The Girl with Smoke Blue Eyes. (In the countryside near Kehl am Rhein).

It is the voices of bees I dream every night
While I think of my old home by the Rhine.
The voices of bees in the drowsy air
Accompanying our walk along the dyke
That in places is higher than the neat farm houses,
The silvery windows of Lutheran churches.

It is the voices of bees in the dank chill wood
Where we kissed in secret among the echoes
Of ancient gods and arrogant Nazis,
Of cannibal witches and inconceivable wars.
We kissed in secret, out of sight of the paths
Crowded with chattering Sunday hikers.

The bitter sweet taste of rye bread and honey
Stung my tongue as your lips touched mine.
Your smoke blue eyes were full of questions
I could not answer, even though I tried.
An invisible sword marked a barrier between us
As though between sleeping knight and maiden.

But this sword was our dread of the cruelties of time
Not a faded shadow of myth and legend.
We knew that I soon had to pack my suitcase
And take the train and boat to England.
My fellow islanders had turned their backs on Europe
And so I could no longer hope or remain,

Remain with my girl with the smoke blue eyes
Who walked with me quietly by the wide river
Watching the wild swans guiding their cygnets
Between the miniature offshore islets;
Walked with me quietly upon the tall dyke
Entranced by the voices of wild woodland bees.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 21st. 2018. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: September 1st. 2018. (Completed Poem).

Trevor J Potter's Art: September 1st. 2018. (Completed Poem).:                   1 . Scholars drawing arbitrary graphs Have decreed the onset of autumn Although the autumnal equinox Is more than thr...

Trevor J Potter's Art: October Poem.

Trevor J Potter's Art: October Poem.: When did I meet you first? Where did we first speak? In Germany or on St. Stephen`s Green? By the Liffey or by the Rhine? I just can`t r...

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...