(but the question is: what is humility)

In Cyprus we thought that beauty was humility

quiet endurance

inward freedom

unbreakable calm

and modesty

and we though that God was on our side

But look at the blacks in America!

They struggled to speak

They sing with a loud voice coming from an open soul, and they say it so you have to listen.

They were strong, and proud

And ever so beautiful

And surely, if there is a God he is with them also.

stones on the beach

22.01.11

I won’t be waiting.

The same moon that shone in ancient times

when Socrates was young;

that shone on us when we walked across the park

that saw what we felt;

That same moon that shone, resting its gown on the sea water when I sat on the beach looking at the open world

in front of me;

the same moon will shine.

but our unity has ended.

and a new love begins.

Time is a brick wall

You can’t push or pull

You can’t make what we had any bigger than it was

nor any smaller.

I wont be waiting

But I am glad for what we had.

And it won’t go away.

It won’t evolve or dissolve.

But the rest of me will.

The past is carved in stone

but in life we are alive

Reality now is more than some shapes in stone.

Stones on the beach, the sun strikes you

the sea’s water washes over you

But the people come and go   

a short story passed down through the ages

With sexual relationships I feel like I am alone on a sea of broken bones. Or that I walk against a cruel wind seeking shelter and crying.

In life I feel both joy and grief. The grief I carry with me in my backpack. Sometimes it even eats through my bread and I find it hallow when I want it. But my joy is not exactly mine; it is all around me. I find it in the places where I am. It’s really only about being able to commune with the ecstasy of life and share in it. So let us say then, that my sorrow requires patience of me, as every great weight does; and my enthusiasm requires ability, attentiveness and skill.

To be clear, a ‘sexual relationship’ I mean a bond with another where your sex and their play a vital role. We have these all the time don’t we? And if I may tell you so, I sometimes find it hard to process all of it. Bits hang loose and create a mess.

This story is about one such relationship whose smell lingered on with me long after it had ended. It stayed in my hair and clothes from where a soft breeze could bring it. Rather, this story is about how I travelled so far and long to speak to that man again; about how I never found him; and about how one might accept that I shall never be without him.

I still feel a pang in my heart about it but in general I am more peaceful. I have opened my hands and let the sorrow go, drift off with the wind. I have opened a hole in the ground and spoke into it my pain. And now as a result a calmness touches me lightly and it protects me gently from the grip of what is left to happen still.

Dear Socrates (a poem),

There is pain in my heart and confusion in my mind. 

And I am trying to find clarity, I seek it. 

I want it deeply. 

But all that I find is when I close my eyes, and put on a 80’s love song really loud, and dance to it like a retard, I find that my heart reaches out and joins other hearts, and at those moments I feel something good happen, something real. 

I try to be ethical because I confuse it with being good. I am ethical, because it’s an easy thing to be. And I sit on my ethics and I look down and around at the people and I feel like I don’t want to step down because what’s around me is stinky sticky and gross, unreliable and sad.

I want to be good because I believe that it will give me an immunity, it will protect me, and I will be able to walk through a land of crap and rotting untouched, and unharmed.

I doubt that my senses can discriminate between what is real and what is not, and this leaves me sometimes without a guide in this labyrinth. Though I don’t doubt that there is a real and an unreal. 

I am happy. 

Music

23.12.2010

He left me for dead on the side of the road. that is why he doesn't speak to me any more. he is ashamed.

Perhaps he thought I would die and vanish. Zip. And so it wouldn't matter.

Or else, he thought, he would get away, leave for the new land he hears so much about.

When he found he couldn't leave though,

I think that is when he started locking his door.

Staying in doors. 

It's as if he is afraid of me casting my eyes on him. 

He lowers his face in shame when he sees me.

He hides himself behind shame, and

he escapes from it only through contempt.

My heart breaks.

It breaks all over again.

Because,

for what ever reason, he walks away still

and leaves me by the side of the road.

He leaves

he withdraws.

He does not let us be happy in one another's presence.

He shuns me, he shuts me out, he looks away from me with contempt.

The way a mother looks at an unwanted child.

An unloved child,

that no one will ever allow it to love them

and be glad in their presence.

That no one will ever show gladness that it be alive!

A child that just needs to get on with it.

'You don't matter' he says

'You don't matter anywhere near as much

as my insecurities matter to me.

So I'll be off now.

Be gone.'

And he walks away, with his heart cuddled in his arms,

comforting it.

He walks away, looking as if

as if I had rejected him.

Insulted his greatness.

It breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart.

Bre (as in bread) 

a! aeye

aches it.

Can you hear the sound of that? 

You can't hear the sound of it if you haven't heard it in your ribs!

You can't taste the honey

if if

you have not ever tasted it.

How can you recall the taste?

Oh my old friend Poetry. My old friend poetry. You have always been by my side. You have always let me be honest.

You have always saved my life.

Oh what is a cliche? It is nothing to you unless you taste it.

How can you taste the water if you 

have never tasted

it.

Oh

my old

friend Poetry.

It has been so long since you were last by my side.

I haven't seen you here helping me so since high-school.

Remember?

Remember those days when you were my only friend

and I sat in the school yard. Shouting!

Shouting with my heart,

sitting ever so calm and quiet. You were my only friend. My most trusted companion.

Do you remember Poetry when we sat?

I have been saved from so many deaths.

So many deaths by the side of the road.

That my life is no longer mine.

Take it. I will do what you want.

I am a servant now. 

When I was shouting, I was free.

But I was dying.

I died, and people walked away.

I died twice

thrice.

And now I am dead.

Only God picked me up.

Dead.

And now I am his servant.

Do you remember Poetry? 

When I was still alive?

When I shouted? 

the ontological question

I opened some of 
the fantasies I bred
to the day light
and the sun burnt them.


With a knife you shred them to bits
and the wind blew them away.


Some of the real hopes I bred were run over
by reality.
Run over. Squashed.
Kaputted.


That's all, that's all that happened.  

poetry

Poetry is sound.
It is the sound that life makes as it passes 
you by


Poetry is not thoughts in melodic form.
It is the melody of thoughts
recorded with heart
and pen

.

The joy of life is so subtle and so plentiful that you need to be quiet sometimes to listen to it. You need to be kind to enjoy it, you need to be truthful to hear it.

I wonder, why do people destroy their joy, seeking unpleasurable pleasures instead? What is there that is more worthwhile than the beautiful peace and happiness of life that we should seek it?