Wistfulness. (New Longer Version).

Cleaning my Rock n Roll bullied ears
With the sweet tones of lute and recorder
I slowly become aware
Of all the delicate sounds that thrive in the
                                         world around me
Every minute of the day,
Every moment of the year.

And when I dream of all my many friends
Who died decades before their time,
I feel their presence in the wind,
I hear their voices in the rain.

But Rock n Roll music wrecks my ears,
Makes me forget who I am,
A lonely wanderer through wintry fields
Searching for ancient memories.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
10th. - 11th.February 2020.
For Pauline, Sharon, Shelah, Zoe, Rufus, John, George, Peter, Elisabeth, Priscilla, and both Christines.

Grey February Morning. (Companion Poem to Early February Daffodils).

There are no birds, no insects, in this painting,
Just plum blossoms feathering silver grey boughs
Viewed against a blank paper sky.

Meanwhile the daffodils in my miniature garden
Point yellow spear tips at the crumbling wall
With the fierce intolerance of the very young.

When they are fully grown into bright trumpet stars
Their silent music will dance awake the sun
Now snug beneath a thick duvet of cloud,

Low lying cloud the colour of old paper
On which the Chinese Master sketched plum blossom,
But no moths, no arachnids, no soaring birds.

I have little love for this ancient fading picture.
I prefer the insolent spears of my daffodils.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
9th. February 2020.
Part inspired by the illustration for February on my Chinese Calendar.

Seventeen 2020.(Illustrated Poem).

I notice you are now in high heels.
Tall as a flamingo. Frightening the boys.
You zap their self confidence with a laugh.

When I was young I dressed in Winkle Pickers,
Your tongue is sharp about that.

Rimbaud and Amy Winehouse your sacred martyrs;
Keats and Paula Rego on your mind.
I meet you in the bar by the canal side,
The scent of skunk itching through your hair,
Your eyelids bluer than your pale blue eyes.

You are the future glimpsed one boozy lunchtime;
(The One Tun Googe Street nineteen sixty five.
Thorny Price, the gypsy girl, laughing at my elbow,

Spelling out my Good Luck, several decades hence).
You chide me for my 1960`s memoirs,
But praise me for my anti Brexit stance.
My past is just a reference book lobbed into the archives,
It is who I am today that interests you.

So welcome to the fray my wild godchild,
The rebels are the sane folk, don`t you know.
Bedlam has made a home in Downing Street.
Camden is reality. I greet you with a kiss.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
2nd. - 5th. - 6th. - 7th. February 2020.

12th. December 2020. - 4th. May 2021.

For Ivy, the granddaughter of Thorny Price.

(1) Early February Daffodils. (Newly Revised). (2) Seventeen.

                           1   

      Early February Daffodils.


The daffodil plants that did not bloom last year
Are now producing sleek yellow buds
In the pointed tips of the dark green sheaths

That sway awkwardly in the mild damp breeze,
Interacting with their neighbours as though in a dance
Courtly and gentle, their elegant grace

Weaving neat patterns in the morning air.
In a week or two bright yellow stars,
And wide open trumpets that never sound a note

Will be unveiled beneath an ice blue sky,
And then I shall gather the finest of the bunch
To place in the vase by your hospital bed,

The vase on the shelf beneath the high window
That faces true east to catch the sun.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
1st. - 2nd.  - 4th. February 2020.

                        2.

                 Seventeen.


Apparently you are now in high heals.
Tall as a flamingo. Frightening the boys.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
2nd. February 2020.

Dark January Morning. (Newly Completed Poem).

Filigree skeins of music drift through air
Floating gently from the hi-fi speakers
Of my kitchen radio.
I sit in the narrow corner of my loneliness
Waiting for you to call.

On the days you do not speak to me,
On the days when we stay out of touch,
There is an arid space deep in my mind,
An empty room without a lamp or table;
No rugs, no chairs, no unlatched window,
No open doors.
On the days you do not pick up the receiver
My sense of loss is absolute.

But the moment that you speak to me,
(By email, or by text, if not the phone),
I find the empty room has filled with light,
The walls transformed into an open terrace
That looks upon a garden framed with sycamores,
A hedge of briar roses.
Although you are a hundred miles from here
I sense your warm breath soft upon my shoulders.

The Mother Goose Suite fades from off the airways
As though dissolving into distant landscapes
Where legends are more real than you or I.-
Suddenly in the hallway rings the phone!
But no - it was the sharp metallic flutes.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
8th. - 10th. - 14th. - 22nd. - 24th. - 29th. January 2020.
29th. June 2020.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Villa Sazai. (New Ending). Illustration for th...

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Villa Sazai. (New Ending). Illustration for th...: Why are they looking at the mountain, These shapely girls who do not show their faces? Nothing unusual appears to be happening on the dis...

Pseudo Blue Monday.

After a night of frost and jazz and arguing
The January sun dazzles my glass splintered eyes
As I squint into the preternatural azure
Of an ice bright morning sky.
So welcome to blue Monday, the saddest day of the season
According to a Silicon Valley fable
Concocted for our category mad society,
Our sort it, box it, tick it, mad society
That loathes convention but loves the glib and new.
It seems that every moment of our lives
Must have a label, a file, a definition,
To spoof our minds to thinking we are clever,
So absolutely, brighter than Buddha clever,
When we are simply aping the gobbledegook of fashion.

Yes January is the saddest month of all,
That is why I was out late last night in the pub,
Embroiled in jazz, in arguments and drinking,
Occasionally staring blankly at the ceiling,
Occasionally telling a brexiteer where to go.
I cursed the neon lit road as I stumbled home.
I cursed the wind that woke me at half past 7.
I cursed the sun for being too bright this morning,
But daffodil shafts are already fiercely shooting
Slim green arrow tips up through the sticky earth,
And the miniature rose bush is flecked with delicate flowers
As though mid winter is nothing to bother about.
The trouble with being human is the constant heartache
Of trying to live in a world we don`t understand.

I pour a cup of tea and look out at the garden
Through windows laced with frost and broken dreams,
The frail lattice work of all our yesterdays.
In my mind I can see the horses I rode when a child,
Trekking peaceful fields now covered in houses;
And blue Monday suddenly morphs into purple and black.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter, 
January 20th. - 21st. - 24th. 2020.