The Archivist. - After Watching Hamlet (Completed Version).

Searching through the rubble of my life,
The Broken relationships,
The ditched ideals,
I find the charred remnants of a persona
A painted image on a flimsy rag
Long since thrown out on the tip,
The municipal nest of flies.

So this is a portrait of who I thought I was
When trying to make a mark in my local streets,
Impress the girls,
Cadge a kiss or a drink.
I was not the wise guy I made out to be,
Everything I said was an affectation,
A frayed quilt of other peoples words,

A frayed quilt to hide my terrors under
While displaying a lack of purpose at every turn,
A somnambulant clown
With nothing much to say
And scared of being laughed at,
Regarded as a small time proto-Yorick
When Hamlets guile had always been my guide.
But this, my friends, is only half the story,
I find a faded photo in a drawer,
A document I had not seen for years.

There are areas of my life I rarely look at,
But the photographer here caught me unawares
When the masks were down
And the quilt left in the locker.
I was twenty three, my first love killed by cancer,
The only girl I never told a lie to,
And the panic in my eyes was clear to see,
The panic of an infant left alone,

Lost in the haunted dark without a candle
And with no one in the house.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 13th. - 14th. - 15th. 2018.

Ghost Sonata. (Revised).

I must translate you into music,
Your smile, your laugh, your tears,
The soft curves of your body
Like undulating melodies
Written on the dawn wind
As you move from window to window
Peering into the silent house
To see if I am there.

I must transmute you into harmony,
The gold of Brahms or Schumann,
The music of the spheres
That the alchemists could never find
When seeking transformations,
Or concocting strange effusions
Of herbs, water and stones,
Magic leavening the art of science.
I must sift your face from the wind
That scuffs the autumn clouds,

Blows all things to nothing,
Transfigures all that was once real
Into the flickering lights of memory,
Visuals slowly faltering into imagination.-
I must shape your portrait into song,
Enliven the curved lines of the pastel image
With the muted heartbeats of delicate rhythms
That I can sense deep in my mind,

Sense in my mind when I look at your portrait
That I drew last time that you were here,
A stranger peering in at my window,
Yet leaving no trace when I opened the door.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 8th. - 9th. 2018.

Mistranslations. (Completed Poem).

Through a glass darkly
Implies so much more than
In a mirror dimly, or
See but a poor reflection.

I study raindrops falling
On the surface of clear water
When the wintry light is dancing
A galaxy of patterns
Crystal clear and brilliant,
Delicate miniature rainbows
That vanish without trace
Once the showers have passed
And dusk paints out the sun.

The sleeping face of my true lover
Seems transfigured every morning
By intermittent sunlight
Filtered through the bedroom curtains
As though through the tears of Ondine
When she sank back through the waves.
Deep shadows shaped by dreaming
Ripple underneath her eyelids
Dark streams I cannot fathom.

Although we love each other
We only know what we can see
Through a glass darkly
Or like shadows in a mirror.
I pull the curtains open.
My breathe fogs the gleaming window.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 23rd. - October 4th. - 5th. 2018.

The three translations of 1 Corinthians 13 come from (a) The King James Authorised Version, (b) The New Revised Standard Version and, (c) The New International Version. Three translations from the New Testament Greek of St. Paul, all different in tone and therefore, subtleties of meaning differ quite radically from one English Bible text to the next.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Loss in November.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Loss in November.:               1. White sunlight slanting Through cracks in the door Late roses in bloom Blind The old men shuffle On sticks and sto...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Dreaming of Japan.(Completed Poem).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Dreaming of Japan.(Completed Poem).: It must really be autumn. I am watching films about Japan. I wish I could add wings to the roof of my house And fly there, Over the mou...

Dreaming of Japan.(Rewritten Poem).

It must really be autumn.
I am watching films about Japan.

I wish I could add wings to the roof of my house
And fly there,
Over the mountains of China,
The long narrow land of Korea,

The multi textured sea.
When my house lands softly near Kyoto
I shall watch the red leaves fall
And listen to the sad voices of strangers
Counting the days to December.
Perhaps I shall then pluck feathers from the wings
And sacrifice them to the Shinto gods,
And thank them for gifting me an easy journey
To this land of vibrant colours,
So different from the pastel shades el England.

For some reason Japan is the place I love the most
Although I have only been there once or twice
And can hardly speak the language.
It could be something to do with the brightness of the sun,
And the winding climb through woods to a hilltop temple
Where prayers are offered in silence,
And incense breathes the breath of sacred Kami,
Through the wooden halls.
But I think its more to do with the serendipity
Of finding myself in a landscape of many colours
That in England are only seen on video links,
Or the Hiroshige prints in the British Museum.

Yes, it really must be autumn.
This morning I noticed a difference in the daylight,
A moist paleness I associate with October,
And the early coming on of London street lamps.
The weather must be similar in Japan,
Except the sunlight could never be so mellow,
Even in midwinter, snow weighing down the rooftops,
Travellers trudging slowly towards Edo.

The London of my youth was grey and insular.
In Japan I learned to see things as they are.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 26th. - 28th. 2018. - Rewritten February 2nd. 2021.
When I was a teenage singer I visited Japan more than once. The country and its culture made a massive positive impact upon me. To this day I love Japanese poetry, ancient and modern, and have been deeply influenced by both Zen and Pure Land Buddhism.

Royal Air Force Museum, Hendon.

Just look
How strange and beautiful these aircraft are!
More beautiful than tall yachts
Bucking before the wind,
Or the swoop and turn of Heron Gulls
On a hot and salty breeze.
I just cannot believe how beautiful these aircraft are!
Strange and delicately beautiful,
Works of art designed to kill
With the efficiency of a lioness
Protecting her boisterous cubs.

The spitfire, of course, is a compendium of elegance,
A suit of courtly armour in classic British style,
But the Mustang is a racer born and bred,
A silver stallion, magnificent and proud,
That only the bravest of the warrior braves
Could reign in and pacify.
These perfectly manufactured works of modern art
Primed and burnished
To arrow through the sky,
Were the adored protectors of my early years,
Destroying flying bombs above the London suburbs,
Or strafing Romel`s tanks in Normandie.

Yes, just look
How strange and beautiful these aircraft are!
Almost surreal and yet absolutely deadly,
Salvador Dali could have invented them.-
I have no strong nostalgia for the nineteen forties,
I have only friends and family in mainland Europe,
And I just cannot understand why nations go to war,
No cause is worth a human abattoir,
But the extreme beauty of these fighter aircraft
Completely dazzle me,
I look at them as I would study a Rodin,
And instead of being appalled by malignant power,
I stand stock still in wonder.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 17th. - 20th. 2018.