Mirror Images. (Revised).

The portrait of Lucrezia Borgia
Is you to a tee -
The same thoughtful eyes -
The same exposed breast -
The same haughty profile
Disguising a profound unease -
A distrust of the venal wisdom -
The empty pursuit of power
At the core of a treacherous world.
All that the young aristocrat wanted
Was safety - love - a good life -
Raising her musician daughter
Among artists - poets - saints -
Not the attentions of an incestuous father -
Or a brother who butchered her friends.

Your family certainly lacks the glamour
Of those tarnished Vatican angels -
And poverty - not Papal wealth -
Was the hallmark of your upbringing -
A beleaguered gypsy woman
With a sad alcoholic mother -
And a father who could never be traced.
But when you stood - ill at ease - by my bedside -
Transfigured by love and by longing -
I noticed - how strangely alike
You are to the young Lucrezia -
Only your hair is a little darker -
And your eyes are black - not hazel.
But just like you - she was quietly vulnerable -
Her bravado was simply for show.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 14th. - July 3rd. - 8th. 2018.
Lucrezia Borgia is one of the most maligned figures in history. The rumours about her simply do not fit the verifiable facts. Like all aristocratic women of her time she was a pawn in the hands of the men in her family, some one to marry off for political or financial reasons. The historical Lucrezia loved the arts, and her daughter became a nun and a notable composer. Lucrezia died in childbirth at the age of 39.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Cabbage White. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Cabbage White. (Revised).: Simply carrying out her daily business The Cabbage White flits from flower to flower, Crossing the walls that separate gardens With erra...

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Cabbage White.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Cabbage White.: Simply carrying out her daily business The Cabbage White flits from flower to flower, Crossing the walls that separate gardens With erra...

The Cabbage White. (Completed Version)..

Simply carrying out her daily business
The Cabbage White flits from flower to flower,
Crossing the walls that separate gardens
With erratic zigzags in the hot air
That remind me of kites flown high over mountains,
The border barracks in stony gorges.

This Cabbage White could not tell the difference between
Hindu and Christian,                      Gypsy and Jew,
She just flits from green bud to fading Delphinium,
Skirting grim car parks and streets with few trees.
A fan of the sunshine she wafts her wide wings
As a child flutters flags at a football team.

Being merely human I sit out on the patio
Counting my Good Luck on ten crooked fingers,
And caring not a jot if England progresses,
To me nationhood is an own goal scheme.
My only regret, as I sit sipping cool coffee,
Is that I cannot float away in the suns slip stream.

Freedom of thought surely, is not freedom of action,
These are two very different, almost opposite things,
And sharp technocrats know this, believe you me.
I love all my old books, my poems, my paintings,
But I would lock these away if I could take to the skies
And soar unopposed over high walls and mountains.

Soar far and away without one glance behind me
At the fences, the hedgerows, at customs and excise.

Simply carrying out her daily business
The Cabbage White flits from flower to flower,
Crossing the walls that separate gardens
With erratic zigzags in the hot air.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
29th. - 30th. June 2018. 

Before the Move.

Perhaps you will not like my world.
Perhaps you will not be able to adjust.
Everything I have here is mankind made.
Everything I love has been thoughtfully manufactured.
It is true that I have thrown out heaps of shiny plastic,
Preferring wood and steel, stone and glass,
To bowls that cannot break,
Cheap bags that last forever.
Yes, I prefer objects turned upon a lathe
Or carved with a heavy chisel,
But I live in the heart of a labyrinthine urban sprawl
Without a mountain in sight,
A lake or hedgerow,
And my roses are not wild, they have been pruned and grafted
To become four living sculptures in my yard,
The prickly guardians of my private space.
No, perhaps you will not like my urbane London world,
Preferring instead wet grass beneath bare feet,
The larks in flight high above the tilt
Of your lopsided caravan;
Your lonely walks,
Your hidden nooks deep in the tangled copse
That the farmer rarely tackles with his saw.
Yet when we sit and talk all night - all day,
In secret, where no neighbour can disturb us,
We forget to notice the objects that surround us,
The quiet fields, the vast cars blaring hip hop,
The tower blocks, the horses by the marsh,
But quietly watch the thought lines trace upon our faces
Intimate runes that only we can read.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
25th. June 2018.

Coppelia (Revised).

Walking at last
A child again
Learning how to stiffly move
From A to B
From chair to table
From bed to door

Walking at last
On solid legs
The floors unstable
The walls dissolving

Six months stone still
Locked in a coma
Your eyes clamped tight
Neck in a cast
Have wrecked your muscles
Slowed your mind
Curtailed language -
Violent epileptic seizures
Have tossed you about
Like an old rag doll

Walking at last
You struggle towards me
Across a Ward
Wide as the world
Frail arms outstretched
A high wire dreamer
Resisting assistance
Fighting the air
A smile in your eyes

I must promise myself not to mention the tears
I cried for you every night last summer


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 7th. - 8th.- 9th. - June 21st. 2018. 

Two Poems. (1) Narcotics. (2) Urban Owl.

                1

          Narcotics.


Mind - released from the fog of morphine
Realigns with the rules of reason -
The sacred texts of untruth.

To get through the day I must give up thinking,
Stare at the screen - an automaton -
Stop trying to be myself.

When I shut down the computers I am nearly blind -
I cannot see the office for what it is -
A chaos of human stories.

Pain killers do not assist me to readjust
From electronic realities to simple living -
From video porn to innocent love.

It is only when I listen to the nightingale
That the world is once more my home.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 7th. 2018. 

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

                 2 

         Urban Owl.


Swift - darting hunter
Eyes - small volcanoes
Erupting into the night


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 7th. 2018.