The Wave. The Month of February. (New Re-written Version).

We forget the boats
Barely buoyant in a trough of raw sea.
The giant claw of water poised above them
Dominates this blue world
Almost completely.

Still as a Buddha,
Mount Fuji,
(an afterthought of the artist
to Western eyes,
but really the calm heart of the painting),
Sanctifies the indefinite grey horizon
With its quiet perfection,
An improbable image of repose
In the midst of tumult and chaos.

We forget the boats.
The wave overpowers our traumatised senses
Like a dream of terror
Dredged from the depths of our darkest fears.
But look again,
The thirty fishermen keep to their tasks.
Their catch was good and must be got to shore.
They firmly pull on pliant oars.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 12th. - 15th. 2019.
Re-written December 5th. 2019.

Image for the month of February on my Japanese Calendar.

The Mountain Weeps. Month of January.

Blue moon with white waves;
The mountain pool glitters and swirls.

From on high drops the waterfall,
Tears from the moon shaped pool
White in sunlight,
Blue in shadow,
Dropping to the lower pool,
Blue moon with white waves.

Three people watch the water fall,
They watch in silence
Then turn away,
Their kettle steams on the green verge.

Blue moon with white waves.
Raw tears cut through ancient stone.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
January 1st. 2019.

Image for the month of January by Hokusai on my Japanese Calendar.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Fernweh. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Fernweh. (Revised).: I have never yet found my true home, I have always only been                                        "on Location", A displaced...

Fernweh. (New Ending).

I have never yet found my true home,
I have always only been
                                       "on Location",
A displaced person searching for my
                                           Soul Land
Far from the melancholy shores of
                                          England,
Or the misty time soaked forests of
                                          Fermanagh,
The frozen hilltops of far Nova Scotia.


The place I seek? Who can help me find it?
Describe it?
                    Define it?
A place so far back in time no modern
                                                 vehicle,
No smart Bugatti, no supercharged white
                                                 van,
Could speed me there along an autobahn.
 

Perhaps the home I seek does not exist,
A place where politicians are mere rumours,
A place where race and religion do not
                                                          matter
And the rich cannot afford the entrance fee.
Perhaps all that I can do is grieve like
                                                    Cinderella
Among the ashes of forsaken dreams.


Maybe I seek the Land of Lost Content,
The land before our mama ate the apple.
The land that was before I learned to walk
And still lay sleeping in my plastic cradle.
.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 28th. - 30th. 2018. - January 7th. 2019.
January 21st. 2020.

Bolero.

Invoking the bull
The dancer becomes the bull as she dances
And yet remains entirely woman
Even though the bull
Has entered every nerve,
Entered every muscle
Of her rocking
           crouching
                         body
As she slowly gives new life, new life to the
                                                                 bull,
The raw dark spirit of her fearlessness,
The fearlessness of the maddened bull
Facing the cape and the sword.

The matador is not transformed by the dance,
He is merely swaying to the beat of the drum,
Empowered to kill     what he cannot become.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
December 25th. - 26th. 2018.

Written after watching a ballet danced to Ravel`s Bolero.

The Puppeteer.(Revised).

These puppets make me doubt my own true past.
They write the songs that I discreetly wrote.
They dance the dances I adroitly danced.
These puppets try to make me disappear,
Hide me behind thick sheets, or plywood walls.
They lie out loud about who pulls their strings,
Pretending they are not the puppets that they are,
Pretending that my words are truly theirs.
But at night when I shut out the wintry moon
With curtains that my mother brought from China,
I pack these puppets into cardboard boxes,
And fold their theatre underneath my bed.
I can now sleep like a child, safe in my certainties,
And not be fooled by what the world believes.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 
December 28th. 2018.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Winter Dreaming.(Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Winter Dreaming.(Revised).: Listening for the Firebird on the shortest day of the year, hoping that summer will come quickly. This was the first ballet that I danc...