Red Fuji. (New Revised Version).

July, month of the sun god.
He opens the doors of his furnace
To scorch our faces
And turn the green land ochre.

I take the calendar off the kitchen wall
To study a startling image of Mount Fuji,
An icon of power that burns my retina
As I stare into the fierceness, the searing slopes
Of melted rocks streaked with jagged shards
Of wounds and scars gouged by white hot lava.
A fiery cone, old as the earth is old,
That dominates a placid summer sky
Patterned with fleecy clouds.

I sense that it is evening, although the sky is blue
And the transient clouds frail as new born lambs
Lost in their wide new world.
Nothing in this painting is plain or simple.
It is the evening sun that turns the mountain fiery,
And the lava streams are merely gullies of snow
Left over from the freezing winter days,
But the illusion of a mountain made of fire
Is the terse reality of the artist`s vision.

There are no people portrayed in this painting,
No wise observers of the powers of nature,
No tired old travellers lugging heavy loads
From one part of the island to another.
If there was just one merchant trudging through the heat
Then perhaps this vision would cease to terrify,
But we, who live outside the time and space
That the artist Hokusai inhabited
Are left alone to imagine what he thought
When he first prepared the printing blocks and paper.

July, month of the sun god;
The whole world is on fire,
Or so it seems.
And we look on afraid       lost        and without hope.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 11th. - 12th. _ June 12th. - 14th. 2019.
Illustration for the month of July in my Japanese Calendar.

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Survivors. (Revised).

Trevor J Potter's Art: The Survivors. (Revised).: The whistling of the kettle seems to indicate That this lonely house is in fact my home Not just a rickety, ramshackle concrete shell Pe...

A Lass Unparalleled.

You walked in through the door and took over my life.
One moment I was an individualist without a care or a sous,
The next I had a partner for life.
                                                    I did not try to impress you,
I sat talking to your mother about the news and the weather
While she smoked a cigarette and ate my chocolate mousse,
But your silence told more stories than any word she spoke,
And your eyes never looked away from me.
                                                    That night we slept together,
Our limbs intertwined, your head lolling on my shoulder,
While the traitor clock ticked away the hours,
                                                              And a frosty moon
                                                Shimmered through the window.
                                Your mother fretted in her lonesome room,
She sought to be with me, but it was you who took me over,
With the absolute integrity of your love.
                                                You are a lass unparalleled, and I
Am honoured by your quiet and thoughtful presence.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 5th. 2019. 

The Survivors. (Revised).

The whistling of the kettle seems to indicate
That this lonely house is in fact my home
Not just a rickety, ramshackle concrete shell
Peopled by silent ghosts.

To counteract my loneliness I occupy my days
Contemplating images that my imagination creates
Deep inside the flick house that is my brain.
Nothing new materialises from my looking,

Every flickering image is just a memory
Viewed in such a way that it seems an original,
A polished fragment of my wishful thinking.
The more that I remember the sadder I become.

But it is not the dead folk that make me sad and wistful,
Their days are done, today is not their country,
They would be strangers in this lonely villa
That once they bought on spec, restored and furnished,

And quickly made their own.
It is the living folk that now I mourn, despair of,
Those who think that history is humbug,
Who would wreck my home to build a block of flats.

I belong here. I am a pensioner but I`m not selling.
My past cannot be pawned to bounty hunters.
This husk of a house is the story of who I am
Writ into wood and concrete with sorrow and with love.

The whistling of the kettle puts me at my ease.
I shall sit in my rocking chair and drink a cup of tea.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
June 3rd. - 7th. - 8th. 2019.
I was thinking of D Day Veterans when I revised this poem. Too often they are not treated with due respect by local councils and the state, but are fussed over by the media and politicians when a significant anniversary comes around.

Trevor J Potter's Art: Breaking the Code. (Revised Version).

Trevor J Potter's Art: Breaking the Code. (Revised Version).: She sat next to me like a cat on a cushion purring, her shoulder, touching mine, slightly stooped as she looked away, far, far away, ...

The Gift of Music. (Completed Version).

I played the recorder,
People laughed,
They said the electric plank was the only thing,
Rock n Roll would dominate the future.
But the recorder is a beautiful instrument,
A pipe that rings like dulcet bells
Softly echoing through ancient hallways,
Or Skylarks and Swallows on Midsummers Eve
Greeting the sun with mellifluous voices
From the shelter of my garden.

When I found I loved you
I gave you my recorder,
It lay in your hands more easily than in mine,
And your blue eyes laughed when you began to blow,
Shape in the air your elegant dances.
Being a Gypsy you are a gifted player.
The whole house filled with the scent of roses,
The deep south sweetness of new picked oranges,
The rumpus of children in their room upstairs,
Your music is ancient and wild and delightful.

At night in my arms the silence claims you,
But deep in the silence I hear your songs,

Songs without words that would have slept in the shadows
If I had not given to you my prized recorder.

And Rock n Roll? It is an old mans thing.
It seems so distant from who we are.


Trevor John Karsavin Potter.
May 28th. 2019. 

Trevor J Potter's Art: Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 - 3 & 4. Illustratio...

Trevor J Potter's Art: Under the Bridge, Poems 1 - 2 - 3 & 4. Illustratio...:       Under the Bridge, Poem 1. Under the curved bow of this bridge The river, a placid mirror Reflecting nothing. The fisherman, cas...