Kernow. (Completed Poem).

Away too long
But Cornwall now forgives my years of absence,
Welcomes me back to trek her cliffs and moors,
But bars my entrance into high Tintagel.

This country is my true home, yet I`ve seldom lived here,
My name is written on these windswept shores,
But tonight I`ll ride the A Roads back to London,
To dwell once more among bleak concrete towers.

I am a child of the salt frothed sands, the restless waters;
The sluggish Thames is dull and grey to my eyes,
But I am tied to London by cords of sloth and habit,
It seems I live there just because I live there.

I need more space to plant rose trees and apples.
To paint and draw in sunlight; to write my poems.
The city lacks deep vistas, the proximity of legends.
It`s time I moved south west, affirmed my true identity.

This morning I trudge the narrow clifftop paths
Beneath the hulking shadow of Tintagel.
A rockfall has made the castle inaccessible,
And all I can do is stare up at the walls.

And yet, although I cannot cross the bridge
The legends that haunt this place seem to whisper
In the hissing surf and the shrill cries of the seagulls
Swooping low above the foam.

And I hear my name murmured in the cold waves
As they echo through the vaults of Merlin`s cave.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 12th. - 13th. - 16th. - 27th. 2019.
December 12th. - 16th. 2021.

Note. My first name is a Cornish name, and I spent a lot of time in Cornwall when a child and adolescent. I feel more at home there than anywhere else on the planet.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Artist, The Model and The Critic. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: 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                          ...

Husband and Wife. (Revised Version).

You knocked.                      I opened.
A thousand birds flew into my heart
          Singing your praises.


           My heart is a drum.
A drum echoing with summer birdsong.


My heart riffs to the beat of your heart,
     To the pulse of your breathing,
      To the dance of your laughter.
 When we kiss we are one perfect instrument
Tuned to the world
                                 and to each other.


When we live apart
                             We are
                                         broken
                                                     chords
Jangling loud                     
                                             in vacant spaces.
        Sunless voids that shape no echo,
Sound no depths,                 no clear acoustic,
        Where harmony is a lonely cry
               Lost in the wilderness.


When we live apart
Our lives are empty,
Hollowed out, detached from meaning;
Forsaken songs at the edge of silence.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 4th. - 5th. - 30th. -August 3rd, 2019.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Old Style Letters.(Completed Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Old Style Letters.(Completed Version).: It is like the old times. I sit writing letters to you, Pen on paper. No hurried text messages in a private code That shall be wiped ou...

Old Style Letters.(Completed Version).

It is like the old times.
I sit writing letters to you,
Pen on paper.
No hurried text messages in a private code
That shall be wiped out in a moment,
And never stored in a bundle
Tied by a silk ribbon.

It is like the old times.
We are both avowedly old fashioned,
Preferring books to mobiles,
Oil paint to photos,
Crops we have grown to tacky groceries
Picked off a shelf in a supermarket.
We would live in a Vardo if we could do so,
But camping by the roadside is no longer legal.

It is like the old times.
I scrawl to you long letters
Believing you will keep them
Underneath your pillow,
And never press an icon to wipe them away.
We have found an integrity in old fashioned things,
A no-nonsense strength that binds us together.

And when the stone memorials have split apart and fallen
Deep in St. Mary`s churchyard,
With luck my letters will remain
To tell our little story.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 24th. - 25th. 2019.

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.