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

Why music was invented

The silence was not enough for god, so music was created
It took the shapes of every emotion, expressed, or hidden
And now the centuries are not lost to us, and evocable by song
It’s the secret to immortality, we’ve been keeping all along

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

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

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

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

Love is the only waterfall for the heart

Stunning
in its conception
and in its execution
flawless:

My art is
for the Gods, ie,
there’s enough space between
[the] Gods and me for everyone:

In between
unfolding are forests
and mountain ranges
are undulating

and in the emanating
of sun at noon
there is a pure filling
of eye-cavities

with God. How to say
what one wishes to say
because it is necessary,
how to say

what one wishes
to say
without
incriminating anyone:

But you did not
turn me into the forbidden fruit,
you tore down
the gates

I step[ped] into
rapture itself
Whet through and through
by God’s waterfall

May Archangel Michael (on that side) protect him (on this side / of the looking glass) and protect me too

His hair was effortless
Dear was the love, and in those eyes
Futures unfolded: for us

I could have stayed my lips on those lips, forever
Finally, I was on that side of forever
If that thing of sort to me happened time of all would a poet I even be

Dining for my singing like Sappho in Greece, Anciently
I was Anciently Greek too once, but the rest of it is a blur
Tongue, teeth, stomach (you were drinking:

(I cannot allow my heart to be sinking
(any further than this future: I promised myself
(this one thing

besides I am still on that side of forever
and I see us)
I tickled the nape of your neck for hours

The pomace of grapes
It was your voice that seduced me
Your words

Give us back Sappho’s poetry

Beginnings are hard. Sappho has told us since Ancient Greece. And yet you always feel the urge to remain in Ancient Greek rather than be translated in a modern language.

The desire to run away is merely the flight or fight response. Never fight, because you might hurt your face. And your face is your money maker.

Your talents are meaningless if you do not put them to use. I suggest submitting to your talents entirely. If you succeed, it’s the cherry, sure, but for you, as an artist, you have to submit yourself to the talent which you’ve been blessed with.

When in the throes of dilemma always remember Aristotle, also Ancient Greek, who presented the golden mean to the world for two donkeys to tempt a single bale of hay with.

As for me, I am not British, I am not American, and I am not Andy fucking Warhol. If anyone, I am a son of Sappho, that Ancient Greek poet, who had the majority of her poems burnt by Gregory of Nazianzus in the 4^th century, at least this is what I could find online. I had firstly discovered that Sappho’s legacy had been destroyed by the Church in Jeanette Winterson’s seminal Art & Lies, her novel from 1994. In a recent novel entitled After Sappho writer Selby Wynn Schwartz has managed to create a book that on a certain frequency seems to make up for the loss of Sappho’s work.