Poetic Movements

  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.

Taste in the atmosphere across all highway lanes is captured in the first sense of a dizzying warmth and watching twice before you cross the road now. Mountain peaks circle the eyes but my thought has already dived in the sea or the river or inside an afternoon even warmer than this one. The senses have developed different signposts for each other thing and I've been spending my time lately tracking down disagreements; without resolutions. Today the sun smelled like curry and there was so much joy like that time when it was close to Easter and at the heart of Spring and the only reminder of those was the day becoming longer and the coffee was not getting cold so quickly anymore, neither were your hands. We sat by the river bridge eating fries dipped in curry sauce fighting seagulls staring at the land across.    April 2021, Athens. Photograph: stream of Ouse, Rodmell, East Sussex; June 2017.

Oatcakes from Arran, butter & jam, the cafetiere standing – ground coffee in it –  waiting for the water to boil. School children are always up and out on the streets earlier. Today's news a flash of speculation and analysis dipped in the local accent. Some music on some new British hit from the charts. I forget to wonder when British radio became so self-absorbed. A gale from the west is expected later in the day, minor flooding warnings on - but not for here. The pound is trending lower again. So does the next song on. There has been a scarcity of fruit lately, which I am reminded of as I open the fridge. Perhaps if I make it to the grocer’s before work, I will be luckier…  [In the months to come, more than anything, I will miss these mornings; the hazy eyes the heavy steps outdoors the muscles, still stiff, waking up only as you walk the accidental coffee drops here and there on clothing the passers-by exchanging quick glances and soft smiles; the day launching itself u...

  It’s November again the windows cold on both their ends the fireworks cruelly bright in the dark night your hands absent. Steps cross cobbled streets in a hurry leaving behind nothing but the sound of their echo the same echo that puts you to sleep or that wakes you up in the early morning hours as a handful only of cars can be seen passing by the bridge and suddenly you wonder what the river hides beneath th at bridge as dreams slowly take over again. Phone calls arrive from Georgia never communicating good or at least comforting news and in response you always say you will go for a walk in the woods but you never do. The limited presence of sunlight is welcome because this means you can spend more time observing the lights on the bridge the ones standing and the ones moving from afar without thinking. There’s something so distasteful about Novembers the way they signal endings without really ever delivering one unce...

Ironically what I miss the most is the early sunrise the constant presence of the light across the horizon the Scottish land’s continuous restlessness. Breathtaking that’s what it was to stare at an always present sun; and exhausting too. Thousand miles far I still feel the tiredness of my eyes as they devoured a never-ending awakening. 17 April 2020, Athens. Photograph: shadows & window view; 12 March 2017, Dundee.

Αναμεταξύ τηλεδιασκέψεων στο Zoom και groupwork στο Teams (κάποια από τις επόμενες μέρες θα αφιερώσω ένα ημερολόγιο σε αυτά), βρίσκω τον χρόνο να αναλογιστώ τα μέρη που άφησα βιαστικά πίσω...  Επιστρέφω νοητικά στο Dundee, και στέκομαι πάλι στο παράθυρο του τρίτου ορόφου της 26 Forest Park road αγναντεύοντας τα φώτα από τις σκαλωσιές στο λιμάνι. Αν και μετά το 2016-2017 δεν έμεινα ξανά στο κέντρο του Dundee, και παρόλο που εκείνη τη χρονιά τη χαρακτήρισαν αρρώστιες και απώλειες, θυμάμαι την πόλη με νοσταλγία. Κυρίως τα ξημερώματα της άνοιξης, όταν η μέρα μεγάλωνε και το φως ανέτειλε από τις 5πμ· και αργότερα το καλοκαίρι σταδιακά από τις 4πμ έως ότου να σταματήσει να δύει ολοκληρωτικά, και αντ' αυτού να σκαλώνει στις άκρες του ορίζοντα σα λυκόφως. Από εκείνα τα ξημερώματα, θυμάμαι να αντικρίζω από το παράθυρο  του τρίτου ορόφου της 26 Forest Park road - που βρισκόταν σχεδόν στους πρόποδες του λόφου του Αστεροσκοπείου (Mills Observatory στην φωτογραφία επάνω, 20.06.17) ...

A house loves to have smiles to show to the world for a house full of smiles is a house full of light. Smiles are placed across space be it large                      & labyrinthine or small              & contained on walls on tables even on the floors; smiles are shaped once an instant brightening a face enough for them to be infinite. Smiles are framed in colour or in black & white to welcome you inside or wish you farewell; smiles are a promise you’ ll see a face again. Maybe that’s why every time I s pot a frame – peeking through windows, passing by open doors – I miss your smile. February 2020, St Andrews. Photograph: windows at quartier Madou, Brussels; 23 Oct. 2019.

I. The weather came in showers and as hours pass in tandem horizons threw on us gale. I can't imagine a world full of sunshine said the lonely soil and opened up to the skies. The windows licked the drops before the wind would steal them; their surface l usting for salt t he freezing sensation on ice. The storm had only started and ducks fled the lake like children should flee war. The river tried to stand for a second or a moment; the river tried to say it was soon going to go away. II. I held your hands in mine and watched their wrinkled lines; your breath was like a cigar’s smoke s ome winter back in the chalet. Snow brewed from us above a moonlit avalanche to strike ; I hadn’t seen you in a while so I kept holding your hands in mine. St Andrews, February 2020. Photograph: post storm Ciara; Lade Braes, St Andrews, 9 February 2020.

The store is gone but you still think you can walk past its door. The white aisles create a void but you almost touch what was your milk of choice. Cities raise a joy in front of the eyes only to abruptly dematerialise. Suddenly you are haunted by an eventide that never found the time to thrive. Visiting the empty market people come & go their bags laden. What else was to expect? – places do not just ebb. Children rush from us beyond riding on the menacing dragon; made of stone & standing still in the ghosted streets of D è . January 2020, Dundee. Photograph: dragons in Dundee; 1 February 2020.

Your hands on the pelvis your hands on the ground body to earth. Green shades of trees timed out as the solitary ways of the water come in. Sinking feeling; crossed the bridge twice today; from East heading Eastern. Longitude falling over like the tide the tide that falls on shore sand and salt seaweed and jasmine. The pelvis rises over bridges and above seas dropping the essence of the ocean step by step; until it’s exhausted, consumed, extinct. Footprints arriving at no terminal; they’re always arriving_ Spring 2019, Scotland. Photograph: ocean, St Andrews; 20 April 2019.

I like airports the way others like parks and gardens. I like the hastiness of baggage dropping and gate rushing; passing by all these other destinations you are not boarding to; hurried coffees – always; phone calls and last moment device charges; running into familiar faces – though much less than always; taking clothes on and off and on and off – one moment it’s hot, the second your cross the gate it’s cold again; I like crossing – country to country time to time soil to air. And I like watching the dawn at a midnight take-off somewhere afar already happening another day hanging above arriving through the air. Touchdowns – another universe few hours of flight away and everything starts anew; the day the plans the directions the resolutions carried heavy within just as the luggage outside all yours all repeated all landed now. 27 – 28 May 2019, Edinburgh to Athens. Photo: Edinburgh airport airfield, 27 ...

Drafted across the boards sketches that lean towards the room for a room they form themselves. The remnants of a class now tested and archived maybe already forgotten set aside for others instead to be. My fingers move along the stiffness of the rectangles their interior soft curves the notes, half present half brushed off, accompanying the design. What will these children come to be? And what will fade away less timely; their memory or the sketches of the Kabyle house now seemingly stretching deeper in the boards? 20 May 2019, St Andrews, Arts Building. Photo: lines of the V&A, Dundee; 10 May 2019.

Παράθυρο στην ανατολή περαστικές σκιές νερό και σχήμα.    Σταγόνες στο γυαλί    σκέψεις που πετούν    από δω    κι ως εκεί που φτάνει η ματιά στο ποτάμι    σκέψεις μπουρίνια.       Σου μιλώ μες στο ποτάμι       λέξεις άηχες       που βουλιάζουν       αργά και με βεβαιότητα       στην αγκαλιά του. Θολό νερό ποιες πεδιάδες ρέεις; Στα νησιά όταν φυσάει ο βοριάς ξυπνά η συνείδηση της γης και φωνάζει τους φόβους της δυνατά. Εδώ το ποτάμι μονάχα ρέει “ uneventfully” καμιά φωνή κανένας φόβος μετά βίας ένας ψίθυρος · πού πας ; Ως το ξημέρωμα που θα χυθεί το φως στο χώρο με το δικό του βήμα καθώς θα σκαρφαλώνει ανάσα την ανάσα τα απότομα πλευρά της γης τσακισμένα πλάι στο ποτάμι σμιλεμένα στο χρόνο στις πατημασιές όσων τα διέβησαν με προ...