Trevor J Potter's Art: Time Capsule.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Time Capsule.: The last present you gave me was a cactus. Well, that is what it was all about then, not the long drawn out kisses on Hampstead Heath, ...

The Artist, The Model and The Critic. (Revised).

This face is not a mask,
The thick layers of make up
Accentuate her beauty,
Changes fault lines into graceful
                                     highlights,
And flatters her strong cheekbones.
The critic was a fool who thought this
                                  face a mask.

And look how sensitive the glance
                                      of her eyes,
This girl with the raven hair
Looking shyly back over her shoulder
Into the gaze of the artist.
The critic did not look into her eyes,
He wanted to see a mask and so he saw one.

The artist had seen her with the eyes
                                   of the sculptor
He had struggled to be
Before his lungs were ruined by marble dust
And he resorted to paint and pencil.-
Stretched awkwardly across the single bed
The girl looks over her shoulder into his eyes,
Trusting him to observe every part of her body,
Every shadow in her mind.
He works with the skill of a surgeon,
Or cartographer of the human psyche,
                      Of the depths of the wayward soul.-
His concentration is absolute
As he guides the sable brush.

He sought solace on the streets, but
this girl was not a prostitute, her shyness
                                              indicates this,
And perhaps he had paid her more
Than the customary five Francs,
That is if his dealer had allowed him,
Modigliani was, after all, a destitute young artist,
Unfashionable and struggling to make ends meet.
And something about her makes me think this girl
Was a favourite model,
                        A trusted co-creator,
                        An equal in the workplace,
Someone he cared for more than a means
                                                     to an end,
A friend that he respected.
Something in the loving tilt of her head
Tells me this is so.

No, he has not portrayed her features as a mask,
There is a desperate sorrow beneath the artifice.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
April 3rd, 2018. - July 18th. - 19th. - August. 5th. 2019.
Developed from the unfinished poem Amedeo Modigliani I sketched in April 2018.

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...