Poetic Movements

Η μπλε θάλασσα ξύπνησε μέσα μου και κοίμισε εσένα. 

Isn’t it strange – when people go – how all the gifts you ever made suddenly return to you… For example, what should I do with this haunting canvas from Montmartre? Or with the radiant etching of Brighton’s pier? Nothing had ever felt less mine than these. June 2020, Athens.

I. Between you              & me a hurricane always lurking. II. Across the atmosphere words unspoken floating. III. And stanzas in my hands have been long dying. IV. Through the open window the broken window a room to be viewed. V. Two hands in one; VI. who’s awaiting whom tonight? VII. Numbers and verses I’ve been counting. VIII. The vase on the room’s corner fading. IX. Uneasy eyes foreground and background. X. You & me: a hurricane. June 2020, Athens. Photograph: 1 June 2020, Athens.

The clouds  don't move. How can they not move anymore ? April 2020, Athens in lockdown.

Watering the plants meant I could finally think less of you and more about how this world was ending ungracefully without you. 21 April 2020, Athens in lockdown. Photograph: House lavender; 30.04.20, Athens. 

More than you, my body craved the sun.

They laid - one on top of the other one beside the other like bodies in synchronised dance - under the warming sun, their porous skin ecstatically opened up to its arrays. I touched the first hesitantly its shadow momentarily cast upon my extended arm - half expecting my palm to burn half for the orange to melt inside it instead - raised and held it steadily unmoved rounded by my fingers and further exposed to the sun resembling a well-designed light. Observing it - my eyes drawn to the promise of its infinite circles - I still recall on the days of careless youth the apples rolling on the floor in anarchy and disarray. How apples came to bear oranges though I never realised. April 2020, Athens. Photograph: The Oranges; 25,04.20.

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.

Disaster stand for a moment! don’t overflow the towns just yet don’t burn down the years waiting for us ahead; see me facing you before you are gone see me as you kn ew me all along. Disaster what is your name these days? what do people call you as you take away what they thought it stays? – Flood or plague? Pain or hurricane? Blight or blaze? – Disaster I’ve met your waves and sounds I’ve traced them on my skin I recognise the rain in your clouds those that you hide as a sin. Disaster I’ve been scared and alone watching you pass the first time but look how I’ve grown since you’ve taken parts of mine. Disaster face me now as I am you; or more like you are the dice I once threw. 14 April 2020, Athens. Photograph: approaching storm; 10 July 2019, Samothraki.