L`Arlesienne.(New Version).

As though commanded by some unseen power
I spoke out your name, loud and clear
Impulsively shouting your name in the room
That we once had shared that long ago autumn.

Until that instant I had not thought of you,
I was busy thinking of other things - my Sunday lunch,
And what I should do in the long hot evening
To cauterize the wound of loneliness.

And then for some reason I called out your name;
And the radio switched off, and then back on again
By itself, as though to the cadence of my calling;
As though your name had some power over the airways.

For a minute or two I could not speak or think.
I was not in a dream, but by calling out your name,
It seemed I had stopped the transmission of L`Arlesienne,
Bizet`s elegant score about unrequited love.

And for the rest of the day I sat lonely and listless.
Thumbing through photographs. Staring out of the window.
Watching the shadows lengthen and deepen.
Silently waiting for the phone to ring.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 14th. - November 7th. 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean. (With Note ab...

Trevor J Potter's Art: One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean. (With Note ab...: The world of my childhood is stone cold dead, Miniaturised computers have destroyed it, Reduced it to the shadow-lands of memory. The f...

One Thousand Pictures of the Ocean. ( Plus newly extended note). Illustration for August on my Japanese Calendar.

The world of my childhood is stone cold dead,
Miniaturised computers have destroyed it,
Reduced it to the shadow-lands of memory.

The fishermen in this print by Hokusai
Are so far back in time they might as well have been
A long lost variant of what we call humanity
To the high-tech wizards that we have now become.

That does not mean they lived without technology,
They studied the clouds and followed the arc of the sun
When they put out to sea.
But wooden oars, and ropes, and sails of oiled cloth
Were all they ever needed,
To set an accurate course and then complete their journey.

The shoals of fish were always where expected;
Speed was dictated by currents, the state of the weather,
And time was measured by the seasonal length of the day.
They slept at night and got on with their tasks in the morning,
Having plenty of time to sit and watch and play.

The fishermen in this print are slumped in rest,
Cooking a meal over a smouldering brazier
While rippling waves knock their little boat
Against the wooden quay.
The evening sunlight reveals a soft horizon
Fading to yellow as the sun sinks in the west.

When a child I enjoyed many such simple hours.
Rod in hand I stood by a shadow flecked river
Watching the line for a sudden flicker or dip.
That time was a century after the death of Hokusai,
And thirty four years before I touched a computer;

But I was happy then in the calm of the long hazy summer,
At ease in the quiet simplicity of the moment,
The slow easy melding of day into untroubled day.
My bag was heavy with books, with apples, a Thermos of coffee;
I had yet to find room for the products of Silicon Valley.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
June 11th. - July 8th. - 9th. - 10th. - 12th. 2019.  

Note.In the light of Climate Change and the chaos of present day Capitalism, I have recently come to the conclusion that the Romantic Socialism, (or Pacific Anarchism), described by William Morris in his book News From Nowhere, is perhaps the most sensible way forward for the Human Species if we wish to survive and prosper on this planet. Money and Property were abolished, Land farmed in common for the good of all, Everyone was truly equal, Traditional Arts and Crafts flourished,  Massed Produced factory products confined to the waste bin of History. The Houses of Parliament became a storehouse for dung, and the ugly monuments to politicians removed from Westminster Abbey. Morris was writing just before the advent of the universal availability of the motor car and the characters in the book travelled either by horse drawn transport or simply walked. They lived long healthy lives, thought the desire for great wealth infantile and barbaric, and had abolished all class distinctions and poverty by treating everyone equally, including visitors from abroad. To save the planet we certainly need to adopt radical solutions, and living a simpler way of life is certainly a step in the right direction. Nanotechnology, although initially funded by capitalism, will help create a more radical and equitable form of universal equality and human rights than we have at present, but in time some people will wish to live even more simply and perhaps adopt the William Morris view of a fulfilling life style. When super powerful miniature computers, or motes, can do all the day to day work for us, from cleaning the house to actually building the house from earth and water, and all free of charge, then many people will think it a great joy to make their own clothes and furniture by hand. Art, philosophy and religion will survive the Nanotechnological revolution because human creativity comes from deep within us and makes us human. Mote sized computers will look after the practical things, small scale and large, and will regenerate and improve their technology when we ask them to do so. This will be the end of the filthy industrial society that we have become addicted to and is currently frying the planet. There will be room at last for humans and other species in a much cleaner world, and both obscene poverty and obscene wealth will be abolished because there will be no need for either of these evils to exist. We are on the very edge of this new world, let us bravely and joyfully embrace it. Neither Marxism nor Capitalism were ever so radical, that is because they were products of the old industrial society, the society that is now being superseded by advances in science and our awareness of the damage that the old filthy industries have caused.
Trevor John Karsavin Potter. July 11th. - 16th. 2019. 

A Poem for Priscilla. (New Version).

Sitting in shadow
Watching the sunshine happen
In a different room,
A room with no ceiling
And full of flowers,
I think of you,
Dead in the ground four years already,
Your bright laughing eyes
Masked with peonies,
Your mouth full of smiles
Now sprouting red roses,
Your voice as quiet as a stone.
You were the first girl who took me seriously and stood by me,
Now I have no one who hears what I say.

Now the whole world is deaf to my longing,
Blind to my search for a happier life,
I am just an old codger sitting alone
In a dark little room with an FM receiver,
A Micro Wave to heat up my dinner,
An old plastic telephone.
I sit by my window and look at the flowers
In my neighbours garden, that I never can enter,
And dream of the wild guy I once used to be
Who danced with a girl with dark laughing eyes.
She was the first girl who took me seriously, she was the first girl who
                                                                                            stood by me,
Now I have no one who hears what I say.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 28th. 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Northern Poems (1) A Poem for Priscilla. (2) L...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Northern Poems (1) A Poem for Priscilla. (2) L...:                             1 .              A Poem for Priscilla. Sitting in shadow Watching the sunshine happen In a different room...

Liverpool.

Outside the rain splashed windows of the coach
The city went about the synchronised routines
Of week-a-day existence.
A crowd of schoolgirls, socks almost in the puddles,
Raised fingers and pulled faces as we passed,
And the occasional dog, ignoring awkward humans,
Dragged on the leash to find a reason to bark.
Once more I am back in Liverpool, the other city in my life,
But only for a moment, today just passing through
On the eight hour trek from Southport down to London,
From seaside posh to inner city smugness.
I like Liverpool in the rain, the dulling of the colours
As the grey clouds wash across the morning sky
Like muslin curtains drenched in dirty water.
Yes, I love the intimacy of the morning rain
Giving commuters a chance to curse and grumble
To neighbours they would otherwise not speak to,
And schoolgirls the right to shout and raise two fingers
To a coach full of people with sleepy faces.
This is the city where I learned to be a teenager,
Where, released from parental hindrance I wandered late
With my girlfriend through a blur of empty streets,
The clubs shut for the night, and the unseen ships
Wailing their mournful Siren Songs of longing,
A weird background music to our intimate talk,
And the occasional nifty snog in a darkened doorway.
I can`t go back to those times, they are far too long ago now,
And most of my boyhood friends are ash underground,
But Liverpool, you are still the blunt knife in my heart,
The deep red wound that, Thank God, can never be mended.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 26th. - 27th. 2019.   
For my friends who were in the Cavern when it was real.

Waiting.

A bright but cloudy afternoon.
Truculent flecks of rain dancing on cobwebs
That shimmer between wild rose trees
A delicate lethal beauty.

I walk in the garden, not minding the chill drops
That now and then flick against my skin
Enforcing a slight shiver.
I imagine arrows of ice, not the tears of traumatised children.

I am missing you, my girl, now trapped in the hospital
Until that morning when you can once more run,
Play ball with me for hours, turn cartwheels by the river.
Two years since you slipped and fell, it appears you are nearly better,

Or so the surgeon informs me, with simplistic anodyne words.
Meanwhile I walk alone, in the confines of my garden,
Waiting the expected call to make the box room ready;
Put flowers in vases; get out the carpet sweeper.

A nearby thrush suddenly starts to sing.
I wish this song was your voice, calling through the rain.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 18th. - 19th. 2019.