A Lesson in Seeing.

Sumi-e,
That is what my poems aspire to,
A flick of strong colour
On hand made paper
Hinting at delicate cherry blossom
Or a mountain sketched in black and white,
But seeming more real
Than the actual mountain.

Sumi-e paintings are vivid with soul,
They pulsate with life;
The careful music of Monk, or Bach,
Visualised with the swish of an ink laden brush
By a solitary master
In a quiet house.
Even this robin, frozen in time,
Seems about to chirrup and hop.
I touch the picture to seek his heart
Beating firmly beneath the surface.

I put away my book of instructions.
My hand grows tense when I hold a brush.
It would take me decades to paint like this,
And to be honest I do not have the patience.
Things that seem effortless, as easy as breathing,
Take half a lifetime to achieve,
But at least I have my palette of words,
Thin lines sketched swiftly on scraps of paper.
With these I can perhaps begin
To tell a meaningful story.

Sumi-e landscapes vivid with soul,
That is what my poems aspire to.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
November 16th. 2018. - September 22nd. - 23rd. - 29th. 2019.

The Base of Meguro, Shimo - Meguro. Illustration for October on my Japanese Calendar.

Seen from a distance
Mount Fuji seems tiny,
Smaller than the lone man
Climbing the path
That skirts the wide base of the heights of Meguro
Soaring sheer and absolute in the white morning light.
He carries a straight stick across his shoulders,
The weight of the bundle that hangs from the stick
Seems to unnerve him,
To pull him backwards,
But his gaze is fixed on the climb before him,
He concentrates with the ferocity of an old Zen Master.

Other folk are trudging a different pathway,
Some to - some from the small thatched dwellings
Huddled tightly together
As though they are desperate to keep safe and warm.
This perhaps is a mild day in early October,
But winter storms are now not far away,
And the people walking the pathway near to the village
Wear thicker coats than were usual a month or two back.
But the lone man climbing the steep mountain track
Is dressed in a simple indigo shirt
As though it were still the high days of summer.

The weight of the bundle is pulling him backwards,
But he resists the pull and struggles to climb
The path to the other side of the mountain,
And a clearer view of distant Fuji.
But whether or not he completes his Journey,
And for how many days he trudges the roads,
These things are not for us to decipher
As we carefully study the print in its frame.
The artist has painted one moment in time;
Just a few minutes later then all could be different.
Perhaps the man would be dropping his bundle.
Perhaps he would have walked right out of the scene.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
August 17th. - 26th. - September 16th. 2019.
Note. When Hokusai made this print Meguro appears to have been very rural, now it is more or less a part of modern day glass and concrete Tokyo. I thought about referring to this in the poem, but it would have disrupted the sense and broken the mood.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Two Poems about Time. (1) Butterfly. (2) Through t...

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Monday Afternoon by the Welsh Harp. (Rewritten).

Making love in the park was not a good idea
However romantic the notion may have seemed
Before we put the idea into practice.

The cool October breeze was always going to be a problem,
But the squawking of the Moorhens had never been so loud,
And empty glades mysteriously fill with people
When privacy is looked for.

Our quiet tryst by the local reservoir
Felt like a stop off at a concrete lay by,
And the distant clank of cranes on the new estate
Came nowhere close to rivalling Tchaikovsky
However much you talked about Swan Lake.

That nosey Spaniel with the sodden paws
Cut short our interest in the great out doors,
But when we got home to an empty house
We quickly settled down on the settee
To ginger cake and mugs of Earl Grey Tea.
This proved relaxing, completely free of strife 

So unlike our awkward take on country life.

And the old gas fire hissed out a blast of heat
That frazzled naked stomachs, thighs and feet.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
September 9th. - 12th. 2019. - December 12th. 2021.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Villa Sazai. (New Version). Illustration for ...

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