Wednesday 28 July 2021

By the Local Post Box. (Revised).

Meeting an ex pupil of mine after nearly 26 years, 
Then a child struggling with Album fur die Jugend,
Now a young woman, coolly walking her dachshund,
Schumann off her mind, husband at home fixing something,
But still the same voice,
Still the same awkward mannerisms,
Still the same keeping her distance
As though, once being her teacher, my pedestal remained
                                                                            unbroken,
A marble plinth too high for her to climb.
But still the questioning eyes,
Still the openness that was not really open,
Still the same quiet respect, the almost filial love
That left me strangely scared, exposed to ridicule
Because I feared I knew less than she thought, and that others
                                                              should have taught her.
She mentioned she has a daughter
Who cant keep away from the keyboard.
I had to admit I can no longer teach piano,
My fingers have lost dexterity, I can no longer stretch them wide.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 24th. - 28th. 2021. 

Saturday 24 July 2021

Trevor J Potter's Art: From My Bedroom Window. (Revised Last Stanza.).

Trevor J Potter's Art: From My Bedroom Window. (Revised Last Stanza.).: A girl in a white shift hurries down the hill. An urban fox scurries in the opposite direction. A chill electric moon, blue becoming yellow,...

Trevor J Potter's Art: As We Appear. (A Lyric).

Trevor J Potter's Art: As We Appear. (A Lyric).: I had never thought this before Not before you said it That I am a part of the landscape Just like the squat church tower The trees in the C...

Tuesday 20 July 2021

Monday 19 July 2021

Flowers on the Bare Hill. (Completed Poem).

Jesus crucified amidst a symphony of flowers.
A song of sudden colours, of windblown music.
The birds silent as the sky turns sombre,
Imperial purple blinding the sun.
And yet strangely luminous the deepest of
                                                               shadows,
Midnight interwoven with noon.

Clematis and buttercups.
Apple blossom and winged seeds.
Asters and daffodils.
Tulips and Chrysanthemums.
Flowers from every season, from every continent
                                                               blooming
On the skull white rocks of this desert hillside
Used for day to day executions.
This was the bleakest spot near the city.
This was the silent place of sorrows.

Briar roses encircle the cross
With a hedge that reaches the crown of thorns.
Lambs entangled in the stems and branches
Bleat soft prayers that few can hear.
Even Jesus seems deaf on the cross,
And yet he calms them with his tears.
Mary rescues the smallest of the lambs
And holds him as though he were her child.
Saint John feeds the lamb from his satchel of bread.

Three days later the storm had passed.
Three days later the crowds had dispersed.
Love moved the stone, unsealed the tomb,
Golgotha changed into a sea of flowers.
Even the cross took root and flourished,
Became an oak tree rich in leaf.
Then all the birds in all the gardens
Of Jerusalem broke into song.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
July 18th. - 19th. - 20th. - 21st. 2021.
Based on a semi abstract picture of Christ crucified in a garden of large flowers that I painted a year or two ago.

Wednesday 14 July 2021

Local Bookshop. (New Rewritten Version).

There are no electronic books 
For sale in this bookshop.
This is good news.
Clear print on first rate paper
Reassures me,
Lends me a sense of stability,
Of permanent aesthetic value
Out lasting our cut price world.
Expediency cannot eradicate truth.

Like a sprinter first up with the gun
Time rushes passed implacably,
Leaving us stunned in the process.
Time hates to be inconspicuous.
Smart Phones and tablets and laptops
Are replaced at regular intervals,
Just a year or two, then lights out.

Snug between hardback covers,
Resting on shelves in a back room,
Books fall apart more slowly
Than electronics designed to delete them
With words zapped neatly through space.
Books, being objects of beauty,
Even children handle them kindly,
As though greeting a secret friend.
Books crafted by Master Printers
Never forfeit integrity.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 14th. - 15th. 2021.

Friday 9 July 2021

An Unnamed Model.

 Although I do not know who she was,
Or who she could be,
I have fallen in love with the girl in this exquisite fresco,
Eve of the morning light,
The apple ripe in her fingers.

And although she was born late in the Quattrocento,
And no one can tell her name or family,
She`s as vivid to me as my companion here beside me,
Her hand lodged gently in mine.

How strange it is we can fall in love with an image
That has little to do with our mundane lived reality,
An icon far removed from all we know.
It is as though we by pass time when stunned by beauty,
And yet we cannot stop time with a kiss.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
July 7th. - 9th. 2021.

The fresco of The Fall in The Raphael Loggia, The Vatican.