Photosynthetic gasps

Demise is on the rise, philosophize
Lungs labored, lips pursed, our earth still breathes.
Photosynthetic gasps are still exchanged.
Air not for all, all are not for earth.
Food scarce, no drop of water falls.
Air sluggish, warm and warming more.
An avalanche, a forest fire, a flood,
A shaking of the ground,
A toppling of the towers No fertile soil.
Dry springs, no cooling summer shower.
A tidal wave sweeps pole to pole
The polar bear can’t find a place to hide.
Elephant’s feet are scorched
Its trunk and trunks of trees are burnt
Demise too close to Armageddon’s gates
Tectonic clash of horrendous oceanic plates
The last tsunami now awakes to sweep all things away.
Worldwide mistakes, fakes, the haves and those without.
Mankind sucked deep within a dark black hole.
No light escapes the night; the alphabet is torched.
The brush on canvas burnt.
Incinerated souls of earthlings and the earth
Trapped between inhale and breathing out
Between the gloom of night and dread of day
Between untethered conflict and uncertain peace
Only a philosophical burst
Can change the tide, push back the night
Give polar bears a place to stay
Reverse man’s rout, return him to universal light.

Socrates returned but didn’t stay

So many years ago, unsteady feet
In polished boots in which I could make out
Dull and distorted images of all things
Above the ground in my surround
As they appeared reflected when I glanced down,
Tales told by the shoeshine boy with few teeth
But with receptive ears close to the ground.
As he unlocked for me worlds unseen, some below ground
Where ghostly Venizelos floated by in Constitution Square,
Silent the Unknown Soldier and rowdy parliament.
Few hearing what the other had to say
To the background beat of changing of the guard
An Evzone’s foot so steadily, incredibly held high
Precarious in the moment when it touched Attic sky

One pace forward, then one more and then again
Foot surely raised a marble statue standing tall and proud
Where pigeons unconcerned peck on scattered crumbs
While deep inside MPs fight tooth and nail and loud.
To keep their pecking order high close to the crowd
While on white Penteli stone for all eternity to read
Alphas, sigmas and the omegas and between 4000 years
Where the fight for language was fought just outside
Between some high and academic Greek
The other demotic as the people know to speak
While an enchanting rose blushed evening
Paints the gentle slopes of Hymettus.
With hearts and soul some mystic mood of eventide
While close by the Academy and higher than its roof
Philosophers clad in marble robes merge with blue sky
Whispering unheard mysteries fulsome words and wise
That only John Capodistria could comprehend
Too young was I to understand, but moved I was
On this my first few hours in Athens town
While I can say I knew well why I’m here
As I ventured into some solemn scholarly room
Without recall of whom I came to see, if anyone at all
A room where no student read
A room not for teaching sure
A library no, no shelves, no chairs, no open book
While on a dusty sill an old world phone stood
Still but never rang, held by its twisted cord as if to say, hold on.
Cobwebbed wooden seals and stamps sun-diluted brown
Scattered haphazardly on their bureaucratic sides.
Small pots and oblong pads of once bright blue
Where dried up ink kept watch
As if to challenge each changing of the Evzone guard,
The letter-littered room in which I’d ventured through,
No one around to say when they were received
Last year, eons gone by a month ago or yesterday.
Or if they were ready to be sent immediately and imminently due
A den for envelopes from everywhere piled high
On all sides wall-high along all four walls.
Incoming and unread, unopened, sealed, never to be read.
Hidden messages to which there would be no reply
This came to be my New Greek guide.
Perhaps one letter mine, maybe another from an aged soul,
A migrant reaching back across his life’s rough seas
A would-be Odysseus who yearns still for Ithaca and Penelope.
For decades now the Academy has not replied.
A place where academic letters go unread, where sometimes scholars are denied.
Yet still the gods prevail in this a land preferred by Zeus.
A land once chosen by the gods.
Where now most words of wisdom go unheard,
Where hubris has become the legal tender of the day
Where Socrates, if at some unsuspecting moment, should stroll by

I ask, would he choose hemlock once again or just pass on?
I chose to stay hopeful that I would learn.
The truths of mighty empires and of the peoples who lost out.
Find out why some nations have been glory stripped.
Cities condemned to dust by war
Why everything that made them great is tossed away?
While those who could have saved the day
Are condemned to die by hemlock, vilified or crucified
Where many of the best of brilliant noble minds who dared
To say no to power, to stand up to city hall and brutal bear
To stare down the status quo are for their daring ditched or set aside
Where verities are now artfully camouflaged.
Where truth and philosophies are falsified?
Crushed between those dried up ink-wells and today
Perhaps I’ll never know what I do not really know.
Perhaps the time for me to learn has slipped away,
But with certainty I now say for sure.
One thing I’ve learned is I know that I don’t know!

Ithaca for no one and for all

A little longer now, blossoms will bloom as if in flight.
A little further now and Ithaca may come in sight
With scents from almond trees to breathe.
But summer rains and winter snow can cause Ithaca to fade away.
Scents are god’s gift to gods, while an imagined isle like Ithaca
Is sanctioned by some earthling poet.
Who wisely know that only god can make a tree
While this here poem is fashioned by a fool like me.
Don't ask how far it is to Ithaca!
Know that the way will be long and hard, with downs and ups.
Your entry into Ithaca always will be delayed, downplayed.
All routes pointing to Ithaca are paved with joy, doubt and hope.
Don't take the road unless you know what Ithaca’s about.
Don't start for Ithaca unless you have thought it through.
Don't be carried away by poetry; most dreams never come true.
Your chance of reaching Ithaca is remote right from the start.
But should you set sail for the Island, go forward with joy in your heart
A heart brimming over long after you set out, carefree and heart strong,
Above all, move with sure steps forward, never give up too soon on your fancies.
Know there’s no Roman road to that Island of somewhere.
Although headlong, straight on, you must go.
Travel should not be hurried and never give up on your refrain.
Don’t hold back the beat of some rousing or romantic song.
Some days will pass with great interest, others may go awfully wrong.
There will be days when you'll see high spires so you think above Ithaca.
That moment won’t hang around too long, rub your eyes, look again and it’s gone
Sometimes you’ll think you’ve touched Ithaca, yes it happened to me.
Once a long time now gone
But don't be carried away by some theatrical mask.
Think of Ithaca as an ambition, your great purpose in life, always there when we are young.

Just there, just for the taking, out of reach, just ahead
Blame no imagined wrongs on Ithaca; it will never do anyone wrong.
Perhaps you gave up on Ithaca; Ithaca never gave up on you
Don’t blame the song’s tempo that once spurred your footsteps on and on.
Don’t blame rough roads that you’ve taken or rains falling on them
They were meant to give you courage, a compass in life through storm.
Blame not your hell on earth on Ithaca
Not on a friend, not on a foe or the next-door faceless neighbor.
Perhaps you just let go of your purpose, or never found one all along.
So if your feet falter, or your gait simply slows down
If the love of your life has departed, or you never reached the altar at all
If you think your purpose in life has faded, feel your road washed out by the rain
Hold hope in your heart tightly; keep on right to the end of the road
Even as your days dwindle, Ithaca will never desert you.
She waits for you just round the next corner
And if not just ahead, just round the next coming bend
Maybe there, just maybe, you will find some unexpected grand perhaps
Maybe just one more ode to midnight

Tranquil Aegean Isle

A summer day in sunshine bright on Pserimos
Fierce now in the early afternoon
As it moves slowly towards dusk and night
Towards the end of day, a whole eternity away
When Apollo will descend to sink beneath eternal waves
As an emerging moon lifts off above the earth
Full bloom rising, full in high-flown birth.
Laced rays flicker in silvery citrus groves.
Freckled leaves vibrate arrestingly in dusted lemon light.
Olives dance and gleam upon gnarled ancient trees.
Scintillations surprisingly soft upon the eyes.
Dreams to be remembered, tenderly recalled
Youth’s dreams strong, pungent like the earth’s eternal thirst
Smells of stained soil and wafted on a breeze bold blossoms
Greek fire, wax droplets pooled on warm sand
Beneath an icon’s glow and a saintly watchful eye
A copper hammered cross subdued by weight of age
Old church, in which the dark-eyed virgin mother of the world
Brings hope, gives solace, provides an all-inspiring light
Cassiopeia far above caught in its midnight flight
The world no longer caught in Meltemi’s wind.
Now trails away as darkness falls to breeze like strength
Caught up in the Aegean's gentle swell, its ebb and flow
Wrapped in a silvery lining through the starry sky.
Until the coming morn, the coming blue and white
Still lightly held in darker brush strokes of receding night,
An ageless Aegean having seen millennia come and go
On Isles, the Isles of Greece, the Dodecanese.
Isles of sheer delight
Where Hippocrates, Pythagoras and Socrates walked
Philosophy survives, and all is well.
On this a small and gentle Grecian isle, called Pserimos.

My friend, I ask myself

What service can someone like me perform?
Perhaps forewarn because you are no Saint, just simply Paul
Hubris is no easy game to play for you or me.
We know the gods will always have their way.
If you get lucky, one of them may grant you a special day.
Even should Sea people, once anew, disrupt our shores?
Unchecked, offshore with no respect of maritime or moral law,
Slip anchor with a dreadful ease, stealthily set sail with full crew?
Even so, there are no lords of space-time or celestial strings.
No overlords of scientific algorithms.
Your gift supreme, a gift of soul, a gift of high praise
A gift from Paul now in free fall, within man’s reach and free for all

Easter in Athens

Below and from the sadness of a forlorn bell,
The sadness of the world is heard.
A world that walked in beauty through seasons all, till it fell.
Another eternity will pass; apple blossom time again will come.
Ripe olives to the grass will fall, lilacs will be gathered in the spring
When some will reach home again.
A splash of red I see above, some poppy bed in radiant bloom
Gone now the sadness of the world, the gloom dispersed.
As buttercups their golden cups reach up
Towards the warming sun, upon the hill
Golgotha and Lycavitos.