Trevor J Potter's Art: The Magic Prisoner. (Completed).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Magic Prisoner. (Completed).:  Outside her apartment the city awakes. Cold stone cold stone cold yellow stone - Walls and columns -                                    Yel...

The Magic Prisoner. (Completed).

 Outside her apartment the city awakes.

Cold stone cold stone cold yellow stone -

Walls and columns -

                                   Yellow stone -

Floors and doorways carved from stone -

Ice smooth yellow stone.

"And I am so lonely", she cries to the wind

As the traffic coughs awake in the streets below

And the traders set out their stalls.

Cold stone cold stone cold yellow stone -

The broken parapet -

                                   Yellow stone -

The tables - beds and chairs - all stone -

Ice smooth yellow stone.

"He has been gone all year", she cries to the wind

That tears at the trees in the streets below

So they shudder like frightened dreamers.

Cold stone cold stone cold yellow stone -

Young hearts and hands and lips of stone -

Adamantine stone.

"He has the key, but I know he will not return

To magic this prison back into our home

Of bright coloured walls warm to the touch -

His children have forgotten his name"

Cold stone cold stone cold yellow stone -

The lock in the door has turned to stone -

The carpets and cushions are changed to stone -

To ice smooth yellow stone.

"He has the key, but now it rusts on a chain

In a place I cannot reach - In a place I cannot know".

Cold stone cold stone cold yellow stone -

Rust colours of sunset filtered through snow.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

18th. - 19th.  January 2023.

From an idea first sketched in 1962, before I fully understood the magic and power of folk tales.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Twelfth Night 2023. Poem with Painting. (New Versi...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Twelfth Night 2023. Poem with Painting. (New Versi...: No chance of a party I chuck paint at the board With a chaotic precision So like throwing streamers high in the air Over the heads of dancer...

Twelfth Night 2023. (Revised and Completed).

No chance of a party

I chuck paint at the board

With a chaotic precision

So like throwing streamers high in the air

Over the heads of dancers.

Tonight is the night of misrule,

But I take my chances alone, not in a 

                                                 crowd

of revelers 

                   waltzing the world upside

                                                   down

Until the chimes at midnight.

Then they will holla for their mice drawn carriages,

Glass slippers stashed in gold handbags.

No, tonight I am certainly not one of them,

I have other priorities.

Fingers caked in oil paint - time becomes irrelevant

As I scrape and daub and draw,

Burnt Sack sizzling over on the gas stove -

An ageing mister Cinders 

Sat down among the ashes

With no invite to the Ball;

My window lit by a single candles glow.

I wildly mash the colours as I try to articulate

An anger that keeps my hopes alive 

Far from where the ticket holders Tango.

Tonight is the night of misrule.

Will I ever ride a pumpkin to the Ball?

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 5th.- 6th.- 7th.  January. - 8th. - 10th.  February. 2023.

Multi Cloured Leaves: In Memoriam Vivienne Westwood. (Revised).

Multi coloured leaves are falling - falling,

Floating down stream, the water calling them

With wistful songs, known to every flower and tree,

To horses, birds and foxes.

Children too are sensitive to these sounds,

That is until we adults shout them deaf.

Perhaps Ophelia, so sensitive to plant lore, 

Heard this wistful music and chased its thread

Almost to the depths of the Atlantic.

Vivienne heard it too, but sang it out raucously

While weaving brilliant colours, more stunning than 

                                                             plum blossom

Seen from a window after mist has faded.

Multi coloured leaves are falling - falling:

Truth is beauty, but is not always the loser.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

December 30th. - 31st. 2022.

Lost from the Lights of Christmas: December 1965. (Revised Ending).

 Her remembered voice seems to haunt these streets,

The stucco terraces and tree lined pavements

Transfigured into white light by the chill

Of frosty winter mornings.

Was it New Year, or the short days after Christmas,

When we last cuddled up beneath old bedding,

Her pregnant belly warm as a summer evening,

The child within fidgeting like a kitten,

Or a sleeping lioness longing for the sun?

Was it then, or just a few weeks earlier?

After sixty years recollections become less vivid.

We felt as though there was no room at the Inn,

Outsiders watching the stars dissolve in snow clouds. 

Her husband permitted these secret trysts, for some reason;

Perhaps he understood the depths of love,

Or was it that he guessed how short the time we had 

And needed this reconciliation.

Meanwhile, in the streets outside, daily life went on,

So like a mindless clock measuring the hours

But not able to calculate the reason.

The following summer she died, but not before shaking

The somnolent wards awake with one last laugh.

She had spied her baby giggling 

At radiant pools of sunlight floating on the walls.

"If I dared be as innocent as my wee bairn,

Then surely death would not be such a problem".

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.

28th. - 29th. December 2022.

The Fourth Wise King Explains his Motives.

Speaking soft words to the quiet dark

I attempt to meditate upon tomorrow

But find only a loneliness

Bleaker than the arctic wastes. 

If I were a wise king searching for enlightenment

I do not think that I would trust

A weirdly dazzling eastern star

That illuminates a small cave in war torn Bethlehem.

But I would listen to my inner voice

As I hovered on the edge of sleep

And therefore imagine it said in dreams

That miracles always lead to trouble.

But when curiosity has forced me awake

It seems that I might outface my loneliness,

Pack my bags in the freezing dark

And set out to study that star,

But understand this, this would be for science,

Certainly not to discover a Saviour;

I can never guess answers before I set out,

And always doubt what I see.

Yes, I admit, the others were right,

They trusted their instincts and did not look back:

I am still on that journey, so it now seems,

But its not in my power to confirm this in speech.

Yet when I sit silent in the quiet dark,

What I dare not understand begins to make sense.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter,

December 21st. 2022.

According to some ancient legends twelve Wise Kings set out to follow the star, but only three made it to the Bethlehem stable to offer their gifts to Jesus. I identify here with King No. 4 because he had many doubts and yet had a modicum of faith.