Tuesday, 11 February 2020

Monday, 10 February 2020

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.

Sunday, 9 February 2020

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.

Thursday, 6 February 2020

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.





Saturday, 1 February 2020

(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.

Tuesday, 28 January 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.

Winter Night.