Poetic Movements

  There is the night that covers steps in uncertainty made. There is a slow truth unsuited to the plans of progression. There is the untold hope that tomorrow we’ll all be different. There is a thought withheld equivalent to a promise never worded. There, I see you sleeping once more behind the veil of memory. You turn sides and the lilacs shiver not to blossom but to fly far. And there is a quiet rain now falling aimlessly on time endlessly in this garden. April 2023, Athens. Photograph: Acheloos river, Greece; Sept. 2022. 

  We are still driving in the car along this thin line telling day from night apart. You lean and kiss me, and it’s the first time and the hundredth time, and this moment perfectly balancing light with dark hovers on the edges of eternity. It’s the first time and I’m taking you by the hand to walk through Tavistock then Russell then Bloomsbury square minutes before their gates close seconds until I finish these lines. It’s the hundredth time, the hundredth line, the hundredth fragment of a story to be told; and yet words sound like the only (time) at all. Spring Equinox & World Poetry Day 2023. Photograph: Detail from Russell Square, London; 22 Oct. 2022.

  As the days stretch longer your body lingers; now longer is your stay in places where after dawn you listen to the crickets in corners where shadows show alternative ways to be. We are both awaken as such. And every night that approaches is a step closer to spring a dive deeper in a sun, burning to be seen. This time moves us in parallel – a plane flying above the brine two ships in the Atlantic, the Equator standing a hard line. February 2023, Athens. Photograph: North Aegean Sea, underway; 6 Jan. 2023.

  Στην δέσμη του φωτός κατά μήκος της θάλασσας κυνήγησα όνειρα που δεν ήτανε δικά μου˙ για μια στιγμή μόνο που κράτησε περισσότερο. Σε μικρό βοριά με μάτια κλειστά ενστικτωδώς σκαρφάλωσα ˙ κι ό,τι διαισθάνθηκα στο βουνό το μαρτύρησα μονάχα . Για πρώτη φορά αντί για το σκοτάδι με τράβηξε το φως κι ο χρόνος έτρεξε μπροστά απ’ τα πόδια και πίσω απ’ τα μάτια μου. 4 Ιανουαρίου 2023, Κήποι Σαμοθράκης.

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.