Bad Weather Friends.

I am your threadbare overcoat
That you throw on over your shoulders
To keep yourself warm
On chilled out winter days.

But I also feel the cold
When you hang me up in the wardrobe
And leave me there in the dark,
For week after week after week.

Just like you I need companions,
The chatter of friendly voices,
Even though the Taylor forgot
To sew a tongue into my inside pocket.

So in future, please hang me out in the hallway
So I may see the comings and goings
Of you, your friends and relations,
The cat that creeps in from next door.

This wardrobe is a walnut coffin
That stinks of dried sweat and moth balls,
Old shoes and things I can`t name;
This is no place for a friend to be dumped in.

So please, please, give me a break,
Let me witness the summer sunshine,
Snuggle close to your straw hats and jackets,
Your frivolous holiday wear.

I may not be much use in a heatwave,
And may take up a morsel of space,
But for the sake of our long term friendship,
Brother, please let me out of this place.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 4th. - 5th. 2019.
First seven lines were written on May 3rd. 2013.

Premature Spring. (Revised).

December daffodils?
I wish they would go back to sleep,
We can wait a little longer for the spring.


Just look,
My tulips are much more sensible,
Hiding their cups deep beneath the leaf mould
Ignoring the daffodils mad audacity,
Their adolescent indifference to common sense. -
The tulips are wise,
They have seen the rise and fall of many fortunes.
Thousands of golden sovereigns won, then lost,
In the search for one black flower.
My tulips certainly know their pedigrees,
They askew the wild frivolity of the daffs.


December daffodils?
I wish they would go back to slumber land,
Tuck themselves in
Under their moist black blankets,
Take a nap           for another month or two.
If the snow storms come
They will crumple down in heaps,
Transformed to mush upon the frozen ground.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
December 23rd. 2015. - February 19th. - 23rd. 2019. - March 1st. - 3rd. 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: February Trees.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: February Trees.(Revised).: Plane trees in the mist. Filigree patterns of axons; Of fine capillaries. Veins reaching up through the winter sky Under the skin of mi...

February Trees.(Revised).

Plane trees in the mist.
Filigree patterns of axons;
Of fine capillaries.
Veins reaching up through the winter sky
Under the skin of mist,
Skin transparent like the skin on my hand,
My pale old hand
Holding this plastic pen while I write,
Note down before the early sun climbs high,
The beauty of this moment.

The words I write down to describe this moment
Spread across the page like knotted veins,
Veins of thought on paper made from wood pulp
Processed from managed forests.
(I myself could not cut down a tree
Unless I planned to replace it with another).

I reach up my hand to touch a leafless branch.
I find a single bud breaking through
The thick rind of the bark.
When summer comes the verdant leaves shall cover
These dark veins spreading up towards the sun.
Up towards the star that gives us life.

I put down my pen.
I study my right hand, my gnarled arthritic fingers.
Study the pale blue veins underneath the skin.
These veins knot and spread just like the tangled branches
Of the old Plane trees in this patch of woodland.

A patch of trees wedged between two roads
Where I can walk, safe from the rush of traffic,
And find some peace of mind beneath these boughs.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 23rd. - 25th. - 26th. 2019.
I started out to write a haiku, but the poem just got longer and longer.

Family Photographs..

These photographs are merely cheap paper icons,
Mementoes to hang up on a wall,  display in a book.
Mementoes that fade in a decade or two,
Even when kept pressed between covers.
These pictures lack the depth of personal memory,
They are surface images
                                That tell only half the story,
Give hints of what seems possibly true.
Yes you may see my collection of family photographs.
But the beauty I knew?  I can only tell you with words.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
February 21st. - 22nd. 2019.

October 19th.2021

Trevor J Potter's Art: Europa.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Europa.: Europa is escaping me. Europa is escaping on the back of a bull. And I have no new friend to throw my ball to, no new friend to play ho...

Sophie. ( Born a century ago today, May 9th. 1921)

I press the key.
A face I do not recognise lights up the screen.
A girl with candid eyes,
High chubby cheeks,
                                   roughly scissored hair
Scruffed up by a sudden gust of wind.
                                             A southern girl,
Citizen of the ancient town of Ulm;
Her smile so fierce it could defeat all sorrow,
Disarm all foes,
Force her critics to rewrite their verdicts,
Turn SS Guards to Christ.
Sophie Magdalena Scholl, executed 1943
Because she dared to spell out truth to power,
Tell the Nazis that their war was lost;
Tell out loud the crime of Stalingrad;
Tell out loud the gassing of the Jews.
A girl so honest that even Roland Freisler
Felt the ice of truth skewer through his heart
As she stared back at him and did not waver,
His savage deeds mocked by her gentle words.
Perhaps he was the traitor after all,
Perhaps he was the wrecker of the law,
But he was the judge and therefore must condemn her,
Send her to death at twenty one.

I am ashamed to say that until this Sunday morning
I had never heard of Sophie, or her brother,
Their White Rose Movement that dared to out face Hitler
With Christian Love,
                                  With solid Facts and Reason,
With the fearless honesty of thoughtful youth.
"What we wrote and said is also believed by many others,
They just don`t dare express themselves as we did"
She told Judge Freisler as he screamed the spiteful verdict
And sent her swiftly to the guillotine.-
I was born just two months after she was murdered,
And the freedoms that she cherished built my Europe
Out of the graves and ashes of her era;
Out of the ruined cities, the festering wounds of Auschwitz.
She hoped that through her death thousands would be awakened,
Would face down tyranny with words and actions,
Would outlaw fascism for ever more.
But out of their foxholes and bunkers dark gods are re-emerging,
I hope that I dare face them down as powerfully as she did.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
February 10th. - 11th. 2019.

In memory of Sophie and Hans Scholl, young people who made a massive difference.