A Poem and a Song. (1) Sunburn. (2)Hyper Transitions

                   1.

             Sunburn. (A Poem).


Uncovered in the sun
The record of my ancient Greek ancestry
Is etched upon my skin
By the ultra violet rays.

I am proud of this darkness,
This darkness now revealed
By the savage July heatwave
That has come a month too soon.

I did not expect such heat in verdant June
When the grass is not yet yellow
And the loganberries are coming into ripeness
Deep within the shadows of new growth.

This new growth is a sign of next years harvest,
A small link to an unimagined future
I really do not want to think about,
I prefer the comfort zone of ancient history.

The colours in my skin are my history,
Neither Slav nor dark Azeri,
But a honey mixture somewhere in - between.
The colour of my skin is who I am,

Greek and Russian - Celt and Roma Gypsy,
The people of the Central Asian steppes.
All their folk tales are chapters in my story,
From the western seas to the domes of Isfahan.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 25th. 2020.

                   2.
 
    Hyper Transitions. (A Song)


Between birth and ten
All my friends were girls
I wanted to be like them
But that would mean surgery

Between ten and twenty
All my friends were men
I wanted to be like them
So out went surgery

Now I am seventy
I want to be both
A man and a woman
Elder and Younger
Buddhist and Catholic
African and Eastern
Celtic and Saxon
Settled and Gypsy

These are dreams in the soul
And the soul is transcendent
Transparent and bountiful
The conduit of love
Of wisdom and laughter
The ferocity of truth

The soul is the wound in the heart and the bone
That cannot be excised by hate or by surgery


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
June 25th. 2020. 

The Longest Day.

Even the longest day must end eventually,
Become a faded postcard stored in a cupboard,
A postcard fainter than my thumb print
Smudged upon a dirty window pane.

The longest day, important to me now,
Will lose the gloss and colour, fierce intensity
Of mid summer glory, this sensuous moment,
To become much less incisive than a dream.

Those things I find so special on this day,
The two new roses budding on the dead stick
That I thrust, with not much hope, into the ground,
A year or more ago, will soon be history -

Faint shadows of a summer garden where
I can no longer dig or rake or hoe.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 21st. - 23rd. 2020.

The Mouse Transformed into a Girl. (Revised).

Falling through space is not remembered;
Trees and church towers rushing upwards;
Gulls squabbling in mid flight.
The surge of air sucking the breath
Out of lungs the size of thumb nails
As earth smiles welcome, a faithless friend,
A fraud disguising dark intentions
With arms wide open - wide as oceans,
But harder than a granite block.

Shock waves of love surge through her body,
The cupped hands of the wise magician
Now catching her - as though a blossom,
Not prey dropped from a Gannet`s beak. -
Wrapped up into a warm embrace
Love seems to change her in an instant
From back street mouse to well heeled hostess,
From lost cause to contented woman
Snug happy in her rescuers bed.

"I am glad you stayed", the magician whispered,
"And did not revert to your underworld ways".
But today she has knelt for hours by the wainscot
As though searching for a friendly face.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
19th. - 20th.June 2020.
My response to the watercolour illustration of this fable by Gustave Moreau. This is a companion piece to my poem The Cat Transformed into a Woman.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Cat Transformed into a Woman. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Cat Transformed into a Woman. (Revised).: She retained some of her feline nature. The lack of fur perplexed her, So she grew her hair down to her slender heels. "A little ho...

October Morning. (Revised).

I thought about you all day - today,
The sun white on your morning face
As you lay - imperious - in my tumbled bed,
Your shirt wide open to your navel,
Your smile - a crescent moon - of grace.

I studied your eyes, heavy with shadow,
Your eyes, once sad, fierce with the laughter
Of a woman who has won against all odds.
"You fought like a tigress", I whispered archly,
But I was never going to let you lose.

Is it seven long years since we hugged in the doorway?
Seven long years of phone calls and emails?
I have thought about you every day - since then.
It seems you have completely taken over my mind.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
15th. - 16th. - 17th. June 2020.

The Cat Transformed into a Woman. (Revised).

She retained some of her feline nature.
The lack of fur perplexed her,
So she grew her hair down to her slender heels.
"A little house on her head", she called it,
A little house that was dangerous in high winds.

Cutting nales always proved an awkward problem,
She was used to claws that rarely grew too long
And were easy to manicure on posts and doors.
Human nales, it seems, were a very different matter,
They cracked and snapped, and sometimes curled sharp
                                                        beneath her toes.
Even mice ran rings around her when she stalked them;
A cat on hands and knees is so easy to escape.

At a glance she seemed entirely, naturally, human,
Especially when snug tight on her lovers lap,
A sandwich in one hand, a whiskey in the other,
A Gold Sobranie lit between her lips.
But some nights she would sit close up to the window
And cry sad secrets to the waning moon.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
14th. - 17th. June 2020.
My response to the watercolour illustration by Gustave Moreau.

Trevor J Potter's Art: My Ideal Funeral.

Trevor J Potter's Art: My Ideal Funeral. (Revised).:                  1 . An Early Encounter. When I die Let there be No curtained Hearse To carry me Along the Hampstead High Street ...