THE PRICE OF LIFE IS DEATH

The price of life is death,

you wrote,

and what a price

it is to pay,

for the one who

departs,

for the one who

stays,

price for the years

together,

this deal we make

with the world

for the brief years

together.

But what years

if we are blessed,

if we are lucky,

what years...

21.06.2026

REMEMBERED GRIEF

These midsummer days

streaming away

in remembered grief,

grief a torrent running

through their bright hours

slipping away,

sunlight dancing sharp

in their silence,

mind on its cross,

in winter I longed

for this long light

not remembering

how this grief comes

attached to these days,

a summer flood.

21.06.2026

TO MY PARENTS

Time maroons us

in solitude.

Leaving us

in small patches

of grass,

under stones

declaring

the moment

of our separation.

In grief.

21.06.2026

17 YEARS FROM THE DEATH OF MY MOTHER

17 years

and it could

have been

yesterday,

and it

was

today,

just today.

21.06.2026

EVERY LIFE

Every life 

ends

at heartbreak.

21.06.2026

AFTER LEDA AND THE SWAN

The river will flow

with blood and corpses

after this crimson

sunset and white wings

have passed

time flying

time flowing

on wind

on water

to the crossing

ships

the burning

city

corpses flowing

down the river

towards

the wine-dark sea

the realms

of the shadow dead

so far

from Olympos

it's peak glittering

white like

the feathers of the swan

01.-17.06.2026

SUMMER DAY, INSIDE

Light plays against

the closed lemon curtains

following the swaying movement

of the tree branches,

dark green shapes

touched by the wind.

05.-17.06.2026

THE LONG DAYS OF SUMMER

How swiftly

the long days

of summer

go...

08.-17.06.2026

THE RALLYING CRY OF UNABASHED RACISM

At El Fasher in northern Darfur

more civilians were slaughtered

in a few sanguine October days

than all Ukrainians killed in war

in the last twelve years,

but we are told

the Sudanese civilians butchered

don't matter

and the Ukrainians fallen in combat 

do because 

                   "Ukraine is in Europe!"

We are told that Ukraine's

sovereignty and borders are sacred

and told that invader Morocco

must be given the entire occupied

nation of Western Sahara,

that what is wrong in Europe

is right in western North Africa,

because

              "Ukraine is in Europe!"

It's the rallying crime

of unabashed racism -

"Ukraine is in Europe!"

05.06.2026

THE WHEATON MASTODON

It had lived in an age of ice,

found its short 

resurrection 

rising from the clay

of the marshy earth

           in cold winter

to wondering 

biblical gaze,

now, in this fiery summer

heat 

        it burns

with the sheltering museum,

with the city

set for its own resurrection

more lasting,

                       for now

facing the fiery millennias

to come,

the errand apes' mistake,

until the glaciers

and grasslands

return

and whatever great beasts

will come

with them

over the mournful earth

hiding the cracked ribs

of the great 

                    urban beast.

07.06.2026

FIRE FROM OLYMPUS

Translating, there is

a temptation to write,

to steal the fire

and to run

setting the world alight -

with a borrowed torch.

04.06.2026

JUNE NIGHT

Birds are singing throughout the summer night,

an endless silver brook running in the soft glooming,

they sing with the unthought knowledge

that in three weeks the nights shall start darkening

in the long movement to empty nests

amid withered leaves and first snowflakes falling.

04.06.2026

THE MEASURE OF LIFE

Life is not measured

by the passage of time,

the accummulation

of growth ring years,

life is measured by the gain

and loss of accompanying lives

of which our own

has been built.

01.06.2026