Month of May / Carob Trees

May I marry in May
Under the transit of the planet of Mercury
Mercury is Retrograde, which means it appears to be moving backwards
You can observe the transits of Mercury from telescopes

Ancient Greeks observed with their bare eyes that the morning star
and night star were one star: Mercury
Named after the swift-footed Roman messenger god
Moving faster across the overhanging luminous heavens

than any other planet. Which is why I wish to marry in May
Because I recognize no one marries anymore
And if they do it is for such a brief time,
You wonder if they had the wedding for just the party:

Rather than not marry at all
I wish to have a wedding that ends as suddenly as it began
Which makes me realize I should have stayed unmarried anyway
In any month, not just the month of May

May is so gorgeous in Cyprus
The fields are in bloom,
And the carob trees have shed their flowers
And are yielding their purplish-browned pods

Beneath generous (however often dust filled) Cyprus May skies

Easter Sunday in Cyprus

Rain drops gently upon the fields on
which the previous night effigies
of Judas were being burnt
to the ground

And the churches
and the courtyards where hundreds of people
sang the resurrection song
with flailing priests are now empty

On Easter Sunday very few people are
moving about
and those that have have to find cover from
the rain

As for me, 2024 has shook my phenomena
For the first time in years I did not find it necessary
to go to Epitafios
or Anastasi

Instead
I sat at home
and experienced the magnitude
of my subjective faith alone
– with Jesus

I don’t know what it is,
there is such controversy around the church,
and priests are unable to be priestly
with children

The harsh Capitalist world
has created a distance
between themselves
and their inner child

or something revolting,
whatever it is,
there is no
excuse

In his life time,
Jesus got mad at several things,
at the religious, for keeping people
away from god, at churches,

who made money and kept people away
from god, and adults, who pushed children
out of the way, keeping them away
from God. Jesus wept,

when he saw humanity lame
and broken, and was angry
at the authorities
for making them this way

Jesus wanted to be near God
And at the end, he went
And we can go too
Not in death

But in life
Right now
As surely as
you are reading this

When I passed from dream to reality and there was scent difference

I had a dream
the other night
that I was walking in front

of a house in noonlight
and seeping
out of the garden gates was jasmine,

and on the floor
I was walking on,
I was walking on jasmine flowers,

and in my dreams
I could smell jasmine,
and I remembered

this dream the next day at noon
when I walked in front of a house
with jasmine

pouring out of its front garden,
I thought
Wow, the universe not only loves me,

It is thinking about me,
and not only that,
I am the protagonist of the universe’s magical thinking,

working its will and miracle,
within me, and without me,
guiding me,

like torch light cast
across stalagmites
and leading you

out of
the
underwater caves

Tree to tree to tree

There was a window,
but we threw a brick through it

Floors all around the
metaphor of a home flew open

And birds flew in, we
couldn’t name them fast enough!

The ceiling was catapulted
to Venus as an offering

She prefers
flowers

So flowers were
sent

By way of appraisal
and appreciation

One believes what one
believes and this can last a lifetime

I found what I found
when I looked in the right place

It was the face of everybody
I’ve ever kissed

From my POV,
one person

Being returned
from Venus

To Earth

To rule over
the trees

As their king

Honorably
I accept

When I sleep
I dream of forests

and the
eyes rushing

through
their roots,

their trunks,

leaves,

and from above

their boughs:

Trees are at their most

beautiful:

When we remember
they predate us

And we admit they
will outlive us:

Cut down our trees
are our lungs

Uncircumscribed 

Like transparent, gold-dappled
dunes, the Mediterranean sea

Starts at your feet, and ends
3,293 miles away

Little do you know,
that on that shore is another one like you

Unlike you in the hope, but like you
when it comes to the yearning

The burning of the inner demons, to a crisp, lets
the angels wash away each mote of dust

I had seventy one chances to find you, I hadn’t known
about that number, until it hit me

I cried out, Beauty, and the word flew
across time and space, to find you

You took it, kissed it, and put in your pocket,
and said, Soon, we will be together

I whispered, Never lose hope. Hope is the rope
that binds us across centuries.

The Tree Trilogy

I – I’m branches in full bloom

reality bites therefore my art devours

you see hours as hours, I see time as power
to transform those hours
into eternal flowers

for the ages

let’s get on the same page


II – swaying in the wind

we are inventions of ourselves,
something our mind came up with and stayed
while the trees continued swaying in the wind,
losing their leaves, and blooming new leaves again,
while you still stayed, when you didn’t really need to.

You still don’t need to; let’s go

III – for you

it’s so easy for me to rhyme
because to rhyme

it is sublime
and I am not lipsyncing,

these are words
I wrote as birds

in the sky
and why I float

as a person:
how should a person be?

rhyming,
with glee

Honesty

Some poems were meant to be written

In despair & others in heartbreak

I am writing mine because I want to get famous

In a universe where one gets famous for writing poems

And why not darling

People get famous in 2024

For the most flippant reasons

Like making an expression that’s psychotic

And hilarious & next thing you know the whole world is laughing

This is a universe that loves one liners, and jokes, and lyrics, why not poems?

I blame English teachers, & high schools, the most of which made people resent literature

Because they made them read when they did not want to read

And now they have the option not to read, they do not read

But some of us still read, not to mention write

Give me a chance, to disrupt the universe

Maybe even reset culture

With words I chose oh so cleverly

There is something out there that is inside of me even though inside of me there is a void 2

There were rarely rivers
where we were plunged
at the seabed
for centuries

Radiant run the rain
however copper
however sheepskin
for coins

She found herself
swimming in the shallow
and not a single
gash

Blessed
why she led light out of its distances
making a miracle
of mockery

We found her again and again
in the same heart
we regarded mostly
with aloofness

The Wings of Archangel Michael

On this side of March the fields
have been inundated with cowslip
Acrylic lemon yellow splattered
liberally across the leaves of dropped green skies
And bees which have been known
to drive herds of elephants into lakes
And the butterflies soaring across highways
as if we are their dirty secrets in our cars
You went running back to her,
would it make a difference if I heard you broke up?
I don’t care about any of that, only if you are well,
and are succeeding, you are so ambitious
As you should be, and me too, I am ambitious as well.
You added a dimension to my life.
You made the parallelogram of my existence a hexagram,
and now I am all but
sevening all over the world.