Poetic Movements

The moon plays with the shadows of the caves hiding and emerging once from the mountain’s peak and once from the dense clouds; it also plays with me. The rain falls liquid and malleable, like the skies it comes from; it carries itself especially forcefully through the island’s irregular openings; the drops are heavier when touched and they stay. The crows have already moved – together but in distance – to find shelter, as the rushed waves wash ashore killed dolphins. I touch the drops to hold onto something or to wash off the horror. The horizon is closer than most nights and I cannot feel the land anymore, nor do I want to. The moon, fuller than ever, shows and goes; until the church bells ring the first hour of the morning. April – May 2026, Samothraki.

  A shy rain drizzles across the sea almost involuntary certainly insecure. All these empty moments their quietness and the silent awaiting, an unvoiced hope that walks the earth in the morning and fades in the depths of the moon at night, a light that sleeps and wakes wakes and sleeps illuminating nothing at all. Yes, even the light can wither without care without a word or with just saying empty, muted words. The rain drops like gold liquid light trapped in particles unsurfacing an awaiting permanently silenced; an unconcluded lasting. February 2026, Athens. Photograph: Corfu, January 2025.

  My demons sleep quietly under the full moon now, but other nights they stalk and howl like the ghost wolves of Bucharest. The large boulevards are as deserted as many their lights are, and of all the nights tonight with all the remaining Christmas decorations and lit up skylines, it feels the darkest of all. Yes, the city hosts its strangers and the youngest the children the more the milk the greater the need to undo and become again. Far from the shiny boulevards, the sideways remain true to their darkness not faking any kind of virtue not looking for temporary saviours. The animals human and other lick each other's wounds and carry on the hunt of the night before it's too late for apologies and too early for excuses. For every battle lost a soul carrier takes over, becoming and rebecoming never undone never out of opportunities, the last hope of the damning and the damned. The wolves howl tonight, the c...

  You always sleep breathing peacefully in your bed (ever since). The house smells like vanilla and some lavender and you are always sleeping peacefully in your bed (for over a decade now). You will always sleep no matter the flowers in the house no matter the hours that pass. November 2025, Piraeus.

  The weather came in showers like hours pass in tandem; horizons threw on us gale. I can't imagine a world full of sunshine, said the lonely soil; and opened its hugs to the skies. The windows licked the drops before the wind could carry them away; before they would turn into salt a freezing sensation of ice. The storm had only started; and ducks fled the lake like children flee a war. The river only tried to stand for a second or a moment; the river tried to say it was soon going to go away. October 2023, Athens & October 2025, Lesvos Photographs: contemporary (above) & ancient (below) port of Mytilene, Lesvos, October 2025.

  I held the summer in my hands the perfect seashell delicate & brighter than the sun the wind rolled the sea outwards wild birds circled the mountain above and pebbles danced aimlessly in the air for a second my fingertips touched the sky and then the moment was gone; so I stood half-hidden & half-showing in the navel of the earth waiting (and when a star fell entangled in my hair I knew this was also the centre of the galaxy). September 2025, Kipoi – Samothraki

  I. The light so eternal shapes you in the world. II. You float bluer than any dream. III. I hold you on the surface before you slip from me away and beneath. IV. The morning star fades in the bergamot atmosphere. V. I long for dreams asleep and awake and always. VI. Night flights above us and I envy their promises, each and every single one of them. VII. Cricket songs as the night deepens first and foremost in my heart. VIII. Night flights now mistaken for rushing stars. IX. Rushed smokes in-between card turns quiet games underneath a quieter sky. X. You thrive in the light of the dashing dawn. (“You always look so cool”, Daisy Buchanan would have said instead.) XI. A taste of salt and sunscreen memories elsewhere short-lived. XII. The sun burns now and suddenly the mind more than the skin. XIII. The summer deepens; deeper than its nights deeper than the sea. XIV. The sun die...

  As the eastern sky fills with explosions and smoke I try to reach you, my dear friend, through interrupted phone lines and networks cut off, at times unsuccessfully. I try to mark your last known location on the map measure its distance from the latest bombings and conclude that you are far from this all, far enough for me to pretend I sleep at nights. The weather warms up fast and in my uneasy sleep I dream about planes crashing and bombs hiding underneath our feet. I wake up upset in the middle of the quietest night; Iran is 30 minutes ahead of Athens summer time, still no word from you. June 2025, Athens. Picture: Cloud formations above Ch ó ra, Samothraki; May 2025.