Who am I?

I ask beyond the gleaming

Beyond the wingless muscles

The carefree chatter

A fightless furry entices

I sense greying embers

Raise my crude steps from cement

But slosh them back

The trowel digs, separates

Beneath is the firmament,

Are the clouds, 

They should be above

Where the evasion banner flutters

I know.

June 10, 2026

Like Magic

On the forehead

At each spate-cleansed cheek

Upon the hands

Anointed

I claimed the habit,

I learned.

My cloak threaded with silence

Notes beneath confined

courteously reduced —

fade words, fade

Looking at the Derveni Papyrus

Please click on photographs to get a larger view.

  

insolvent

love me or look upon me with disdain,
like me or consider me irrelevant, 

this person before you

this that I am
the glue you're too bored to find a solvent for

I am your creation, Magister. 

Anxious Times in New York

that anger shivered like an autumn leaf
as the angler celebrated his pyrrhic victory

paths diverged to opposite sides of the day
and wounded by the barb

yes, I glimpsed backwards
as you may have surmised

to a strut, to a stroll,

to a cup of coffee tall
and the plaid hips she had

Acknowledgement

Snowdrops in snow

An anthology of them

At the clearing a wind howls

The sound reiterated

I observe the plant’s growing habit 

Stem piercing earth

A petal has been detached 

Fantastical visions — snow falling

Light brushings — a passing stroke

I reach for spectacles: 

Our world revealed 

Less placid but more silent

Crowded snowdrops in bud in snow

And one page, one, one page

detached

Sinuous

Nature isn’t graceful. Beautiful or fearsome it twists us in knots; let us then be sinuous

as a thunderbolt is, as a riverbank, the limbs and twigs ‘neath our flesh, as meaning is — not easy but sinuous

I saved up all I was, hadn’t done, not yet killed, forgotten games I had played, and whose fine afternoon unravelling by the book, both taking both, then you unceasingly perfect, we sinuous 

Sparkling butterfly, sylphlike innocence ensconced and rising lissom on lithe greenery, to you I write. Rose butterfly observe my inkwell: it’s not empty. The dagger’s quill carves sinuous

At early blue, hope is at its weakest: perhaps a slow fall, silent the conscious drowning. Desired hope stays to mix with the day’s sweat and salt, to be inhaled in the lung, to proclaim: beloved, we fearless, we sinuous

Aged from time and weather yet defiant still to what is no:

I am carried to fire in a foreign hearth, a chambered forest, light blooming at night fragrant and sinuous his curls sinuous

I accept everything, I accept nothing. That yes, that no, that something: poetry like love is and isn’t resurrection — does it change opinions, bring a change of heart? Lament and celebration, poetry and love: involuted, sinuous

Images 3

This mountain

Stone beyond war

Enduring stone

At its foothills I live

I plait thread for lace making

Winding it in spools

Filigreed designs I’ve yet to wear

Evenings I gaze at the summit

Slowly it melds with night indigo

Such hours I long to hear your voice:

a vine fragrant

beads of waterfall upon the parched
dappled river gleam, 
tapestry of mosses 

I hear tales 
wild things nurtured in your solitude
a unicorn roaming sleepless

And I rest quiet upon the unknown.

Ana Kyriou

13 September 2017

Scent

I pick one up and score

each pole circling — but not too deep

I draw crescent moons

cutting superficially, merely grazing the orange with my blade

Tough skin

From slight incisions

dimples turn fragrant

at a moment’s notice or when the time is right

Peel it, taste

moist orange orange

lips and tongue, saliva and sweet juicy flesh all one

my green scent for love

Unless

postponement takes a knife to desire

unless I’d rather not

because I pretend I’ve forgotten how

Crunching the fruit, a crunchy orange

imperfect joy

grainy beneath

white round

and time round

battered into shards

piercing for universal reminders

all wide long

curving

moving mounts farther out still  

evening hadn’t yet approached nor had this been

a perfect day, although there was joy in it still

the woman with cigarettes and coral lips

the young man sitting by the entrance, his tousled hair

a girl with the skin, she thought, of a giraffe

none of us happy although joy to the day still

I placed my hands beneath his arms and we walked

clear translucent
warm, always brackish in these parts

and rows of grapevines heavy with fruit:

there’s no joy taking things for granted.

for a while I could find the indentation of my footsteps

then my toes started kicking up dust

startlingly beautiful, a perfect disk approaching the horizon

swimming back to a metre and a half standing

but sometimes the sea tried to bring me to my knees

The sea can be funny that way. Thalassa, I like her.

as I was saying, some things are heartbreakingly beautiful

the night breeze arrived, it knocked the salt off my gums,

that kind of breeze.

I’ll wait as long as it takes

waiting slowly —  slowly obscured the brilliant orange

the solitary dot near the cloud-empty horizon

but wondrous our earth
apart at red green spectrum 

but luminous, and myself alight

sliding below the line of the horizon

to a sunrise

my lost love, my love 

Circles

At the café, they set tables on a narrow stretch

A wedge of shorn grass giving way to rock, to sand, to shore

Staged by an unseen hand to entertain the wanton inclinations of fate

A tale unfolds: chance in the fading twilight 

The woman approaches in silence  

In silence resting

Her cheek against the back of his neck —

Done quickly lest time run out,

Lest he say no, her arms

Encircle

It’s needless, he thinks, and after all this time too much of a liberty

He pries them apart with easy execution 

Half annoyed half curious he stands to bow in greeting

When he spied her at that table with her chatty friends what did it matter?

The hour was late and the ache buried.

Unobserved

He focused west into the riot of purple-saffron hues.

You’ve grown a moustache she says

I’m thinking of shaving it off he replies

Her voice is mellowed by resin-wine

And sea mist has settled on her lips. 

He remembers the taste of her lips 

They stroll at the edge 

Where broken waves drift ashore

Pebbles and shells crunch 

Quelling stretches of silence

In this diffused light of their twilight 

Let’s climb there, the woman decides

Where will it take us that path?

Below, the deep is wine-dark 

Its belly resembles the wine-dark within us all

“Don’t let go.”

“I won’t.”

Choppy water travelling in circles

A Lament by Catherine St. Germain

The banality of evil.

Listen up later

Later, later, later, much later, later.

There will be more, later

Later is getting later, later

Later will not accommodate the later

Because later doesn't come even when it's later later

And you know the ethilon later the cloaked later the stapled. 

Feats of later I feast on later fist of later

Mute later, no, no, not this, this is a later

Gift of later arriving later eeease of later is

Too to ease unhurriedly onto later

Junky does like some junk later

Mollify with later

Vein vain later

Wish I could help.

In Front Of The Art Museum

Last night

I dreamt you were peddling books

In front of the art museum

Used books — although —

In my estimation
A book

Generous with nuances between its covers

Can never be referred to

As being used

A book
Is not a woman used, used up

Courteous behind your makeshift stall

Suave towards the curious passersby

Negotiating

Artbooks, poetry, 

Psychology no longer in vogue,

Things to rid.

You had acquired new spectacles

Gold rimmed and stylish

To outfit your new outlook

Your new views

And you said to me: look, I am flying!

You flew onto the terracotta rooftops

Vaulting from crest to crest

Agile like a panther

My feet were rooted on the pavement

I was taking you in, every inch of you

You were

On top of the world

Too adroit to ever fall

So you thought

One

One by one words lifted off the page to stretch out in front of me

each word life, 
a heartbeat, 
and each heartbeat your whisper

In my dream they transformed into images.

reach, 
reach a bit farther
appearing effortless to keep

... as the canvas I once fell in love its beauty cut just enough 
I allowed the pain to remember the grace

Freely, as brushing your forehead 

soft 
weightless kissing 

With my fingertips

ITHACA

My Translation of C.P. Cavafy's Poem Ίθάκη,

A Gift for G, a Modern Day Odysseus.

As you begin your voyage to Ithaka,

hope that the road is long,

filled with adventure, filled with enlightenment.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclopes,

the angry Poseidon, do not fear them;

you will never find them on your road

if your thoughts remain aloft, if your spirit and your body

brush against a finer emotion.
The Laistrygonians and the Cyclopes,

the angry Poseidon, you won’t encounter them

if you don’t carry them inside your soul

if your psyche does not conjure them in front of you.

Hope that the road is long.

Many the summer mornings
when with pleasure and glad anticipation
you sail into unfamiliar harbors

or stop at Phoenician markets
to acquire beautiful things:
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

voluptuous notes of every type,

gather as many sensual aromas as you can;

may you visit many an Egyptian city,

there to learn and learn from scholars.

Always in your mind hold on to Ithaka.

The arrival there should be your purpose,

but don’t hurry your voyage in the least.

Best to continue it for many years,

and reach old age before mooring at the island,

wealthy with all you gained along the way,
and without expectation that Ithaka will give you riches.

Ithaka gave you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would not have sought to wander.

There’s nothing more she has to give.

And, if you find her poor, Ithaka did not deceive you.
With all the wisdom you have gained, all the experience,
already you understand the meaning of an Ithaka.

   Τhe Poem in the Original Greek

Ιθάκη

Σα βγεις στον πηγαιμό για την Ιθάκη,
να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος,
γεμάτος περιπέτειες, γεμάτος γνώσεις.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον θυμωμένο Ποσειδώνα μη φοβάσαι,
τέτοια στον δρόμο σου ποτέ σου δεν θα βρείς,
αν μέν' η σκέψις σου υψηλή, αν εκλεκτή
συγκίνησις το πνεύμα και το σώμα σου αγγίζει.
Τους Λαιστρυγόνας και τους Κύκλωπας,
τον άγριο Ποσειδώνα δεν θα συναντήσεις,
αν δεν τους κουβανείς μες στην ψυχή σου,
αν η ψυχή σου δεν τους στήνει εμπρός σου.

Να εύχεσαι νάναι μακρύς ο δρόμος.
Πολλά τα καλοκαιρινά πρωϊά να είναι
που με τι ευχαρίστησι, με τι χαρά
θα μπαίνεις σε λιμένας πρωτοειδωμένους·
να σταματήσεις σ' εμπορεία Φοινικικά,
και τες καλές πραγμάτειες ν' αποκτήσεις,
σεντέφια και κοράλλια, κεχριμπάρια κ' έβενους,
και ηδονικά μυρωδικά κάθε λογής,
όσο μπορείς πιο άφθονα ηδονικά μυρωδικά·
σε πόλεις Αιγυπτιακές πολλές να πας,
να μάθεις και να μάθεις απ' τους σπουδασμένους.

Πάντα στον νου σου νάχεις την Ιθάκη.
Το φθάσιμον εκεί είν' ο προορισμός σου.
Αλλά μη βιάζεις το ταξίδι διόλου.
Καλλίτερα χρόνια πολλά να διαρκέσει·
και γέρος πια ν' αράξεις στο νησί,
πλούσιος με όσα κέρδισες στον δρόμο,
μη προσδοκώντας πλούτη να σε δώσει η Ιθάκη.

Η Ιθάκη σ' έδωσε το ωραίο ταξίδι.
Χωρίς αυτήν δεν θάβγαινες στον δρόμο.
Αλλο δεν έχει να σε δώσει πια.

Κι αν πτωχική την βρεις, η Ιθάκη δεν σε γέλασε.
Ετσι σοφός που έγινες, με τόση πείρα,
ήδη θα το κατάλαβες η Ιθάκες τι σημαίνουν.

Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης (1911) 

Abide

Venus is brilliant in the evening sky

One, two, flying low to ground
June fireflies

Tomorrow will be very hot

The garden is mulched and watered

I have a garden

The rose bushes trimmed after their first flush

There was no mail I checked multiple times

I’ve been wearing my straw hat
It’s good protection from the sun

Sometimes I forget I have it on  

Wear it late into the night

Half-past midnight 
Going out to check on Venus 

The star is gone.

Where are you?

It hurts, it hurts beyond hurt

One pain with multiple names

Eventually I lost control

I drifted towards the shadows of life

You'll come back, they had warned

To further catalogue your arid days

Sometimes fog

Escapes from memory
To be distilled in dreams

     
     He is smiling — I am happy

     The earth is freshly tilled

     Upturned land fragrant

     A cypress overlooks

At daylight, the vivid colours bleach out

Now home is here

A hearth apart 

I exist

I abide