TOGETHER

If you don't act to end ongoing genocides,

why on Earth are you on this planet,

a member of the human species

if you are not humane?

We don't demand you to be Atlas,

shouldering the weight of the world,

just that you sign petitions,

share the news, make comments,

avoid buying goods from companies

involved in the genocides

and don't vote for politicians

who support the genocides

and arm and fund the genocidaires.

Together we will be Atlas,

shouldering the weight of the world.

31.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

NOT TWO WORLDS, BUT THE EXTREMES OF ONE WORLD, OURS

Afternoon, overcast, windy

with occasional rain

and poems,

images of human lives

among genocide,

surviving and blown into pieces,

a head in a plastic bag,

children playing among ruins

when three children have been killed

or wounded each hour for six hundred days,

still trying to be children,

and maybe dead

by the time I see them on my screen,

as the wind bends tree branches

outside my window, no bomb

threatening to blow my peace

into pieces, scattering my flesh

to be gathered in plastic bags.

31.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

TO MY MOTHER

It should have been

your 74th birthday celebrated yesterday,

Instead it was a quick visit to the graveyard,

cut flowers and a candle.

This is what

your birthdays have come down to,

remembrance

in the dim evening.

30.05.2025

FIELDFARE SINGS

At eight in the morning

the clouds break

and there is light,

light flowing

into the landscape,

golden streams of light,

briefly flowing,

a few minutes

of light filling you

and then the broken clouds

are mended

and a fieldfare sings.

30.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

ON A MAY MORNING

Little difference

between night, dawn and day

now; same white clouds,

dark green land,

and same thoughts,

the weight of them

that keeps the mind brooding

- and the light wings

of the few of them

that rise and fly,

and allow other things

to swell and rise in their wake

as they go past 

what is

to that which imagination

gives brief life,

life of desire and joy

that sweep aside

all that kept the mind brooding

and kept the pale morning

no different from the dim night.

30.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

ON AN ISLAND

It could be any time of the day,

dim light under an overcast sky

in late May gives no hint,

and the clock on the wall,

stopped, might tell

the right hour

or not, but advices us

we are beyond time,

it wraps us

no longer, moving us,

a marionette, no more.

An island, John Donne,

an island we might not be,

but we end up inhabiting

them, islands beyond time

and the horizon of the world

that goes on

somewhere there,

where clocks moved us

through the daily cycle

and light growing and waning

gently pushed us

if we stopped,

trying the controlling lines

that have now snapped.

30.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

Σκέφτεται την μούσα του

If only, if only...

but not -

except in dreams,

visions,

in words

making desire

manifest

as poems

where he

has her

until time

erases.

12.11.2024-29.05.2025

HE CAN'T HELP IT

I'm sorry, my muse,

but I keep imagining

your pussy holding

me tight and warm

like my words

attempt to hold you.

21.07.2024-29.05.2025

ET IN ARCADIA EGO

Short night over,

the dawn

white in mist

and clouds

hiding the golden

apple you

would pick

and give

her as a gift

for all the wild

visions of the darkling

hours, all the wild

visions of her

that still swirl,

nymphs cavorting

around your 

aroused faun

still reaching

for the alluring flesh.

29.05.2025

ARE YOU?

You look at her mischievous smile

and think about those lips

kissing your cock, that mouth

around your shaft, your hands

holding her head, gently,

caressing her.

Are you worthy of her?

Always think that,

always remember

the question:

Are you worthy of her?

07.-29.05.2025

THE CHOICE OF PARIS, ALTERED

In an another tale,

Paris accepts long life

of no great deeds or events,

passing without notice,

Helen stays the faithful,

neglected wife,

Iphigeneia lives past

sacrificial altar and virginity,

dying in childbirth,

lamented by Clytamnestra

and Agamemnon in their shared grief,

Troy stands

until the next earthquake

and the fire it unleashes

ravage it to the ground,

Aeneas shall never wander

to put the seed on ground for Rome,

restless Ulysses

spends twenty years at home

gazing at the horizon,

and Achilles gets bitten

in the heel by a snake

or perhaps he steps

on a rusted nail.

29.05.2025

ACROSS YOUR SKIN

My dear, dear

muse, words

can't describe

how much,

how so very much

I wish, I long

to have you this night,

but what is denied

in flesh

perhaps minds

can give

to each other -

and as I imagine

so I magine

my hands

my mouth

wandering freely

across your skin.

29.05.2025

THE YIN AND YANG OF BEING HUMAN

To his Muse

Why does talk of art and science

flow into sex? Why do I dream

of bending her over, having her

riding me

after talking arts of Egypt,

galaxies that mirror the Milky Way,

and poetry?

Because they are not

that different things,

the meeting of minds,

the meeting of bodies,

the ying and yang of being human,

and experiencing one intimately

one yearns yet deeper connection.

29.05.2025

TO HIS MUSE

Both the flesh and the mind

yearn to have her:

Both are greedy, selfish,

feverish in their lust,

mind no better than the flesh

this night. Weak,

but who wouldn't be,

who wouldn't be?

And who would want to be

strong of will and cool of flesh

when they can dream of her

and having her

every way she wants?

Not I, not my mind

nor my flesh

standing hard.

29.05.2025

JUST TALKING SCIENCE

Just talking science

with my muse,

and yet I

get aroused,

science and a smart lady

with gifts that the mind

can't forget;

it brings up visions,

my lustful mind,

dreaming of testing

how the furniture survives

giving it to her hard,

yet alas, I can't

give but words,

only these words -

may they carry

something of the desire

and embrace her thoughts

when my flesh

can't embrace hers.

29.05.2025

WHIRLING

Talking cosmos with her

and still getting horny

amidst the spinning wheels

of barred spirals

and galaxies ramming

each other at the dawn

of the universe, thinking

of ramming into her,

making her see stars.

29.05.2025

GAZA

The mighty of the world

are testing

the limits of cruelty,

acceptance of evil,

checking how rare empathy,

how little compassion

remains in our collective mind.

At which point

we act

or not.

28.05.2025

IN THEIR UNRETURNING MOMENTS

The years

flown past

bare the branches

and dead

the grass

even at

the summer's gate

desolation

of years

gone past

present

the lives bound

in their

unreturning moments.

28.05.2025

THE FINGERS THAT BREAK

Wherever touching,

thorns on the stems of flowers

unable to protect

blossoming life

from the fingers that break

long-lasting beauty,

undone

for a moment's thrill,

regret.

28.05.2025

FOR HOPE

For hope,

we must gaze

past a single human life,

to the grand tapestry

of existence as a whole.

One frayed spot,

one stain,

doesn't blemish,

disappearing

into what sustains

these moments

in dust, in flesh

among the stars.

28.05.2025

THESE MONGREL CHILDREN

 What a relief to get to translate

poems again, to push these mongrel

children, kidnapped from their

cribs not by hands of fairies

but my own orcish ones,

out of my mind, drinking

from clearer springs.

05.04.-28.05.2025

Lyric #Lyric Lyrics #Lyrics Poem #Poem Poem #Poems Poetry #Poetry Verse #Verse

THE HOLOCAUST IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE'S GAZA STRIP

Truth doesn't burn even in fire,

but human flesh, human flesh burns,

and the truth about the genocide

and oppression is replaced by the lies

of those burning human beings alive

on the lips of the powerful,

so that the burning alive of human beings

can go on, living flesh charred,

burned to the bone,

in this Holocaust the world watches

and allows, for six hundred days.

27.05.2025

TEAR THIS DOWN

Our age makes

illiterates out of people

and praises its programs

that can generate text

and replace those

who can write

touching people.

No readers, no writers,

but as long as rich people

get more money

and more power

out of illiterates

and automated words

all is good...

26.05.2025

TODDLER BURNED ALIVE LAST NIGHT IN GAZA BY ISRAEL

The body of a toddler,

charred, is carried

out from the burned

school, charred

and rigid,

all life gone,

like a statue,

and yet half a day ago

this child was alive,

in fear, terrified

as the bombs

fell and the fire

raged, leaped,

taking hold

of their flesh,

burning, burning

them alive,

flames covering them

in an eternity

of fear and pain.

26.05.2025

WHY WE ARE FAILING

At the most dire time

for humanity

we don't jail

our worst

but allow them to lead us

over the edge

of the abyss

of our

own making.

26.05.2025

THE GIRL AMONG THE FLAMES IN GAZA

We don't know if she gets out

of the inferno

into which Israel turned the school

that until the bombs and the flames

had sheltered her and her family,

her people driven from their homes

turned into rubble, her people

driven from the ruins into the flames.

We see her making her way

among the flames slowly,

it appears to us

she is limping, the small dark

shape against the brightly burning

blaze devouring lives, bodies

dead and living, we

don't see her fate,

if she is among the at least thirty dead,

the wounded survivors,

we only see her in Hell

created by human beings,

trapped in a burning school,

trapped in this moment,

this moment that shames

us all, this Hell humanity allows

to exist on Earth,

watching the dark shapes

limping through the inferno

of the consuming Holocaust.

26.05.2025

THE CHASE UNENDING

Centaur, mounting

an exhausted nymph

after a chase,

grunting

with each thrust

the trembling shape,

moaning,

receives, lustful

curves

under his thundering

hoofs, prize

that soon

will fleet-footed

lead him again

over the hills

in green robes

and singing streams

on whose sides

she will again

lay down, wait

in desire

for his shape

to hide the Sun

as her blood

reverberates

in the sound of his coming,

as now.

Théodore Géricault(1791-1824):
Un centaure enlevant une nymphe(1816).

22.-26.05.2025

NO FIRM GROUND TO STAND ON FOR PHANTOMS

We seek permanence

when there is nothing

but change

in even ourselves

and then

there is nothing,

the mind,

all its swirling thoughs,

the glittering spirals,

gone dark,

evaporated

into the void.

26.05.2025

ONE EYE OF THE COSMOS

Writing, I can

believe/sustain

the illusion

that I exist,

that I am

a minor creative

force in the cosmos

that created me

out of itself,

a cosmos

coming from

&

going to

the void.

Will it,

will I,

will we

have ever

existed

when there is only

vacuum, again?

26.05.2025

HOW WILL YOU ATONE FOR THIS ONE?

You nations and people

who support the Holocaust

in occupied Palestine's Gaza

to atone for a Holocaust

of persecuted Jews in Europe

how will you atone

for this later Holocaust?

Will you support

yet another Holocaust?

19.-26.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

BEFORE THE FLOOD FORESEEN

Poetry, the oldest

written art, disdained

in this era

when the humanity

led by the worst

has embraced

the foolish and the doomed

in the old epics,

every vice

for gods to punish

paraded

as the spirit of the age,

wise advice and pleas

cast aside

with haughty ignorance.

The worst rule,

the most allow,

this path some post-flood

bard marveling on ruins

will sing

with awe and condemnation

to those

who survive,

and have to rebuild

in a worse world

to save the heritage

of flesh and wisdom

our wretched rulers,

the compliant masses

fed their opium,

will let water, flame,

greed, hate,

and desperation

to devastate.

26.05.2025

THIS WIDE ROAD TWISTING

Never in Arcadia, yet

passed many a path

leading there, unassuming,

with a glance, some

interest or none,

one or two

almost taking, 

on this one-way lane

through life,

and only now do

the maps show clear

in the mind where

each path led

as this wide road

twisting

approaches

its end.

26.05.2025

EXILE WITHOUT EDEN

All the easy solutions

to the Gordion's Knots

of today's

                chaining

lie in the past,

                ignored

when they were

          so close.

     No sword

           can cut

what then hands

could have untied.

Was it ever so?

Was there

                  a time

when what was easy

was done,

       the ropes

ready for binding

          never tied,

or casually cut

with a knife,

the future

                 saved

from cascading

errors, weakness

            that grows

day by slow day

from the inside?

Or were there,

              since

the earliest days,

                            this

passing of solutions

amidst tribulations,

            spiralling

into the withering

of autumns

without summers,

exile

         without Eden?

26.05.2025

OBSERVING HOW POPE LEO XIV RESEMBLES POPE PIUS XI

The same faces repeat

again and again as masks

before the minds,

no human wears one

that hasn't evoked

grief, hate, love

and lust in the long

dead or distant;

shared across time

and space sometimes

the mask worn by people

in the same position

at a similar time,

dices rolling

the same result,

same face, same

troubles, the world

teetering at the edge

of an abyss, and lurching

over to a man-made

doom. The endless

return, but how pathetic

are were not breaking

the cycle, creating

new and lasting

things, even if

all the faces

are old.

22.-24.05.2025

IN THEIR ENDLESS MOMENTS

We feel we will live

forever, the universe

beginning with our birth

for us, but for the timeless

universe we are already

dead, right there with

Lucy and Turkana Boy,

Gilgamesh and Enheduanna,

Hatsepshut and Ramses the Great,

Julius Caesar and Justinian,

Erik the Red and Columbus,

the Sun King Louis and Napoleon -

I could go on,

but you know

what I mean, all the great

names and the unknown ones,

those who covered the walls of caves

with paintings

and built the first skyscrapers at Chicago,

those whose bones they still dig up

at the Western Front battlefields,

they are as alive

and dead as we are,

in their endless moments

in this timeless universe.

20.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

GERMANY IS "DEEPLY CONCERNED" ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST IT MAKES POSSIBLE

After celebrating Israel's genocide

of occupied Palestinians

with a presidential visit,

and twinning Berlin with Tel Aviv

and beating anti-Genocide demonstrators

in Berlin, all

just days ago, now Germany

tries to put a fig leaf

over its lag of moral modesty,

telling it's "deeply concerned"

when Israel, laden with German arms,

declares it will destroy everything

that is left of Gaza.

19.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

LET THERE BE

Poems carved in cuneiform

on a clay tablet at Nippur

or into a shard of pottery

in hieratic at Thebes

will outlast all of our

poems on paper

and those cast in the digital realm,

where all indeed is written

not even on water, but on the foam

atop a bottomless abyss.

Long after these lines

are gone, when all

printed on paper now is gone,

let there be people

reading poems, let there

still be people living,

reading poems, 

reading living poems

carved in cuneiform at Lagash

and in hieratic at Elephantine,

minds speaking to each other

over thousands upon thousands

of years, over us,

lost in between.

19.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

AND HERE I AM, TRANSLATING YEATS...

The day slept away,

all the golden hours

except at the dawn

missed, and here

at its warm end,

I sit and translate Yeats

and listen to the hum

of distant traffic

mixing with the songs

of birds, the front

door open to the night,

and part of me thinks

of the hours gone

and what might have

filled them, houses

collapsing and burying

alive entire families

as the missiles and bombs

keep falling, tearing

living human flesh

into pieces - that in Palestine,

and in West Papua,

instead of cities in rubble

being turned further to dust,

it's the flush highlands

where bombs fall

on villages, refugees,

in another genocide,

two long, open

wounds in the shared flesh

of our humanity.

19.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse

ON HEARING THE NEWS THAT FORMER UNITED STATES PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN HAS PROSTATE CANCER

What pity for a man

who has cancer

in his bones

yet helped to destroy

cancer hospitals,

denying care?

The least any human being

deserves,

and no more. And beyond

that, beyond the least pity,

nothing

but condemnation,

as we remember

his victims, their number

growing each day,

that will grow long after

he has had

his splendid funeral.

19.05.2025

Verse Poetry Poems Poem

#Poem #Poems #Poetry #Verse