Three Poems. (1). Sufi Meditation. (2). June Night. (3). Post Modern Beauty. (I am the Duchess of Malfi still....).

                        1.

              Sufi Meditation.


Muted colours of a Pastoral Symphony;
The language of simplicity.

Fingers touching the hem of a sleeve.
A glance that does not need explaining.

All things straight forward,
Stone walls defining territory.



But that is in a far off country;
A distant time zone.

Here we only know the desert,
Contours splintered in the heat haze;

All things roughly covered over,
Nothing straight forward.



I draw the face of Rumi in the sand;
A gust of wind scatters the fine grains.


Trevor John karsavin Potter.
June 20th. - 21st. - 24th. - 25th.- 27th. - 30th. 2014.

========================

                        2.

                 June Night.


Last night
Midsummer rain awoke us

Black petals
Softer than eiderdown.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 23rd. 2014.

============================

                       3.

         Post Modern Beauty. 

(Duchess." I am the Duchess of Malfi still".
Bosola. "That makes thy sleep so broken". 
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi: Act 4.)
                       =====

Mona Lisa`s face without the smile, yet flawless,
never to be scarred by age or exposure to the sun.
Groomed for the cat walk, the camera`s prying eye.
A fashion plate image refracted through amber glass
as the doors swing open wide, spilling the wintry air
deep into the pub. She was not seen to enter then, but
for a moment her face flickered in the alcove mirror
like a faded video image.

                         Candle light obscured her finest features,
Giovanna moved among the deepest shadows.

                                     Unsure for a moment where dreams
begin or vanish, or when reality transmutes into an impromptu
theatrical performance, I put down my glass and left the sanctuary,
hoping to spy her in the milling throng.

                                                                           Was that her
there, dancing among the shadows? Dancing alone in the ribald 
crowd?

The Barflies jostled each other like madmen in a Tragedy.
                                                       
                                                          I reached out to touch her shoulder;
but only the air seemed tangible, seemed real. I turned back into the alcove,
lonesome and defeated.

                                                       Something within me had died.
That delicate hint of perfume was perhaps the trace of a memory,
and yet I am certain that someone did mention her name. But then 
again, my hearing is somewhat decayed, I could have been mistaken.

Her face had quit the mirror.             The door slammed shut in the wind.

A shrill laugh echoed in the porch outside.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 5th. - 6th. 2012.
June 28th. - 29th. 2014.

The One Tun, Part Eight. New Rewritten Version.

Devon blue. The sunlight frisking flecks of dazzle across the waves. Torbay placid, the yachts gently bobbing, Moses Cradles resting on the waters.I am sitting on the harbour wall waiting for the sleeping town to wake up. Barely one hour after dawn in June, the sun already hot and brilliant. I had traveled overnight by train from London, the rail carriage stinking of stale smoke and damp. In 1965 British trains were, to my knowledge, the dirtiest in Europe. It was good now to be out in the fresh air sipping Orange Squash and eating the last of the sandwiches. The food had been packed for me the evening before by Mrs. Harris. I was trying to locate her runaway daughter. A rumour of a possible sighting had hastened me down to the West Country. I sat on the harbour wall trying to focus on my next move, but I was almost too tired to think. A crowd of seagulls were clamouring overhead, keen to steal some remnants of my banquet.

I was no stranger to Torquay. I had family living in the centre of the town, but today I did not want to be seen by them; I could not be diverted from my mission. Zoe had run away from home once before; my task was to try and locate her before the police were informed by her father. Her family and friends did not want her to be locked away as a young offender. She was a feisty, articulate and highly intelligent fifteen year old, not a feral street kid bereft of hope and ambition. The law enforcers did not always recognize the difference. Unfortunately the boy she ran away with was rumoured to have a heroin habit, so we had to act quickly. I could see the keys turning in the locks and the iron doors slamming tight, the guard dogs barking.

She had left London holding a small travel bag and a kitten. We had all been together in the Classic Cinema Tottenham Court Road. Her artist brother paid for the tickets. The kitten behaved remarkably well. From time to time he would wiggle and take a peek at the giant screen, but made no attempt to break free and scarper. This fur ball was not my friend however, I received a small scratch when I tried to hold him while ice cream was purchased. Suddenly Zoe announced that she needed the toilet. Apparently both the kitten and the bag had to accompany her. She did not return.

I became uneasy after just a few minutes, but her brother was so deeply engrossed in the film that he hardly noticed the time passing. Once out of the cinema however he rushed straight to the nearest phone box and started to ring as many relevant numbers he could think of. No one could tell him where Zoe was. We enquired at The One Tun, but the early evening crowd were clueless, a state of affairs that we should have expected. Some did know the truth however, but were sworn to secrecy. She was at number 12 Tottenham Street, a five minute walk from the pub and her obvious destination. So obvious in fact that we did not think to search there. That tenement block was the bolt hole of Fitzrovia`s remaining Beatniks and illiterati, probably the most bohemian address in London. Zoe and her companions remained there for only one night. They were soon on the road to Devon. At some point on the journey the kitten decided enough was enough and took his own route to liberation. Cats and hitch hikers are not good companions. The boy friend did not last much longer either, which was probably all to the good.

Rufus and I returned to his parent`s home to break the bad news. and within a few hours we had both commenced our travels, separately searching for his sister at opposite ends of the country. I did not find her in Torquay, but just a few miles along the coast in Plymouth I caught sight of a note she had penciled on the wall of a pub. "I am the only sane person in this place," a typical Zoe observation. She was probably right about that sweaty hole in the wall.

After nearly three weeks of travel and living off her wits she returned home to Hyde Park Mansions, tired and unrepentant. Within hours the police were informed, and she found herself locked away in the Young Offenders Institution a sort of naughty school kids zoo in a quiet part of Paddington. Fortunately she did not have to stay there long, A relative she greatly loved became her official guardian. She moved into his home in Kingston Upon Thames. He took her on camping trips to Istanbul and Afghanistan. He was a Hippy before the concept had been invented. Zoe had won the freedom to be the person that she wanted to be, a gift that she prized above all others. She remained an extraordinary person for the rest of her unconventional life.



Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 19th. 2014.  - August 9th. 2020. 

       .    

Two Poems (1) West Country Woman. A Song. (2) The Painting.

                1

West Country Woman.


West Country Woman,
Hair wilder than moorland bracken,
Face redder than solstice fire;
I will not forget your peppery laughter,
Your sealskin hands,
Your restless eyes.
You touched me to the quick
With your snide and insolent words
That Sunday last November.

You had lit a flame in the heather,
A raw, storm frenzied beacon,
To draw my barque to the shallows
Where the jagged rocks lay waiting,
Stone dragons concealing their claws.

I had once dreamed you were my lover,
But I now know you are merely a robber,
A snatcher of hearts and of chattels,
A wrecker of ship loads of lives.

I once dreamed that we two should marry,
But your tongue is a thorn bush of lies.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 10th. - 11th. - 12th. - 13th. 2014.
Torquay, Devon.
Amended January 11th. 2020. =============================

                  2

        The Painting.


black on black on black on black
black dissolving into grey
black on black on black on black
white
grey
blue evolving into grey
white
black on black on black on black
grey
blue
no semblance of a human face
no trace of me or you


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
June 16th. 2014.

Recalling a visit to an art gallery with Layla.

Four Poems (1) Californian Buddhist Wedding. (2) A Fragment. (3) Dreaming in October. (4) Human Traffic.(Revised)

                        1.

Californian Buddhist Wedding. (Revised Version).


The cicadas in the distant gardens presaged heat.

In those moments the world seemed transfigured by hope
As we stood side by side on the tranquil beach
Hands barely touching;
The silent stars spun a glittering web beyond our niche in time.

Speaking few words
We watched the moonlight shimmering a fragile path
Upon the surface of the waters,
A magical path that few have dared to follow.

Like discarded fragments of our former lives
The stones that we collected on the shore
Were flicked across the tops of breaking waves.
Bad memories should not linger to deceive us.

Suddenly you kissed me,
A tentative kiss, like those that children give.-
Slowly we climbed back up the concrete stairway
And entered the quiet house.

That morning when we whispered our solemn vows
In that Buddhist Temple high on the green hill,
We had been changed forever by simple words.
No secular laws were needed then to bind us,
Only our fearless honesty.

But now grey walled Manhattan claims your time;
And here I sit and watch the London rain
Darkening the cold window.
December nights are long and strangely empty.
The pallid moonlight seldom splits the clouds.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
17th. - 30th November 2012.
5th. - 6th. June 2014.

==========================. 


                        2.

               A Fragment.


The fragility of moonlight frosting your face
Reminds me of swans drifting through mist
Upon still waters


Trevor John Karsavin Potter
May 10th. 1984. - September 28th. 2012.

==================================
                       
                        3.

           Dreaming in October.


Dust motes drifting in sunlight
A soft veil of quietude.


Will I hear your footsteps on the garden footpath
Before the leaves have fallen?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 1st. 2012. - June 4th 2014.

===========================
                   
                        4..

      Human Traffic.


Tinned meat
Pressed into cars and buses
Fly blown in the sun

Travelling can be fun

Free born Human Beings
Trained to taste defeat
Victims of our produce

We are what we eat

Trapped in mobile boxes
We eye a copper sun
And sizzle in the heat

Travelling cant be beat

Reduced to scarecrow fillets
Spit roasted
Overdone

We await the quick denouement

Neatly packaged
Trussed and hung


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
October 6th. - 7th. 2012. - June 5th. 2014
June 7th. 2015. - January 7th. 2016.

The One Tun, Part Seven. Revised Version.

Colonel was a fawn Great Dane, docile but loud of bark. He was also as tall as a man when standing on his hind legs. He lived at the Duke of York, a bohemian pub situated at the end of Charlotte Place, a darkly atmospheric alley in Fitzrovia. Whenever I ventured into that alley, Fagin and Bill Sykes came to mind, especially on foggy autumn evenings. I found the atmosphere so oppressive that it cut deep into my imagination. I saw footpads and burglars everywhere, skulking among the transvestites and moody beatniks. I even convinced myself that a real life Nancy was being done to death as I passed beneath her window. The buildings were jerry built Georgian, just the right style and period. I never felt at ease in Charlotte Place.

Colonel was a celebratory far and wide. He had starred in the 1959 Hammer Horror film The Hound of the Baskervilles. Sherlock Holmes had put an end to his reign of terror. Colonel looked wonderfully fierce in his gruesome mask, and played dead with due decorum once the blanks had hit home. Not fully grown at the time, he none the less appeared huge and dangerous on the big screen. We who knew Colonel loved him to bits; strangers were less sure of his safety record and tended to keep their distance.

Colonel was now an old stager, long retired from cinema glory, but his charisma was undiminished. He had a party trick that few dogs, however highly trained, could hope to emulate. He barked Time on cue.He placed his forelegs firmly on the bar, raised himself to his full height and deafened the nearest ear. Strangers would promptly drink up and flee. Regulars barged through the melee to hustle a final pint.

My relationship with Colonel was polite. We acknowledged each others existence, and once or twice he allowed me to accompany him on his daily stroll. As with most city dogs, pedigree or otherwise, the carefully organised outing rapidly disintegrated into a grand tour of all the local lamp posts. However, to walk out with Colonel was accounted a great honour. In his glory days he was the best dog to be seen with in the whole of Central London. Crowds parted to let him pass. Any human seen in his company was accounted a personage of some distinction. He conferred lustre on whoever strolled beside him.

One day, walking serenely and alone down Charing Cross Road, I was suddenly made aware of an excited hub bub in the vicinity of Leicester Square Station. I turned to observe the commotion. Something was causing the crowds milling around the entrance to jump and scatter. "Is there a fight taking place?" I thought. "Perhaps a murder". No, it was Colonel, thrusting through the throng, head down, tongue lolling. Some distance behind him my friend Anna clung to the lead for dear life. "He saw you and took off", she said laughing. This remark instantly boosted my sense of self worth. Colonel had not only recognised me, he had decided that I was worthy to be seen in his company. The exertion had made Anna thirsty, so we decided that a visit to a Coffee Bar was in order; but what to do about Colonel? After a few minutes dithering we concluded that the best place to try our luck would be Bunjies.

Bunjies was a Coffee Bar and music venue situated at the end of a steep flight of steps in a cellar. This popular establishment was staffed by students earning a little cash, and they tended to be tolerant of unusual situations. We decided that it would be polite to ask about the dog before he made his presence felt, so I left my companions in the street and rushed down the steps alone, hoping to find a waiter when I hit the bottom. I crashed through the entrance straight into the arms of a bearded student holding an empty tray. The poor chap was a little surprised. Fearing censure I blustered some rapid fire twaddle about not being drunk, and had just managed to gasp the word "DOG" when Colonel came galloping down the stairs, dragging a nonplussed Anna behind him. Two shocks in half a minute can unnerve the calmest man, the waiter was no exception to this rule. He stood frozen to the spot, struck dumb and apparently about to faint. Fortunately, after a long and nervous silence, he regained his senses, and use of his vocal chords. It turned out that he was a dog lover brought up in the wilds of Wiltshire. Indeed, he was so taken by Colonel`s magnificence that he allowed us to stay. He even presented the canine celeb with a bowl of water free of charge. Like most famous people, this Great Dane simply lived off his charisma.

Colonel quickly settled into this new habitat, took charge of his space. After just a few minutes he decided it was time to take a nap. He stretched himself out full length on the stone floor, blocking access to three large tables. A couple of unwary ladies tripped over him, spilling their drinks, but he did not turn a hair. As befitted a Hound of the Baskervilles, Colonel was completely at home in this subterranean environment.

The walk back to Fitzrovia was uneventful. I took my leave of Anna at Goodge Street Station. Money was in short supply so I decided to go home. Besides, my mother would have cooked a meal and I was feeling hungry.

Anna was a serious minded girl of Polish descent. We often sat together in the One Tun discussing philosophy and religion. I did not know her well, but was always glad of her company. Anna`s intelligence was more profound and acute than was common on that scene. Taking heed of her often acerbic advice steered me clear of difficult people and situations. A number of unsavoury persons mingled with the crowd, genuine thieves and footpads, and it was hard for me to judge the good from the bad. Anna was canny, she observed everyone and knew everyone; her judgement was infallible, or so it seemed to me. She was reputed to be nursing a broken heart, and this may have sharpened her awareness of the world around her. It was hard to believe that she was then barely seventeen. She could have been a decade older.

The last time that I saw Anna in the pub she had to rush away unexpectedly to sort out a domestic problem. She gave a little wave, and then was gone. Her other world, the one that I had no notion of, had finally laid claim to her.

Colonel was not the only celebratory in our midst. The One Tun was stuffed full of musicians including The Beatles. It was also frequented by actors from Olivier`s newly formed National Theatre Company. They enjoyed the love of freedom that made this place so lively. And then one evening Sir Laurence himself walked in, and my young life took a serious turn.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 29th. - 30th. - 31st. 2014. 

.    

Three Poems. (1).Glasgow, May 23rd. 2014. (2). The Mermaid.- A fantasy for Josephine. (3).Debussy.

            1.

Glasgow, May 23rd. 2014.


Suddenly perfection
Is burned beyond recognition,
A pile of blackened embers
Smouldering in the street.

Farewell my lovely,
A hundred years of history
destroyed in half an hour,
And ten thousand bright
                       tomorrows
Now can never be.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 23rd. 2014.

Written on seeing pictures of Glasgow School of Art on fire.
===============================================

            2.

   The Mermaid. (Revised Version).


You are my little fish
Darting through the black waters
Of the midnight river.

Stunned by your beauty
I plunge my arms deep into the swirling currents
To grasp your lithe energy,

Your liquid strangeness
Now weaving away from me
As though I were a hunter,

A fisherman with a net.-
"Gotcha!" I cry, as I snatch you from the waves
With a deft coordination
Of nerve and muscle.

You lie as still as a sick child
On the bank of the starlit river,
Eyes focusing on nothing.
I fear that you are dying.

I reach out to embrace you,
But you snare my outspread fingers
As though they were more precious
Than platinum or silver.

This sudden movement scares me,
Such elemental abrasiveness
Defeats all understanding.

How can I give you back to the dark stream
Now that your ethereal beauty
Has stunned me out of reason?


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 22nd. - 26th. 2014.
================================

                 3.

           Debussy.


Revealed by artifice and
moonlight
That gastronomic delicacy
A smidgen of freshwater snail
Sliding filigree arabesques
                       Delicately
Discreetly
Upon a pale blue port hole
In the melancholic midnight
Of the Esplanade Aquarium.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
March 10th. 2014.

The One Tun, Part Six. (Revised Version with additional passages).

Conning was the accepted way of earning some extra money. You simply went up to people in the street and asked for their loose change. It was surprising how many folk obliged, but then cynicism was not a popular mindset in the mid 1960`s. This was an era when the charm offensive worked a treat. We asked for the money politely, we did not shove out our hands and beg. We were being cheeky, and having a good deal of fun. Life was a game to be relished, but beneath our joie de vivre lurked a shadow, we could all be blown to bits by an atom bomb next week, or so we thought.

Some expert practitioners of the con game did not simply ask, but then they were after more substanstial earnings. They entertained their victims before fleecing them, much like cobras swaying out of baskets. They told wonderful hard luck stories. A certain amount of acting was required to accentuate the verbal skills. These were the professionals who relied on their wits to survive. My favourite story, one that I heard many times from hopeful con artistes, revolves around the fate of a sick child in Edinburgh. The gentleman requesting the money is the forlorn paterfamilias. He is trying to raise the rail fare to visit his dying child. Over several years this child not only never aged nor died, she acquired a host of remarkably different fathers.

Conning was the accepted method of acquiring food and drink in the pub. Ray was the expert at this. If he found himself having to buy a drink he would almost die of grief. He would seek a stranger willing to lap up his tales of Old Ireland, ancient Libel Cases, and for lovers of history, the Peninsular.War. If the required stranger failed to materialise, he would fix a cronie with a fierce stare and bellow, "Get up to the bar Now!" The appointed cronie usually obliged. But Ray was by no means a cynical creature, he was angry with God for being a spoil sport, and therefore he partied and partied. God did not appear to like excess, Ray could not get enough of it. He was in fact a very old fashioned person. Born two hundred years too late, he would have been at home in the Covent Garden of Hogarth.

Perhaps the makers of Primitive London understood that Ray was not truly modern, and that is why they did not feature him in their movie. Besides he was nearly thirty, and teenagers were their prey; but we kids knew that we were being exploited and laughed at. So when the interviewer asked, "Do you believe in free love?" the answer was always a resounding "Yes". We knew the rules of their game, and so we played it with gusto. The film makers thought that they were conning us, but as far as we were concerned we were conning them.  

I first learned the phrase "free love" from an essay written by Eleanor Marx in the eighteen eighties. Writing as a socialist she was considering the possible alternatives to Victorian marriage, a type of domestic entrapment for too many men and women. Eleanor was not advocating promiscuity, but in the nineteen sixties and seventies a number of self publicists were. These people were often a generation older than us and had lived through the Second World War, that time of terror and permissiveness. Many worked in the media and influenced public opinion. For this reason the sixties are remembered as the era of Sex, Drugs and Rock n Roll, not as the decade when censorship was curtailed, homosexuality decriminalised, abortion legalised, racism opposed, feminism gained support, the Wilson Government stayed out of the Vietnam War, the voting age was reduced to 18, and capital punishment abolished.

The media guys were decades behind the government, but tried to look young and trendy. We kids despised those people, but had some respect for Wilson, despite his chameleon nature.

The so called sexual revolution shocked the pants off the pure and good. They thought that the devil had taken to the skies over England to bombard the young with evil ideas. This vision was more terrifying to them than the prospect of nuclear winter. A group of evangelical missionaries actually flew to London from Texas to fight this dark invasion. They roamed the streets of London collecting waifs and strays who seemed in need of salvation. The fact that these missionaries were armed to the teeth with cash made them attractive to the teenagers. London kids always know a good thing when they see it, and their ability to hit the jackpot is remarkable. Apparently all the young of the capital were addicted to sex and drugs, and this Texan money, stitched to the Gospel of St. John, was an inducement not to be sneezed at. Salvation suddenly became madly popular now it was seen to be allied to financial gain. The Catholics among the kids were a little puzzled by this, but they too came along for the ride. This crude amalgam of Christianity and capitalism was morally opaque, a neat education in double standards, but worked wonders for the weight of the purse. For a month or two the Pentecostal Churches of Central London became flush with young and eager faces. The Orange Street Mission was particularly popular. It`s Youth Club full to bursting on Sunday evenings. But when the missionaries returned to Texas, overwhelmed by their great success, the size of these congregations rapidly dwindled. They were no longer the flavour of the month. Some young people genuinely got involved with the evangelical movement, but the others were looking elsewhere for spiritual guidance and the benefits attached.

Like many people of an older generation, the Texan missionaries had completely misunderstood the youth of England. They were particularly outraged by what they perceived to be the decline in moral standards. But this apparent rejection of old time sexual taboos was primarily about individual people taking control of their personal lives, and therefore not being dictated to by restrictive custom. These social changes were very much a part of sixties feminism, a fact that is usually ignored. The advent of the Contraceptive Pill may have speeded up the process, but did not instigate it. The fact that certain unscrupulous persons took advantage of the new won freedoms is a profound tragedy, but this must not detract from the genuine benefits that this revolution has brought us. At the time we felt that we were witnessing the advent of an era bright with hope.and promise. The pristine Age of Aquarius. An enlightened age, fairer and kinder than the era we had been born into. That post war period when homosexuals were jailed, or chemically castrated; unmarried mothers treated like dirt; black people vilified. This was the world that the missionaries felt nostalgic for. A world superficially good and moral, but with all the awkward stuff swept under the mat. But this was the world that had hurt many of us during childhood, and therefore we were glad to be rid of it. One little story will explain why I hated the post war era. Having been born into unconventional families, my school friend Myrtle and I were fair game to the self righteous. A neighbour attempted to throw a pot of urine over us as we played outside her house. We were about five years old at the time. This neighbour believed that she was on the side of the angels, a guardian of public morality.

This woman had already wrought havoc in my family. When my father returned from the war in the summer of 1946 she informed him that I was not his son but the offsprng of an actor.

 "Look George, his eyes are blue, he was born two months too late".

She had stopped him on the street while he played with me on my tricycle.

He dragged me into our house, threw me across the front room then slammed the door shut. I crashed head first into the dinning table. He then attacked my mother in the kitchen. Tipped the hot dinner over her. Punched and slapped her. Swore he would kill her. Further violence was halted by my grandmother. She had been visiting our next door neighbour and was alerted by the shouting. She was a strong woman in her mid fifties, a political activist who had been widowed young with three children to support. George was no match for her. She promptly sent him packing, back to his mother.

"Don`t you come back here for two weeks!" She demanded.

George did not argue. He left straight away. He stayed with his mother until the storm had passed. But from that day on he burned with resentment. He loathed being put in his place by a strong brave woman. He also felt in his bones that he was not my father, and tried from that time on to mould me in his image. But my talents are different from his, and it took him until the last months of his life to accept this fact.

"I do enjoy the articles you write for the magazine", he whispered. And you are a good speaker at the meetings, better than me. Perhaps you should have gone on the stage".

I did not know how to reply. I just stared down at his hospital bed and mumbled some words of thanks. He had never encouraged my writing, and was hostile to my interest in acting. He had wanted me to be an office bod, just like him.

Myrtle`s family was more obviously strange and exotic. Her father shared his home with wife and mistress, a brood of six children, and an ugly mongrel bitch with orange hair, the mother of several pups. Only one of the children was male, a spotty faced youth disinclined to do National Service. All five girls grew up to be intelligent respectable women, disinclined to discus their origins.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 16th. - 19th. 2014.