Rocking Horse Blues. (Revised).

My rocking horse lived out in the garden.
He loved the summer months, the scented grasses,
The willow trees swaying gentle curtains,
The many coloured flowers, brilliant like small suns.
But when the winter came, he had no coat, no cover,
He stood out in the snow, his circus finery
Fading swiftly in the London gloom.
Soon he was just a pile of wood and plaster,
His crimson saddle a patch of tattered leather
Lost among the scattered leaves and branches
That fell to earth in the autumn squalls.
My jaunty rocking horse remained outside
Because there was no space in my bedroom,
And daddy did not want to waste tarpaulin
To save a toy he was too large to play on;
It was, after all, not his rocking horse.
Now sixty years have passed, and I am grey and grumpy,
But every now and then I dream my little horse
Longing for warm fires and hoof deep carpets
As he flaked to brittle dust beneath the stars.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 17th.- 19th.2018.

Tiger Lily.

I did not know you could be SO jealous,
SO out of your mind with angst and fury,
Spilling burnt food all over the cooker,
Breaking a vase.
All this because of a short conversation,
A few words spoken out of your hearing
Between your sister and your favourite man.

I did not know you could do SO MUCH damage,
Trashing your bedroom and spoiling the toilet,
A human Wrecking Ball in your own home,
A demolition expert on heat.
All this because of an imagined liaison
Between two people you admire and adore
When they were simply sheltering from precipitous
                                                                            rain.

Strangely it seems he approves of your actions,
The implacable fierceness of a Tigress
Protecting her kill and her feeding young
Is a scene that ricocheted through his mind
When he heard the report down the phone.
So you are the woman he could spend his life with,
You would keep the wide world away from the door,
And the kids would grow wise in your care.

Do not worry, your sister is not a rival,
She could not live with a man so like you.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 7th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Nineteenth Century Views of Japan.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Nineteenth Century Views of Japan.(Revised).: I did not know Mount Fuji was so large. The boats - four or five deft pen strokes - Float in a pale blue bay. A purple scarf of cloud su...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Advent Eve.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Advent Eve.: Remembered fears become real once more. Bare trees stoop, Bleached skeletons flayed by Arctic wind, Starving paupers hunched in snow, S...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) A Dream of Deep Midwinter. (Revised) (2) Note...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) A Dream of Deep Midwinter. (Revised) (2) Note...: Butter coloured moon, Midnight December, A single light in the coldest of skies Shining above the Christmas rooftops, The bare boned tr...

Two Poems (1) A Country Wedding. (2) The Guest. (1st. Version).

              1.

When you were born
                          An aviary
Of exotic
                Tropical singing
                          Birds
Flew into your heart
                & set it beating
To the radiant songs of hot summer nights
Sung beneath a garden of stars


A garden of multi faceted blossoms
Reflected in your violet eyes
As we danced
               In the glow
               Of midsummer fires
To the music that only we could hear


Our bare feet kicking through smouldering embers
That for once seemed as cool as autumnal showers


But tonight
                    As I sit alone in the kitchen
Drinking green tea
                    Sharp and bitter
To keep myself awake to write -
I listen to the strange December stillness
Clinging like frost to the window panes
That reveal a landscape denuded of birds -
And I wonder if my memories are simply
                    a story
Imagined to keep the cold at bay
As I sit alone and look back through the
                                                         years
Waiting for someone who may never call


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
November 28th. 2018.

              2.


Curled up in my arms
like a cat
You refused to be moved
                  from my bed
Until you were ready for
breakfast -
A slow walk in the park.

The shoes you left under the sofa
Will you collect them sometime next Fall?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 30th. 2018.

A Lesson in Seeing.

Sumi-e
That is what my poems are,
A flick of strong colour
On off white paper
Hinting at delicate cherry blossom
Or a mountain sketched in black and white
But seeming more real
Than the actual mountain.

These paintings have soul,
They pulsate with life,
The careful music of Monk, or Bach,
Visualised with the swish of an ink laden brush
By a solitary master
In a quiet house.
Even this robin, frozen in time,
Seems about to chirrup and hop.

I put away my book of instructions,
It would take me decades to paint like this.
Things that seem effortless, as easy as breathing,
Take half a lifetime to achieve.
But at least I have my palette of words,
Thin lines sketched on off white paper,
And with these I can perhaps begin
To tell a meaningful story.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
November 26th. 2018.