On My Wall Hangs a Chinese Panel.

It is a strange country they live in,
Ivory black, with a white moon sinking
Below the shoreline of a gilded island.

And yet these two girls are entirely visible,
Not lost in the depths of their polished black
homeland
That reflects my gaze like an unforgiving
                                                        mirror.
These two girls seem to illuminate themselves
As though from an inner, innate brightness,
Like lauded film stars on a sunlit beach;

Except, this is not somewhere on the French
                                                            Rivera
 At the height of the hot line, photo call season,
Champagne corks popping, photographers barging
through starstruck holyday crowds.
It is Imperial China, the date indecipherable,
The Dynasty unknown, the culture refined,
The girls, in Court Dress, demure, still as the Buddha;
Two butterflies balanced on the edge of time;

Or is it timelessness, I cannot really tell,
Because the sky, the sea, the land do not
                                                         exist
In a format that is realistic and clearly logical
To my irreverent western gaze.

A framed wooden panel painted black
Represents the land, the sky, the sea
In which the gilded island floats
Above the heads of the delicate girls;

And below their feet, a second moon rises,
                                for no apparent reason.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 18th. - 28th. 2017. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Black Rain. (Revised)

Trevor J Potter's Art: Black Rain. (Revised): Tonight the rain is constant, The sky, Black as a hangman`s mask, Presses down hard Upon our earth bound lives, Compressing taut veins...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Dark Transfiguration. (Revised.) (2) Fish Bowl...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Dark Transfiguration. (Revised.) (2) Fish Bowl...:                 1. Dark Transfiguration.     ( A dream recalled.) The feast of the Dormition A threnody of weeping Solemn as winter ...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Dark Transfiguration. (...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Dark Transfiguration. (...: Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) Dark Transfiguration. (New Version.) (2) Fish ... :                 1. Dark Transfiguration.     ( A dream ...

(1) Blue and White Temple Vase. (2) An 18th. Century Inscription...

                   1.

Blue and White Temple Vase.


Instantly created by a sleight of hand
Two cobalt blue dragons dart through
                                      a white ocean
alive with strange creatures that writhe
                                                 wispily
at the very moment a furnace clicked on
To kick start time.


And these cobalt blue dragons swim
                                   without knowledge
in the milk white ocean that is their home,
and always has been although newly born,
This being the Day of Creation.


And all life in the universe is sparked by
                                           these dragons
although they do nothing but chase
                                after each other
without breathing or moving
on the glittering glazed surface
Of a vase in the British Museum.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 20th. - 21st. 2017.

------------------------------------------

                    2.

An 18th. Century Inscription Incised into the Base of a Ru Dish.


Inside the palace there are many dishes,
but bowls are hard to find.

Small objects are easy to care for,
but large objects are often dropped and broken.

The emperor in his silks and brocade
must duck and weave to avoid the blade,

but his kitchen porter hauling the swill
may outlast the dynasty.

This small Ru dish is a thousand years old,
but the bowls have all been broken.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 20th. 2017.

In the dark of Trump and Brexit I think the best I can do is explore my internationalism in my art with greater intensity and truthfulness, and hope to caste some light by doing so.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Beneath the Ice. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Beneath the Ice. (Revised).: A small hole in a frozen pond. The moon shining through still water. Two golden carp chasing a circle, Piscine adolescents, enthralled w...

Beneath the Ice. (Revised Version).

A small hole in a frozen mirror.
The moon shining through still water.
Two golden carp chasing a circle,
Piscine adolescents, enthralled with each other,
Afraid to turn on a pivot and meet.

According to ancient Buddhist literature,
Children seek out parents before conception
Whilst they wait in the shadows, at rest between lives.

The Ancients took such knowledge for granted,
Science to them was just pulleys and wheels
And hammers to break the ice in mid winter.

Love, on the other hand, is akin to religion,
An instinct more powerful than logical thinking,
A moment of empathy that can create a new world.

Meantime I stand alone in this midnight garden
Picturing, for some reason, a sacred lotus
Rising to the surface of an Indian lake, then
Too quickly falling away.

The pond in this garden is shining like metal.
No lotus could grace the cold misty surface.
Last night a bird fell like a stone,
Feathers locked in shards of ice.

A small dark hole in a frozen mirror.
Impassive moon glinting through still water.
Two golden carp chasing a circle
Because only they exist in their world..


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 16th. - 17th. - 18th. 2017.
October 10th. - 18th. 2017.
April 17th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Beatrice & Benedick, Premonition of a Winter Weddi...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Beatrice & Benedick, Premonition of a Winter Weddi...: Lady disdain Under the rim of your hat your eyes sparkled Reminiscent of dancing fireflies. You had not heard a single word of the serm...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) In the British Museum.(Revised) (2) The Stone...

Trevor J Potter's Art: (1) In the British Museum.(Revised) (2) The Stone...:                         1     In the British Museum. Blue and white ceramics, Small moments of absolute quietness In a room packed wi...

Waiting for Inspiration.

Waking on the wrong side of the mirror, lost
for words,
whole paragraphs dropping from my bedside
                                                         note pads
like dead flies,
their wings deceitfully swaddled by the spider
in a cocoon of lies;
I wave my pen at the fading stars
and wait for inspiration to float down,
a smoke stunned moth descending from the light,
a mosquito drilling deep inside my ear.

Perhaps tonight a new poem will come to life,
transferred on silent wings out of the dark
into my dog tired mind.
A message from the right side of the mirror
that I must transcribe quickly on my pad
before the words take flight out of my head.

Suddenly the mirror cracks and I fall through
a jagged chasm into the Ikea world
that I customarily inhabit.
"Oh well, another weird distorted dream",
I mutter to myself as I lie flat
watching the morning sunlight pink the ceiling.

I notice high up in a dusty corner
a Daddy Longlegs tip toeing upside down
ill at ease, toward her destination
in some small crack or fissure out of sight.
Perhaps last night that insect crossed my bed,
stepped lightly on my eyelids while I slept,
not waking me, but tap tapping through my brain
messages from a place I do not know.

I struggle cursing out of bed.
Pick up my mug of water, take a gulp,
then notice scattered on the bedroom floor
rough notes for this poem.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 12th. - 14th. 2017.
Our dreams and waking world interact more closely than we think.

Chinese Box.(Two Poems).

      Chinese Box. No.1.


No sun. No moon.
A temple carved from soft wood.
Two white herons on the water.
Black sky. Black stream.


                    *

      Chinese Box No.2.


Like an old monk praying
The branches of this cherry tree,
So delicately crafted by knife
                               and chisel,
Bend over the black expanse
                                of the lake
In an awkward gesture of adoration.


Meanwhile a pas de deux of
                               white herons
Poised mid hunt on the polished
                                        water
Seems to imply that even here,
In this monochrome miniature
Of a Chinese garden,
That the raw edge of life still stabs
                                   and butchers
                        Beneath the artifice
                            of the ebony lake.


The cherry tree is gnarled and ancient
 But will never lose a single blossom.


The island temple is shaped like a lantern
But has never shone a ray of light.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 9th. - 10th. - October 8th. 2017.
April 18th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Pas de Deux. (New Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Pas de Deux. (New Version).: Gentle - soft - voice. Swans on the wing under the moon. I put down the receiver, turn off the light, set the alarm for 7am. Waitin...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Venus Ablaze in the January Sky. (New Version)

Trevor J Potter's Art: Venus Ablaze in the January Sky. (New Version): High over my suburban garden Venus turns on her white light of love to interrogate the darkness that almost obscures her less than bri...

Venus Ablaze in the January Sky. (New Version)

High over my suburban garden
Venus turns on her white light
of love
to interrogate the darkness
that almost obscures her less than
brilliant companion,
the fecund but murderous Mars,
Snug in her charms, but addicted
to war,
& tonight, lacking her pristine charisma,
waiting unnerved to be nudged into view
from under the vigilant scimitar
of the moon.

And I wonder if this rare, and fleeting
moment,
is also plainly visible to you,
that is, if adhering to your grandmother`s
custom,
the bedroom curtains have been left
tied open
as you lie, wide awake in your single bed,
your map of the stars slid flat beneath the pillow,
the Milky Way tap dancing in your eyes.

I bought your aunt the caravan that you
live in
a full twelve months ago
when the spiky wind was tearing through
the hedgerows
and oaks were split in two;
and yet I have not trudged the rutted
track ways
that bypass the pond and farmyard to your door
once in those twelve long months,
the book on Botticelli that I bought you
wrapped safely in gilt paper.

I am too much of the city man
to dwell far out of town
for more than one full week,
and yet tonight although all England sleeps
dog tired and dark between us,
the scimitar moon cuts cloth above our heads
in equal measure,
and glinting through a pin prick in crushed silk
Venus scintillates both our hearts with light.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 3rd. - 5th. - 6th. 2017.

Tonight, 4th. January, Venus was even more clearly visible over London, but Mars was relatively pale and indistinct. The crescent Moon was searingly bright.

An Afternoon in January, Harrow Weald Bus Station. (New Version).

That neat old man toddling home,
his bags bulging with tins of soup,
is closer to eternity than he cares to ponder,
his eyes fixed on the uneven pavement.

The school kids are blind to his predicament,
they rush by in swarms, like bees or locusts.
They bicker around a fleeting attraction,
a dead cat festering in a box.

A child pokes the cat with a plastic sword,
but does not understand what he is poking.
His mother drags him away by the sleeve,
then calls the police on her mobile phone.

A white sky slowly turning crimson.
The High Street packed with vans and lorries.
The schoolkids, bunched in rowdy covens,
fight like Amazons to board a bus.

The old man quietly turns a corner
unperturbed by wrangles and riots.
He is more concerned with getting his supper
than reading his name in the local papers.

A police car backing onto the pavement
momentarily hijacks my attention.
When the car speeds off with the cat on board
the old man has stepped right out of the picture.

The scent of snow upon the wind
hints at a colder day tomorrow. -
Far above the frosty rooftops
floats a pale white moon.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
Poem sketched, January 22nd. - 23rd. 2016.
January 1st. 2017. - August 7th. 2017.