into mine

Wild lightning
Not a trace of thunder


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 27th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) My Mother`s Dinner Service. (Rewritten). (2) ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) My Mother`s Dinner Service. (Rewritten). (2) ...:                     1.    My Mother`s Dinner Service. I keep returning to these, my favourite plates, To study every detail of a pictu...

Notes Towards an Unfinished Love Story.

A flicker of sunlight cuts through the curtains. I pull them apart.

Chatting to my neighbour
Across the sunlight dappled wall
About her early roses
While I observe the shadows,

The shadows of the rose trees patterning her face.

I have just today completed
Another grey/black painting,
Not a single primary colour
To cut across the gloom,

No splash of cadmium yellow to split the night from day.

My life is lived in shadow.
My paintings depict shadow.
The shadow of the loneliness
That chills me to the bone,

Chills me every hour you are not painting here beside me.

Colours make our language,
Words are often secondary,
Bland monotones we use
To pass the time of day,

Yet your voice is music to me, a weave of vocal colours
That you spin without a care, my bride with laughing eyes.

My neighbours voice is dull,
Her choice of words monotonous,
Entirely artificial.
Her eyes seem lost in shadow.

Your eyes, they always dazzle. Your kisses sweet as Calvados.

When we sit and paint together
Sunlight dances off our brushes;
The palette that we share
More vivid than summer roses.

Our house will zing with arias when you come back home in June.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 20th. - 22nd. - 25th. 2018.