Poetic Movements

The flight departs soon and you are late again; your rushing feet change from flips flops to boots to trainers and flip flops again. It's winter this time and there's always a flight to somewhere to catch; how can you always be so late? In the waiting halls of airports time makes circles a flight is delayed the clock becomes irrelevant. My eyes ache and they are tired; should I close them now I'll miss you running in the room your attention shifting somewhat lost in-between the gates always on the edge of time and unconcerned. 21 Dec. 2022 Athens airport. Photograph: O ver the Alps; 8 Oct. 2022  

That night it rained but the rain made no sound it swayed from sky to earth effortlessly lighter than a breeze. The whisper in the atmosphere ceased as if taught by the rain's doings; You were still holding your breath holding your feelings when the rain stopped and we paused observing the quietness. Nov. 2022, Athens Photograph: rain on Chelsea Bridge, London; 23 Oct. 2022

Home was far it was with the earlier memories and moments long gone; home was the scents and smells now vaguely traced in the atmosphere it was the tastes and touches of the skin survived by the flesh underneath; home was to be basking in the sun with eyes casually closed it was the trust of letting go and letting fall; home was the empty bars post-midnight populated by the smoke of cheap cigars talks and words momentarily tangible, then immaterial; home became a place in-between space just enough and no more. 4 Nov. 2022, Athens Photograph: Kyoto Garden, London; 23 October 2022.

  If you closed your eyes for a second maybe you would see a house as it was over a hundred years ago would feel the street uncomfortably cobbled under your feet sense the sun resting wider on surfaces, including your skin hear children's voices through the top window, but not necessarily happy ones. If you closed your eyes and attempted to conceive the very same place decades and centuries ago; would you feel the same? Would you be the same? Imagining Hyde Park Gate in Virginia Woolf’s childhood time; London, 23 Oct. 2022. Picture: 22 Hyde Park Gate, where Virginia Woolf was born & lived until 1904; photo taken on 23 Oct. 2022.

Στα δάχτυλά σου θύμησες ενός αλλοτινού χειμώνα · το βραδύ γίνετ΄ όνειρο και τ’ όνειρο βροχή. (Εδώ μένεις και ας έρχεσαι απ’ τ’ άστρα τ’ ουρανού.) Ήμουν παιδί όταν σ’ άγγιξα πρώτη φορά σαν ανεμώνα κι η θάλασσα ευθύς βούτηξε στα μάτια σου αλμυρή. Σεπτέμβριος 2022, Σαμοθράκη.

I Your lips had a familiar taste of bitter almond. II In the mirror a wheatish face only reminding of summers past. III We let go in dark waters idle. IV The salt burnt your skin & my heart. V Time repeated itself always late in the afternoon. VI The mountain deluged with light eternal. VII Fires broke out without a reason endlessly. VIII Black cats marched the lanes like a conquering army. IX We were all waiting for something or someone. X A night sky’s traffic busy with stars & airplanes. XI We danced up to the sunrise our bodies suddenly younger. XII Your memoirs were dense & secret. XIII The land still stood across remote & immobile. Summer 2022, Samothraki. Photograph: the moon rising above Saos mountain, one day before the Buck supermoon; 12 July 2022, Samothraki.

Stars kept falling from the sky and sometimes into my arms bringing down with them people's wishes hopes and fears those before kept silent now whispered word for word; but I didn't know how to treat them or what to do with them all so I kept wishing on every star falling their trajectory magnificent and bright as it was would start backwards to  take place pinning them for good shielded from oblivion to the nightsky. Yet stars kept falling downwards solely and I continued looking out and about for them. Observing the Perseid meteor shower; August 2022, Samothraki. Photograph: collage of shots at Kipoi, Samothraki.

We bowed our heads backwards discovering a moon ghostly and incomplete but a moon that, unlike our bodies, didn’t seem reversed. Some clock would soon strike midnight and the one moment we were bending towards gravity the other the sky was being radiant in twilight. I craved the sun and I craved the dreams I’ve been making under the sun. The twilight spread warmer, friendlier and letting go I felt my body fragment into pieces as if all it consisted of had been commanded to depart. I sensed the void of the moon and that void was momentarily the only thing tangible about me. You hushed and as you hushed you screamed and, judgements reserved, we stayed there immaterial and damaged for a while. Just before the rain came my pieces crawled back and reconstituted in a familiar shape that was no longer I. You turned and looked at me as the first drops landed on our skin but I am quite certain, you couldn’t see. ...

The sun now bore the scent of a summer ahead gentle and in its arrival even nostalgic; gazing from the balcony, you asked: How much longer for the nearest sore? Your question populated the atmosphere and our futures had already departed. 31 May 2022, Athens. Photo: eyes on Samothraki; 02.05.2022

Saints walked up to your door their hands hallow with light. They have been ignoring prayers and forgetting ways, but tonight the atmosphere felt of lavender and sage . On your doorstep saints paused and searched for the direction of the light; a light that from their hands had now faded. Darkness instead ruptured through the night so moving with it slowly their hands performed a silent dance. From West elusive shadows of their movements deluded the sun back up and the sun rotated from there to East for the first ever time. Their senses immersed saints tasted the illumination; in its uncanniness irresistibly bittersweet. The night now smelt more powerfully of lavender and sage enough so for those saintless to feel safe. ... I had never seen more unholy saints or a faster blooming sage. May 2022, Athens. Photo: Mediterranean garden detail; SNFCC, 7 May 2022.  

  The moon full melt into flames and  then it was hollow. 16 May 2022.

We’ve been made of salt & the dance of the waves. We’ve been fed by the fire’s prose under a transparent sky. We’ve seen pastoral lands rising from the vision of a simple life. How can I possibly write about the affections of the atmosphere? I’ve bitten my lips twice for the metallic taste of my mind dipp ing into the clouds. Exposed to air & sun our forgiven frustrations now climb mountains steep. I’ve been looking with a child’s eyes the island devouring the horizon afar. There are things we do things that keep us on foam above; things for the quality of life.   April-May 2022, Samothraki.

I. Chess games we played in sight plain. II. Queens and Kings in stone built now towards a tantric sleep . III. Movements unforeseen on your fingertips beneath. IV. Inside your dreams there’s been some long-awaited win. V. Thoughts; they shush and they shroud. VI. In transcendence souls reach out aloud. VII. Easter scents – the belated awakening of spring woven as such to be. April 2022, Athens.

  You came as quick as the thunder and were gone as quiet as the last rain before spring. What will remain of us two when the moon becomes greater than the earth? (So many questions to ask you and I equally fear them all.) March 2022, Athens. Photograph: lunar urban phases; April 2022, Athens.

I. Too late, too little too little, too much too much, too fast too fast, too late. II. Uncertain & unseen unseen & unmet unmet & unresolved unresolved & uncertain. III. Fearful, bashful bashful, harmful harmful but flawless flawless, fearless. IV. Approximate words twice spoken. V. Too late uncertain & fearless. March 2022, Athens.

  Sleepy silence in your eyes dives. Stormy nights; suburban dreams in Dundee arise. Unfinished words your mouth slip hovering above a river deep. A rm s through a bed sea for you to reach the night stands naked and remains unseen . February 2022, Athens. Photograph: view of Tay Road Bridge from V&A Dundee; 24 March 2019.

In this quietness the greater than the city’s void your soul exhales. Cold moon cold breadth the atmosphere is crisp & you are asking for white mornings. So unsettled your being is you feel the storm thundering within you. Resounding silence eerie night a morning standing still away from us. January 2022, Athens. Photograph: February 2021, Athens.