A Sort of Credo. March 2022.(Completed).

Debussy in my soul.

Bob Dylan on my mind.

Delius in my senses. 

Mondrian all around.

Art defines the world for me.-

Not politics, - Not war.

I was born in nineteen forty three.

A bomb blast knocked my mum downstairs

In the black out - all lights turned low,

And so the house seemed built of shadows.

My mother then was six months pregnant,

She would never use the garden shelter,

It was damp and feted, a rats hotel.

Upon my back there is a mark

From when her belly hit the bannister.

A nearby house became a tomb.

My mum, determined I would never be

An airman or a private soldier,

Taught me to draw, to copy pictures

Found in books and magazines.

I spent late hours listening to music,

My head tucked underneath the blankets,

Feigning sleep when father looked in.

He had been a sailor.

He believed in brute force.

He tried to restrict my use of the radio - & books.

Debussy in my soul.

Picasso on my mind.

Art is my refuge,

My motivation.

Delius in my senses.

Mondrian all around.

I live to paint pictures

Vibrant with colour,

Defying this epoch

That is violent to the core.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

March 14th. - 15th. = 16th.  2022.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Primitive London, The Scene in the One Tun Goodge...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Primitive London, The Scene in the One Tun Goodge...: Watching that old film was a mistake. My pictured friends - blurred images Animated to an analogue soundtrack. My on screen presence - confi...

Goodge Street Finches.

The pub was my safe space.

I drank very little but read lots of books

As I sat quietly in the smoky forum,

Those early evenings before the music started.

I read Persian poetry - not just Omar Khayyam,

I was in love with the east, especially Azerbaijan,

The fire temples, mosques blue as the sea.

I read Anna Karenina and War and Peace,

And therefore was considered a devotee of Tolstoy

By friends who were beginning to dig into Trotsky,

Revolution being their cup of tea.

I read Alan Watts, his Way of Zen

Severely slowed down my intake of Guinness

As I puzzled and puzzled over one hand clapping.

I found out I did not have to seek beyond Europe

When I settled down to The Cloud of Unknowing,

A home grown book that opened my mind

To vistas that Buddha had yet to show me.

I have no idea how I read all these books

In the spaces between devouring rumours,

Chatting up girls and bantering with friends

Who thought I was weird because I loved books.

But I was the one at the heart of that scene

Who helped to write songs we all loved singing

When the crowds packed in after 8 pm.

When the chatting stopped and the music started.

And that is how I made sense of the nineteen sixties

Believing I could integrate fun and learning.

Believing that peace could conquer the world

With songs and books, not squaddies in trenches.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

March 8th. - 9th. 2022.

I am too angry to write about Ukraine,

Too angry and full of tears,

So until I am ready I shall write about other things,

That is when I can put clear thoughts down onto paper.,

When I know I can do good with what I write.#

God Bless Ukraine. God Bless the lovely people of Ukraine.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Slava Ukraini. (New Longer Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Slava Ukraini. (New Longer Version).: Memories of rural days In Soviet Ukraine Keep bubbling to the surface Of deep dark waters, The lake of slow forgetting. My sister and I work...

Slava Ukraini. (Completed Poem).

Memories of rural days

In Soviet Ukraine

Keep bubbling to the surface

Of deep dark waters,

The lake of slow forgetting.

My sister and I labouring in the fields,

Struggling to keep to quotas,

Our backs red raw from the summer sun,

Our fingers ripped and blistered.

We slept in a hut no bigger than the shed

Where father stored his seeds and garden tools

Back home in North West London.

My home - not hers. / Separated as infants,

Raised apart for some unexplained reasons.

I lived as an only child in post war England, -

Marina far away, close to the Black Sea coast.

She spoke to the farmers

In day to day Ukrainian.

I made do with hand signs,

Plus one or two plain words.

That was long ago, in the days of Comrade Krushchev,

Six months - maybe less, before the Cuban Crises.

Tonight, six decades on, the tanks of Putin`s army

Have been sent in to annihilate Ukraine,

Force this beauteous land to become a Russian fiefdom,

A project only Putin understands.

And tonight, in rain drenched London, I remember Mariupol,

The white apartment blocks close to the city centre

That we drove by in a lorry stacked with grain,

Sweat pouring from our faces in the rag packed oily cab.

We dared not think that Moscow would one day blitz those streets;

Young mothers of lost children screaming out their pain.

Slava Ukraini. Slava Ukraini.

Your golden domes out dazzle 

The early morning sun

With the light of the new fire

That proclaims the resurrection,

Such glory cannot now be overcome.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

February 27th. 28th. - March 5th. - 6th. 2022.

 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Sophie. ( Born a century ago today, May 9th. 1921)

Trevor J Potter's Art: Sophie. ( Born a century ago today, May 9th. 1921): I press the key. A face I do not recognise lights up the screen. A girl with candid eyes, High chubby cheeks,                          ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Sunday February 20th. Squalls and Showers. (New Lo...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Sunday February 20th. Squalls and Showers. (New Lo...: Debris from trashed houses flies high above London, Chip board and cheap tiles buckle like bats wings Under the heft of the wind. Early Spri...