Lips, blurred shadows
Before smoky eyes, lashes
Absorbing sweat
Droplets.

They flow in the meanders of streets and bars,
Warnings by enslaved sugar cane harvesters from afar.
The produce as dangerous as lashes on disobedience,
From sloshed owners of plantations delirious. Tipsy greed.

Known to colonists for driving drinkers mad,
“Le rhum rend fou” they whisper in France, gulping
The brutal inebriating substance of wrong doings,
Turning blind eyes to ancient ports of human trade.

He was a descendent of those who stayed behind,
Only to later emigrate to the Metropole, unwanted
Reminders of ungrateful history. Parents working
Hard to fulfil disillusioned dreams of opportunities.

His amber bottle, his best friend, able to turn white
Sclera red, smiles into raging smears and slurs, be it
Not a swear word, using lexicon to hurt as pupils
Dilate, for looks to stab and offend, cursing blessings.

Easier to be a victim than take responsibility, blaming
All exception made for the precious liquid, bashing
Intentions with statements of futility, projects with
Sentences of failure, as the last drop burns a sore throat.

Perceptions of my body disturbed, me
With consciousness. Unable to relate,
Recognise myself in others, irrepressible despair,
Frantically ridding of clothes, jewels, makeup.

Hardly bearing the touch of feet to ground,
Blue moquette, craving annihilation,
Cancelling body to erase thoughts.
Little did I know I would learn to love all.

Some could say she was a multi-ethnic poet, others
Might want to focus on her motherhood to two
Peaceful beings, grown up to become models, of
Honesty, kindness, fairness and dignity.

Her friends toast to her with champagne glasses,
As her father before her, she enjoyed life to the fullest,
Without major extravaganza casting smiles, able to twist
Sorrow into laughter, lighting rooms as she entered.

Her lovers remember her as the sensual essence
Of a woman, so they defined her many a time, though
She’d ignore why. She wore no make-up nor high heel
Shoes, no creams to prevent age from exhibiting itself.

Her tattooist drew the stars on her body, has knowledge
Of the celestial maps engraved with ink by needles,
Yet I am the only one who knows her deeply, in me
She confided, the creative thoughts concealed in her mind.

She was a tenacious human with courageous concepts,
Dictated by inspiring instincts, something she called
Universal consciousness underlining all, that ever
Was, is and will be, throughout special infinity.

She reconnected the dots and spread the word enticing
Those who crossed her passage to feel, the harmony, unite
In common realisation, that we are one with all and nothing
Can support our existence other than love.

I’ll miss her tender lioness features,
Her mane covering eyes elsewhere, as she gazed
Into the abysses in my direction. Faithfully hers forever,
Mac Apple, alias Pro.

You are to be found far and wide within
Me and out, flowing through veins, inundating
Entirety. Ancient drops of you concealed
In stars released through showering debris,
Rendering existence possible, your absence
Intolerable, instincts in eternal search of you.

Intimacy in little opaque cabins made of glass,
Ceramic tubs, algae basins, riverbeds, by shores
Where feet don’t touch, blanketing granular materials,
Silicon dioxide in the form of insoluble quartz, calcium
Carbonate from shells and skeletons of organisms,
Corals and molluscs losing you forever, stranded in deserts.

I allow you all for you know how, to gently
Lick and lap thirsty skins, totality of my body
Hankering after vital substance as you take control
Of me, manipulating vibrations with mastery, unaware
Of your nature, crucial lymph, my only lover,
Forcefully penetrating cavities and pores.

I shut my eyes to your caress, yearning
For profundity, melting desiring fusion as
I unseal my lips to drink of you, inebriating
The perfect system longing to redefine
Itself through absorption, recognising
Its consistency, you within and out.

Your power soothes my consciousness, heals
My ills, paces my movement as your sound
Orchestrates, my heartbeat and breath to
The rhythm of universal quantum. You are old.
Billions of years constantly mutate your state
From ice to vapours, though I crave for you most

In liquid form.

It has been said many times before, ‘Old
Habits die hard’ and I agree, without
Condemning any of my own, as I begin
Unlatching eyelids, shutters to the real world,

To gentle caresses of sunbeams, furtively tiptoeing
Around the room, invading space, consistently crawling
On my bed, to reach my forehead and grant
A longed-for princely awakening kiss.

My feet touch the floor, a few steps next door,
I cleanse my face with tepid water, always
Appreciatively contemplating the billions years
Old interstellar ice, molecules composing each single drop.

I slowly walk downstairs anticipating the day, prepare
The espresso coffee ***, as I allow the radioman to shower
Me with the latest news I wish to block,
Roll my cigarette and open my precious laptop

Containing me and all my thoughts, a second brain
To register what I forgot. Look about in the meanders
Of a virtual world other than my dreams
And proceed typing words that combined create

Meaning, unleashing imagination, feelings and evanescent
Memories, observing my surroundings, once more asking
Myself why, each time I take a break and lie
By the lake, ants climb over my body.

Infancy talked to me various languages, switching
Tonalities for different melodies, to be learnt.
Naturally acquiring the discernment, recognising
Faces and voices to choose applicable native tongues.

English with my father, whose name echoed as Plato,
Iranian with my mother, Italian with my siblings, French
With school teachers, Greek on summer holidays.

Growing up my hair and accents, led to the inevitable
Repetitive question, ‘Where are you from?’
Timidly answered as it was hard to comprehend, until I set
Myself to do so untiringly drafting precious family trees.

Investigations interrogating relatives to exhaustion,
Ignited my pride for every single drop of blood,
Composing me and drawing borders
On geographical maps delineating my essence.

My story was one of many, they labelled me a multi-ethnic,

For my daddy’s naissance in Accra from a mulatto beauty
Queen, daughter of a British doctor and his Ghanaian lady friend.
For her husband, his Hellenic pater, son of Chios, born in Sudan.

For my mummy’s naissance in Tehran from a noble
Banker, progeny of the Qajar dynasty originally Turkic,
And his pure blood Persian wife.

My parents met in England where they studied only
To marry and move to pre-revolutionary Iran. I was born
In Rome where they fled, when insurrections began.

Now if someone asks I forcefully respond,
“From planet Earth. A terrestrial little sphere at the heart
Of its star system, on the edge of its galaxy lost
Somewhere in space in the maze of the Universe.

My story is one of many, I labelled us humans.

unfurling smithereens
of retrospections
stitched to mend
fragmented derelict
sails.

Whenever I allow myself to think of love, my mind runs
To the chambers where secret memories are stored,
In sealed chests, on high unreachable shelves, deterring me
From opening, dreaded Pandora boxes, stripped of hope.

Yet sometimes the endeavour to reminisce overwhelming
Feelings I struggle to repress, commands me to climb the stairs,
Unclose the safes of the unspoken, as I forbid tears
From pouring, out of clouded eyes, still loving.

You are there, with your roguish smile, chivalric deportment,
Statuesque poise, Michelangelo’s David, I compared, giddily
Gazing at your tragic features as if you were, the one
And only whom I could ever love, desire, crave, forgive.

Suddenly though not unexpectedly, intrudes the scolding guardian
Of remembrances, treating me as an impostor in my own mind,
A thief of frames concealed, yelling at me as you used to, reminding me
Of reality, your swinging lunatic humours, mercilessly lashing me with words.

Scars time will never heal, they lie when they say it will,
It has no power over what we were, nor can it erase even the slightest
Faintest flare of what we felt. Whenever I allow myself to think of love,
I still think of you, but that’s the maximum I consent to do.

Granted the sense of sight, I see
What you see, reflections of light, between
Infrareds and ultraviolets, a little portion
Of the electromagnetic spectrum, unhidden
To our vision, only guessing the wonders of X
And Gamma rays, while playing with colours.

Entrusted with a mind able to recognise and realise,
I comprehend what you understand, and distinguish
Water from soil, oceans from forests, planet Earth
From star Sun, food from poison, love from hate, my body
From yours, delineating where I end and you begin, detecting
Our similitude as a species, bound by rationality and feelings.

Conferred unfathomable imagination, intangible
Deprived of a location, I delight myself in conceiving
Your ideas, identifying with your thoughts, magical grasp
Of the unknown and uninvented, able to create my perceptions,
Give life to conceptions, just like you, pouring words on paper,
Painting images on canvas, building shelters and wheels.

Bequeathed the legacy of common ancestors, millennia
Of history and knowledge, culture, tradition and creeds, evolution,
I share your story, your anatomy and physiognomy, your blood
And DNA, a map of all the genes composing you and me,
Trillions of cells gathering together to make a human being,
With the strongest impression that I resemble you, in so many ways.

Bestowed with consciousness I contain
Information I explore, attempting to unleash
The essence stored within, that unspecified certain thing
That unites all that exists, and elicits humankind to believe
Something greater, something beyond has a determined volition
For me to apprehend that I am you, and you are me.

Sheltered in deep abysses, enveloped
By the soft touch of translucent salted fluids,
Voluptuous fluctuating bodies of enthralling creatures
Inhabit the unscathed aquatic spheres, impishly enjoying
The uncountable marvels of spirited marine existence.

Secret currents carry turtles migrating ten
Thousand miles or more across the oceans in search
Of jellyfish and warmer waters with remoras sliding backwards,
Clinging onto them by suction as mantas pursue
Shrimps and krill before the passage of baleens.

Dolphins splash about communicating sounds, flamingo tongue
Sea snails leaving trails, of dead coral tissue in their wake. Red
Vase sponge copiously producing slime as squids swim by,
Focusing their prominent eyes on targets while colourful *****
Walk sideways, foraging for small, spiny, globular urchins.

Sneaky sharks finely tune electromagnetic sensors marked
By pits on their snouts to detect, slight muscular movements,
Down to heartbeats of preys, fighting battles with flying hawks
Over penguins, and trumpetfish align themselves with other
Vertical objects and sea stars, regenerate lost body parts.

Moving as one, schools of sweetlips explore accompanied
By devoted cleaner wrasses grooming them to keep
Their skin and mouths free of infection-causing parasites.
All play the game, of balance and harmony in the underworld,
While mermaids travel along the few remaining vessels of

Stranded humans in quest of land.

In darkness the absence of light sparkles
Man’s reflection on notions of nothingness.
Empty space ultimately devoided of purpose
As space unhosting objects loses function.

Empty minds deprived of thoughts and imagination,
Unable of creation. Empty bodies ceasing to pump
Blood where it belongs, for hearts to beat, life to be.
Psychopomps allegedly escorting vestiges beyond.

Yet in nothing eyes can witness is there Nothing,
Always Something invading sight with blinding colours.
Beyond sight, perceptions of power, particles in motion,
Detecting forces playing games to challenge the reflection.

In space, in mind, in body, emptiness does not exist.

As a child I struggled many a time
With notions of rights and wrongs,
Searching in the voice of parents
Through approval and scolding
Lessons to identify misconducts.

As an adolescent I began to challenge
Conventional behaviours striving
To find my peers’ admiration, long
Considerations over good and evil
To become someone deserving high regards.

Entering adulthood I withdrew from the gaze
Of others as no one knew who I was and who
I intended to grow into, making my own rules,
Relying on instincts to drive, religious
And philosophical reflections to call mine.

Now that I am half way through I realise
Each and every human being stores
In the depths of its consciousness a truth
No mask can hide and no one can deny.
Keys to the glorification of humankind,

Being faithful to oneself by living
In the light of love, contagiously spreading
The energy of kindness, getting rid of lacerating
Desires of vengeance, retaliations for our own
Frustrations, based on illogical self-contempt.

As I ponder on justice I have ceased to dwell,
Eye for an eye or turn the other cheek,
As the illuminated essence within me
Inevitably resolve to peace. No revenge serves
Any purpose if not that of perpetrating evil

To the detriment of humanity as a whole.

We surprise ourselves with the ability to feel
Emotions run so deep in our veins, swallowing
Us into the abysses of irrationality, casting
Us throughout oceans filled with promises,
High hopes and expectations, dreams of wild
Currents tearing us apart, tempests at sea,

Shipwrecks adrift.

Elevated by the nobility we assign to devotion,
Love posing as the commander of the vessel
Without whom the vessel sinks, is not eternal
And sets conditions we must abide by, as mutiny
Is severely reprimanded, punishment resulting
In the atrocities inflicted by his opponent.

Crushed by the humiliation of spontaneous aversion,
Hate passes off as the single solution, the only feeling
Able to replace our inability to love that which we now

Abhor.

From my thoughts to my lips and in my veins,
I am sickly besotted with you. Without you
I’m in pain. I crave for you from dawn to dusk,
Finding relief only in my slumbers, when I dream
Of others, not of you.

For you don’t pertain to my hours of darkness,
There are limits to what you can give. When you sleep
With me I don’t, I fidget and tremble, toss and turn
In bed as you flow right through me provoking shivers.
I hence lie without you, longing to awake.

When I do rise to the morning beams penetrating
My windows overpoweringly, my mind gallops towards
You commanding my feet to follow, my eyes to find you.
You are there. You are always there. Faithfully waiting
For me where I left you.

Your loyalty besieges me and I surrender to the smell
Of your strong black hot body, yearning for you taste,
Gulping your exotic essence to the last drop, smoking
Cigarettes before, during and after our ritual *******.
I say I love you, they are worried I’m addicted to you.

The last time we accidentally drifted apart I was afraid.
Four days without you drove me insane, perennially drenched
In a cold sweat, devastated by stomach cramps and panic
Attacks, feeling ill beyond remedy. The doctor sentenced
I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms and I had to be

Strong. I ignored him and came running back to you
Promising I would never live you again, toying with
Your powdery texture slipping through my fingers,
Inebriated by your vapours as your liquid substance
Produces that oh-so-familiar gurgling noise.

Anthropology suggests there was a time
When no communication was spoken by men,
Merely embryonic sounds to express
Primitive thoughts, until development called
For evolution to inspire, words holding meaning.

Religion narrates archaic stories of Babel,
Of a common tongue bonding civilisations
Building a Tower, until the Lord witnessed
The limitless ability of a unified humanity and decided,
To confuse their speech to disunite them.

Esotericism puts forth the ancient possibility
Of a coalescing language to be found in telepathy,
Unable to hide, disguise or lie, until men felt
The need to do so, creating lemmas that would conceal
Their real intentions and their true self.

Now if someone in English is a person and no one
Is nobody, and in Italian the someone is a persona
And the nobody is nessuno, when the French call both
The someone and the nobody personne, what does it do

To the understanding of each other?

The place was the unexpected carefree host
Of several tipsy nights wetted
By friendly toasts and temporary infatuations,
Lasting the duration granted
By gulping red clepsydras measuring
Time with the flow of inebriating substances.

My passion alas soon drove to the abolishment
Of such street hours of darkness to the benefit
Of clarity, concentration and sobriety,
For the unfolding of a novel awaiting
Virtual carbon particles to stain
Imaginary paper pages.

The place hence became my daylight salon,
Betaking myself to it, a necessary resolution
To having a semblance of social life, a foot
In the “real” world, while taking a compulsory break
From self-relegation to the seclusion
Of my private abode and imagination.

The sun, a spotlight directed on the thespians,
Lifting the nocturnal curtains, to unveil their act.
The stage, a familiar space for adult orphans,
Searching in Bacchus casual company.
Amongst the heterogeneous lot, a tall, big-lipped
Man, plays reminiscences of Tambourines.

His wide smile uncovers chipped white teeth,
Clashing with the colour of his skin.
The first time I saw him he was giddily bragging
Of recent dates made of sandwiches eaten
Sheltering from heat, in the fresh vegetable department
Of the discount down the road, from his apartment.

Incredulously I believed him, until he told me not to,
As of then he would be, my new befitted friend.
The big time dealer serving the entire region,
Always there when you need him,
To take care of the kids or escort you to the dentist
When in pain and to the other side of the city.

Notorious for going out of his way for others,
Generous with time, kind words, smiles and money,
His job does not define him yet completes
The spreading euphoria his presence bestows
Upon those who look for him or those
Who simply stumble into him, by chance.

Come with me, I’ll show you where
The wonders sparkle beguiling blessings
Arousing perceptions of gratitude innate
To heedless humans in lack of deceptions.

Irrefutable eternal verities unfolding
Elegantly before disallowing eyes
On the expanding canvas made of space
Moulding elements of plasmatic grace.

Wind back the hands of time with me to witness
The emergence of the first and most abundant substance,
Hydrogen out of recombination epoch
Finely orchestrated by physical laws to form and fuse in stars.

Stellar nucleosynthesis where nuclear reactions
Are boons in disguise for new combinations
To bear lithium, carbon, neon, oxygen, iron,
The entirety of the essentials on the periodic table.

Indulge with me in the mesmerising marvel
Of watching those incandescent stars go supernova,
Their shock wave thrusting silver and golden nuggets
Throughout infinity creating planets.

Now return to Earth with me and look around,
At the stars’ debris under your feet, feel the ground.
Take this glass of water, a cocktail of hydrogen
And oxygen, breath in! Gaze at all that exists.

Stare at yourself, made of trillions of cells,
Nourish the awareness that you are part
Of the bewildering opus yearning for you
To live your life and honour with consciousness

The wonders sparkling beguiling blessings.

Much like the Mayans thousands of years before,
Granting 2012 the honour to host
An apocalyptic end of the world,
Peruvian shamans now declare
2017 the year
Of turbulence and widespread war.

The healers thus reunite on a hill,
In the capital of Lima to perform
Cleansing rituals able to prevent
The fatal clash between North Korea and the US.
It comes at a time of heightened tensions
Between the two countries over
Threatening nuclear missile programmes.

An unprecedented inferno ignites the night of a West
London residential skyscraper burning
From its second to its twenty-seventh floor
Unleashing the worst nightmares
Of its sleeping inhabitants
And the courage of sleepless fire-fighters.

Colombia's Farc rebels hand over their weapons
To United Nations Inspectors
As part of historic peace accords,
While the President declares,
“Peace will be built little by little,
Like a cathedral, which you build brick by brick"
Revolutionary forces no longer armed.

Migrations creating social unrests
People fleeing their threatening nests,
As mayors plead governments not to let
Any more in and ministries ask, cities to absorb
Two hundred and fifty thousand more.
Coast guards relentlessly saving the drowning ones.

US Attorney General denies, having undisclosed meetings
With Russian officials in Washington hotels.
Any suggestions of collusion with the Kremlin described
As appalling and detestable lies.
Agency’s investigation into Russian political meddling impeded
As Intelligence believes in conspiracies. Memories of Cold Wars
And Bond movies where the ‘traitor’ was lucky to be fired and not shot.

While doctors announce people over 75 taking
Daily aspirin after a stroke or heart attack
Are at higher risk of major and sometimes fatal
Stomach bleeds than previously thought,
Anthropologists excavating in Morocco
Find fossils of potential ancestors, the oldest sapiens retrieved,
Tracing back our steps to 300, 000 years before present.

Across the ocean, somewhere in Arizona,
A man heading to a retirement home prepares,
Cleans up his garage with the help of a neighbour
And finds a 15 million dollar *******, he ignored
He ever had.

Though some believed that just as beauty
Space was in the eye of the beholder,
An abstract justification for human experience
Of matter and its motion,

An ancient thinker, by history called the Great,
Asserted with conviction, it simply did not exist.
Nothing was not a concept of nature
Abhorring vacuum, and all agreed.

As nothing came from nothing,
Nothing couldn’t be. Empty space
Out of consciousness’ reach.

Deprived of objects it had no purpose,
For what would its purpose be
If not that of being a place
To contain all that exists?

The mind puzzling game concocted
If space could exist independently of matter
Matter could not exist independently of space,
For where would it be?

So came another thinker questioning
‘Is space something rather than nothing?’
As indeed deprived of the object, undeniably
The place de facto would still exist.

Time passing by replaced thinkers with scientists,
Defining its nature for it to be infinite and absolute,
Existing independently of objects and the mind of the observer,
Observing its balancing force, counteracting that of gravity,

To keep things apart. Dark energy, Energy of space.

Now searching for particles to fill in the voids
To justify the dynamic and expanding quality
Of a Universe which might as well
Be a plenum.

Retracing back the steps to initial perceptions
Of inexistent space for a Cosmos filled
With fundamental particles elegantly orchestrating
The motion of all that ever was, is and will be.

All that exists, a plenum of energy.

I believe in never speaking the words,
‘Should have’ and ‘would have’, enemies
Of the Self.

Though many were the times
I should have, would have known
Better,

Life treated me well. Bad moments
Acknowledged as necessary paths,
To becoming who I am.

Now I am asked to ponder and find
One thing I would do
Otherwise.

I know exactly what it is and I’m ashamed
To confess: Say ‘No’ all the times I said ‘Yes’,
Unwillingly.

A chronic violence to myself,
To please others under emotional blackmails,
Fake rules of good behaviour and respect.

I should have, would have liked
To love myself more and find
The ****** courage to say ‘No’,

All the times I said ‘Yes’.

Little difference between
Cherry blossom and birth,
Of tadpoles, lions and stars,
Reflections of light
In refractile eyes.

Everything in motion
Set to evolve,
Into a thousand wonders
As the Universe
Expands,

Creating distances
Amongst objects striving
To reunite,
As All that exists is One,
And can only travel bonded.

Traces of tiredness excavate deep into his skin,
Daily, as I enter with a volatile smile, weekly,
In search of my dose of earthly blood, pretending
I am blind to my perception, neglecting my intuition.

Assumptions lead to consider he’s always had one
Too many, and perhaps something more, should I guess
An alkaloid passing off as his friend, allowing him to keep
Going, beyond his natural forces and strength.

He’s ageing prematurely, worries and silver curls
For taxes and suppliers, a runny nose and a bloated belly,
Four years of activity, complots and conspiracy,
Courting customers who vary, trading loyalty for markdowns.

Experience acquired by the day, market research,
Watching the big shots being relieved, treating debts
By way of mathematical games as he pays
For each and every one of his mistakes.

His little dog assumes his likes, long grey hair
Covering his eyes, not to see, the infamy.
For that particular *** you can only ask Velier,
He sets the price, no bargains, no payables, barely any gain.

On the black market however, other stories are told.
Creative Naples, its entrepreneurs and financial guards
Guide you from depots to highways exchanging farewells
At the tollbooth. Your risk, your gloom, your despair.

The *** in his car boot costs less but is the same,
Same brand, same bottle, same taste, had to pass through Velier.
Nervous as a reluctant crook, his required foxiness impedes
Timid tears from rolling down his cheeks and give in.

As he questions the rules of the illegitimate system,
Cursing those deprived of scruples, dwelling
With notions of honesty and integrity, he too compelled
To evasion to merely survive,

His conclusion resolves in a simple explanation,
“If you are willing to give up morals, honour and passion
You can too attempt to succeed
In the wine bar industry.”

Trembling he entered the bar with a cheerful smile,
In a dark green suit and a Panama hat.
Sun-dried wrinkles on his face and hands
Dotted with brown liver spots, passage of time.

Buttons of his white shirt open to the trunk,
Roman summer at last, a little too scorching for some.
Cherry angiomas glittery red,
Dilated blood vessels showing off his chest.

New freckles he never had and not to be
Confused with his only solitary mole,
Stuck on his lower bluish chapped lip
As he shivers struggling to raise his coffee cup,
To the mouth with both hands for just one sip.

In silence he dribbles and drools succeeding to gulp
Down the last drop, asking for the check
In a broken deep voice, one that has smoked a cigarette
Too many, scratching his drinker’s nose as he wobbles
To the cashier.

Paid and ready to proceed his wallet refuses to fit
Back into his rear pocket.
The frustrating challenge a matter of patience,
To which he inevitably renounces as he surrenders to hold
On to it while he waves his goodbyes to the bartender.

When Archimedes jumped out of his bathtub
Shouting ‘Eureka’ naked down the streets,
He had finally found a way to uncover
The deceit on behalf of His Majesty’s goldsmith.

Had he stolen gold replacing it with silver
While carving the divine wreath commissioned by the Tyrant?
The Golden Crown of Syracuse to be placed on the head
Of a goddess to be tested without being disturbed.

It all began with overflow as he dipped his body in water.
It was evident and easy to observe
That some objects floated while others sank,
Occupying more or less, tri-dimensional space.

Fluids rejecting or enveloping the intruder,
Displaced proportionally to the latter’s
Volume, density and mass, led to the revolutionary
Discovery of buoyancy, sparkling new beginnings.

The understanding suggested, that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float.
The opposite being true, an object displacing
An amount of water lighter than its weight, would sink.

Fluid’s volition to reclaim its legitimate space.

Although the system was unable to assess the fraud,
As shape came into account and a kilo of solid gold
Was smaller than the kilo of golden wrath,
Dipped into water discrepancy ignored the math.

Unpredictably, the genius found higher purposes,
Buoyancy to determine whether a steel ship would sink
Or float, make it through the Mediterranean and beyond,
Where the Pillars of Hercules warn sailors to go no further.

Non plus ultra to the realms of the unknown.

The understanding suggesting that if an object displaced
An amount of water heavier than its weight, it would float,
Bigger volumes, lower densities, empty hulls and ballasts,
Succeeded in opening the gates to new oceans and new worlds.

Buoyancy to explain why our bodies float at sea
Apparently rejected by expelling waters claiming back their territory.

Gases being fluids, air acts the same,
With the extraordinary result that a kilo of feathers
Is indeed lighter that a kilo of lead.
By 0,9 grams.

Neutrons, protons and electrons compose
The entirety of atoms pervading The All,
Forming bewildering matter, objects and substances,
Ranging from dust to stars, planets, galaxies,
Superclusters, organisms, oxygen and water,
Living creatures.

Neutrons and protons in turn made of quarks,
Elementary particles, indivisible, positively charged.
Deprived of a structure of their own they strongly interact,
To create one and many zillion more.

Never alone always bound
In twos and threes, sparkling composites,
Hadrons at the heart of atomic nuclei.
Quarks making us.

While electrons, together with muons and taus
Only heavier but identical, are leptons,
The most common elementary particles in our world
Offer atoms their chemical properties.

Negatively charged, indivisible, smaller there are none.
Deprived of a structure of their own they weakly interact,
Frantically moving subject to electromagnetic fields.
Leptons making us.

Quarks and Leptons in conclusion
Minuscule nature of our essence shared
With that of all that exists. No wonder,
Everything in dualism persists.

Seeking harmonic balance and elegance,
A cosmos of particles interacting in countless manners
To materialise the entirety of energy in the Universe,
Shaping it with imagination and creativity.

As stars make gold, pressurised carbon diamonds,
Thirty trillion cells a human being, a human being a thought.

What marvellous creatures those biped ants,
Inhabiting the terrestrial little dust sphere, third from its star.
A naturally social animal “living in a complex social colony,
with one or more breeding queens.”

What organised creatures those biped ants,
Arranging themselves in a hierarchical manner, to follow
Rules and be protected by their chief, whose interest is
The survival, wellbeing and self-enhancement of all.

What ingenious creatures those biped ants,
Drawing, inventing and building that which their mind can imagine,
Creating words out of nothing to tell each other stories,
Hand their wisdom over and down to their heir.

What intelligent creatures those biped ants,
Engaging and toying with thoughts and questions
To find answers to sentiments they spontaneously recognise,
Driven by curiosity to understand their potential and universe.

What extraordinary creatures those biped ants,
Capable of love and caring, so unusual and rare on other planets,
Believing in strength and justice, freedom and equality,
Marching for their rights and for them be willing to give up their lives.

What fragile creatures those biped ants,
So vulnerable to greed, arrogance, fear and complex,
Self-commiseration and self-loathing, punishing themselves
With self-destruction.

What paradoxical creatures those biped ants,
Dividing in colours, red or blue, black or white,
Unwilling to acknowledge that any idea is a good idea
If in the best interest of humanity as a whole and its home,

Regardless of who gives birth to it and casts the seed,
For it to grow.

I am double the age I was, in my darkest hour,
When nothing seemed to be, quite right,
When I gazed extensively into the depths
Of my abyssal dark brown eyes, only to fall
Desperately in love with my Self and realise,
No one could ever care for me
As much as I.

I am double the age I was, in my darkest hour,
When nothing seemed to be, quite right,
When I stared neurotically at my surroundings,
Observing my likes, breathing human beings,
Their pain, their strength, their cruelty.
None of it was good enough, for me,
Too much love, too much pain, too much grief.

We were too much, of a marvellous creature
To deserve living in anguish and gloom.

I am double the age I was, in my darkest hour,
When nothing seemed to be, quite right,
When I survived my own death and will,
And decided to love all, as much as I love I.

For too long they believed
You were static, finite
In time and space,
An inanimate background
To existence, a black canvas
Dotted with stars, awkwardly
Evolving around us.

Forever will I be in ecstasy
Before you, your might
And dynamic motions,
So perfectly tuned as to provide
Humankind with life.

Watching the crowd I ponder
On all the crowds that came before,
Since the first chimps gathered
Ignoring what they might become,
And I question, ‘Does this crowd know?’

Demonstrating for peace, mourning the victims,
Demanding revenge, ‘obliterate’ another crowd,
‘**** ’em all, none of ’em are me friends!’
Chaotic and confused, do they even attempt,
Meditating on who they are growing into and might become?

Depictions of crowds in history take me back
On the timeline of our journey, when **** habilis
Came to be erectus, grouping under a shelter
Protecting fire to survive, evolve and develop.
How would he consider humanity today? Would he understand?

And what would early Sapiens think if he saw us?
Would he renounce the exodus from Ethiopia?
A crowd in search of new spaces to call home
Exploring the marvels of its curiosity and potential.
Would he turn around and spare us the distress of future conquests?

And when the last Neanderthal and Floresiensis died
And skins began turning light, anthropology to recognise
The survival of one and only **** genus species,
Sapiens all worldwide, how did it forget who he was and where he came from?
How did it, or we, end up fighting each other out of fear and greed?

When did life stop being enough?
When did our mere existence stop
To bewilder us in marvel and delight?

Each pace forward moved the summit further
As I climbed my Everest, twenty-nine thousand and six
Footsteps in the past, twenty-two more to go,
When suddenly the mount, the goddess,
Mother of the Universe, smiled at me from above.

Her grace was gentle though her presence alone
Felt like a menace. I knew I carried within me
All the ignominy of human being. An offense to her essence,
Physics and doing, ‘How dare I be there, scramble over
And trample her only to prove to my Self I could?

Fear suggested my surrender, retrace my steps
Back to humbleness, place my Self where it belonged.
Yet I froze and could not move, immensity had got the best
Of me, making me believe that I was too little of a creature
To attempt being greater than what I was.

The paralysing nature of such ludicrous belief had me
Hanging from a root seeking to survive despite it.
The goddess continued to smile at me from above, unwilling
To help, I thought. And as I was losing my grip, conquered by fatigue,
She spoke: ‘If you trust in me, let go!’ and so I did.

Two point one million kilometres per hour
Is the speed at which we flow, in Space
As we live our exotic eventful lives
On seemingly motionless grounds
Firm and solid beneath our feet.

One thousand six hundred seventy five
Kilometres per hour is the speed of those grounds,
A spherical dancer pirouetting endlessly to enlight
The marvellous show alternating day and night.
Rotations we do not feel, dizziness incomplete.

As speed is constant, momentum numbs
Our senses, though it is unable to deceive
The winds and ocean currents, only tangible proof
Of our movement, incessantly blowing and running
Yet bound to Earth for neither to escape.

Air deflecting between high and low
Pressures, to move extra heat elsewhere,
Balancing temperatures, to talk about the weather,
Offering seasons to render
Our terrestrial little planet an inhabitable one.

Elegant harmonisation, Coriolis Effect,
Universe orchestrating sophisticated laws
Setting the rare conditions, for wind to blow,
For us to exist.

I was officially born in the 17th century.
My homeland was England.
My parents were many.
They conceived me in coffeehouses.

I was officially born in the 17th century,
When the crowns of Scotland and England united,
When James VI, King of Scots,
Ascended to the throne of England as James I;
When civil wars between roundheads and cavaliers
Ended in Parliamentary victory,
At the Battle of Worcester.

I was officially born in the 17th century,
At the time of Interregnum,
Commonwealths, Glorious Revolution,
William and Mary
and the English Bill of Rights.
Reformation and proliferation of literacy:
People learnt to read the Bible,
Then chose to be curious and explore,
Secular literature and novels
In circulating libraries.

My parents were many.
They conceived me in coffeehouses,
Scattered around the city,
Spread throughout the country,
And finally reached abroad:
Another Revolution,
on the other side of the Channel.

My parents were many.
They met at intellectual bacchanalia,
In reading societies and clubs,
‘Cause that’s where news was communicated.
Freely criticizing politics and governments,
They engaged in conversations
in an environment of confrontation,
Social status set aside,
To listen, exchange, formulate,
Understand and comprehend.

Another William called me ‘mistress of success’,
Blaise thought I was ‘the queen of the world’.
Being well informed and debate in social networks
Was a duty, before being a right,
As my parents’ opinion would guide the rulers,
Ideally in the interest not of few, not of many,
but of all.

First heeded by governments,
They quickly learnt to manipulate me,
They muzzled me and domesticated me,
Taking away my freedom and relevance,
With the unofficial excuse by which
My parents were too ignorant
to even have a voice.

Now those coffeehouses have changed their shape,
Intangible, virtual, ethereal,
New spaces for new parents
To develop ideas, opinions,
And exchange;
Not currencies or stocks
but information and views.

I am my parents’ voice,
My name is Public Opinion.

Once upon a time
You were important.
Once upon a time
They were inquisitive.
They listened.
They asked.

They were fascinated and marvelled
By your stories of the past,
Neglected by fault of ignorance
Sought for through awe-inspiring curiosity.

They believed you possessed
Wisdom and experience,
Knowledge of the otherwise
Unknown.
They gathered around you,
Or perhaps beside you
And in front of a fire
Begging you to speak
Drooling over your words.

You were their entertainment
Like pirates, they wanted you to hand over
Your treasures
Like sharks, they devoured your essence
Like vessels, they slowly disappeared
Surfing away on a web
You never saw, barely know
Or comprehend.

Your services are no longer required
They found a new friend
They call Google,
One followed by a hundred zeros.
You cannot bit that
You do not stand a chance.

Here is where the story gets better
They invented rules for words
The code is political correctness.
It obliges them to pretend,
To respect you
By continuously finding
New flattering definitions for you.
By now, you are not even “old” anymore
You have lost the right to
Your lifetime achievements award.
You are just “older” than someone else is.

“Older” enough to retire
With honours.
They have finally decided
To acknowledge
Your inevitable infirmity.
They are offering you a new perspective
Awarding you with a one-way ticket
Free ride
To your beautiful new home,
So that you can rest.
A well-deserved rest.

You are simply démodé.
The stories you carry
Are of no interest anymore.
Memories are written
Tombstones too.
They are gazing at the future
Drooling over the fantastic
Possibilities.
The book they are reading,
You are not in.

Treasures of the eldest
Buried at sea
Rest assure you will be retrieved,
When a pressing sense of bleakness
Accompanied by devastating guilt,
Will bring them back to you
Compelling them to ask once again
“Please tell us stories of the past”.

When ancient Greeks dwelt upon notions
Of matter and its nature, formulating philosophies
Of physics to grasp and get a glimpse at the Universe,
A single common inspired idea, bound them all in reflection:

‘Nothing comes into existence from nothing’.

There had to be eternal surviving basic elements unable
To be created or destroyed, continuously mutating to underline
Apparent change, while composing all that ever was, is
And will be. Omnificent and omnipresent in a godly manner.

Evolution laying the grounds for rare creatures
To grow into great thinkers, ponder and observe,
Empirically prove the facticity of these elements,
Philosophical atoms, scientific elementary particles.

Notes on the elegant musical score
Orchestrating the Universe, its dance and its laws.
Indivisible, matter reduced to its core
Permeating space and everything within.

This basic notion twirls in my head
Pervading my being with the awareness of its substance:
I am part of all that exists and with it,
I share my essence.

A consequent conscious feeling of unity
With the Universe, all that exists and the humankind.
A sense of inevitable peace,
While accepting to be a part of it all.

Harmonic realisation that combined we are
Nothing more and nothing less
Than the Universe becoming aware
Of Itself.

Seclusion leads to wonder
Forgetting the sound of my voice,
As speaking loses purpose
And observation becomes my only drive.

A square with benches surrounded by trees
Pebbles clattering as kids would climb on
The mighty statue of an ancient judge.
A spot I made my own.

Random people passing by, few
Take shelter from chaos and heat,
Absorbed in their own minds
A frantic world seemingly leading to madness.

A ***** smelly sashaying woman seats on a bench,
Places her ******* garbage bags next to her
While rambling incomprehensible words of anger.
‘That’s where solitude leads you!’ I presumptuously think.

A slender tall middle-age man, just as ***** and smelly,
Comes up to her shouting she does not care enough
About him. She refuses to talk and walks away.
‘No matter who you are, feelings are always the same!’

A man in his sixties and a young sunny girl
Take their place on the bench, chatting away.
He narrates experiences she enchantedly absorbs,
‘A beautiful father and daughter scene’ I naively assume.

As they smile tenderly, his hand swiftly glides under her skirt,
She approaches him to kiss his ears and neck.
Such warmth, delicacy and joy heat my heart
Wondering what the judge might have to say.

As I take notes of my observations I raise my eyes,
A lonely loud sobbing kid is now sat on the bench.
His mother crossly approaches to scold him,
‘Another disrespectful brat’ I shamefully determine.

Once he finishes beating his feet on the ground
He looks up at the lady seeking an embrace. He gets consolation
For losing a toy, his departed father had carved a little while ago.
‘We all miss our father at some point.’

Those benches have been my parlour for many years,
Random people passing by, absorbed in their own minds
A frantic world seemingly leading to madness,
Until the day I realised I was one of them.

All these people populate my being,
They are the reason why I sense and live
In harmonic peace, feeling the inevitable unity
With a universe inhabited by such extraordinary yet

Fragile creatures.

Evolving human
Surrounded by colours,
Gentle grins provoking last
Enduring glances of suspicion,
‘What have they to smile?’

Unfamiliar green-carpet
Streets and glowing faces,
Sounds of unusual happiness
Inundating land, echoing
In the calm unsuffering seas.

Dark elegant suits knit
With gold and silver threads,
In disuse.

Lost briefcases enshrining
Carbon-stained paper sheets,
Unowned, unwanted, and unneeded.

Trees no longer afraid.
May the souls of their ancestors
Rest in peace. Memory does persist.

Sober fancy ties around
Chocking blue necks,
Thrown away.
White collars freeing from chains.

Unleashed,
What was, forgotten.
Forging truth in history
No one teaches,
Lies of imaginative deceptive minds
No one learns.

Red once-fashionable high heels
Buried with garbage, along with
Addictive games and batteries
Creating manmade hills,
Offered to nature as Trojan horses
Waiting to astonish.

While flowers bloom
And wilderness takes over,
Evolving human wonders
‘Where have I been until this moment?’
And smiles.

Upside down
No one would like to admit,
Upside down
Is how the awkward things
Appear.
No use in contradicting
Conventional ideas
Of fearing individuals
Demanding constancy.

Strange thoughts and senses
Only serve the purpose
Of gossip, judgement, derision
And isolation.

They thought he was crazy
When he could not relate.
They thought he was stupid
When he could not understand
And explaining was a defeated battle
Before he even began.

Only someone blind
Seeing beyond
Attempted to comprehend
His upside down world.

He saw colours where there were none.
Letters and numbers tinted
On road signs, newspapers and books.
Different shades for different graphemes,
All but black. “A” was red.

He heard colours and saw sounds,
Moving shapes, length, width and depth.
Fireworks in his mind.
Voices, music, shutting doors,
Dog barks and clattering dishes,
All had colours only he would know.
“B flat” was orange.

Numbers had a place around him,
2 was closer than 1.
Time had a form in space
Quasi-tangible that he could grasp.
Sounds tingled his skin
With tactile sensations
On a body untouched.
Week-day names and months
Had their own personality,
Monday was a short temper man.

Words and colours
Had their own flavours,
“Love” tasted like cherry, blue
Like candy.
Even personalities had auras,
While pains sparkled rainbows.

Finally one day,
Though it made no substantial difference,
They told him his condition
Had a name:
Synaesthesia, they explained,
From Greek, sensations combined.
The new word gave him a thrill down the spine,
Its colour was lilac and it smelled like goat cheese.

I’ll never forget my friend
Who saw the world upside down
Teaching me colours as I see
Only black and different shades of grey.

She did not know,
Or so she thought.
She did not know,
Or so they made her believe.
And believe she did,
They were many,
They had to know.
Temporary doubt
Avoidance of arrogance
Humbleness needed.
Did she have it?
Did they?
To know not to know,
To question.
Eternal dust
Ephemeral shapes
Suggestions.

It once belonged to imagination
Science-fiction novels
Apocalyptic movies
Scary jokes,
Our worst nightmares.

It once was free for all,
No one being could claim
Property over the volatile
Substance.
No one being would dare,
Fearing the rise of horror
And rage.

New businesses for lingering
Problems.
Failure to succeed in taking care
Naturally resolves
In stakeholder’s revenue.
Air in a bottle.

Vitality from Canadian Rockies
160 breaths for 24 dollars.
Canned air to be taken
Tongue-in-cheek.

Aethaer from British countryside
103 dollars a jar.
“Environmental-political artwork”
Giving birth to absurdity.
Notions of “air farming”.

Companies cashing in
On pollution selling
Trendy fashionable designer
Pollution masks,
From 33 to 100 dollars
A piece.

Little or no benefits
On health for desperate
Populations, willing to pay
The price set on air,
To compensate.

Thick smog from factories
Invisible poisons from vehicle exhausts
Seven million people dying
From breathing
Smoke, gases and soot
Pumped into the atmosphere.
For profit.

Every morning is the same,
I inevitably wake up
With a smile, always mine.
It reminds me of who I am,
Where I’ve been.

The dimples my father loved so
No one sees, except me,
Voluntarily secluded
For them not to vanish
And for Them not to steal them,
Sheltered from unconscious thieves.

Crafted sea sand reflects the depth
Of my pupils, dilating as I approach
The image on myself
While my brown iris get lighter
And I fixate on the red capillaries
Emphasised by lenient time.

Every morning is the same,
Coffee and cigarettes for breakfast
News to keep in touch
With a world They call ‘real’
As I travel in the maze
Of my own.

If ever I step out of my abode
My mane is responsible for my protection,
Thick curls dropping before my eyes
For Them to think I do not see
While indeed I see it all.

Each vibration, humour, anger or pain
Penetrates me like knives
The apple on my head.
The Circus does not amuse me
And I rush to grab my wine
Bring it safe back home.

I live in a Universe immense,
The reason behind my smile.