Fences enclose sweaty trees
of palms, apricots and figs,
while dried-up roses suffer
heat, next to stubborn hortensia
striving, to blossom despite
anomalous murderous drought.

An infant baobab travelled
all the way from Dakar to be
planted in a *** in Rome, while
the fragile bonsai changes
place everyday victim,
of my indecision fearing

a premature death.

Parsley, basil, oregano and thyme
On rosemary’s opposite side,
Emanate odours of culinary
Makings, as a lonely herb grows
In a corner, unfolding potential
Of future rewards, paid in smoke.

Aloe and cactuses evergreen
Surrounded, by dead leaves
Stranded, along the hedge covering
Fertile soil suffocating, possibilities
For emerald grass to raise as I mow
The lawn picking them up to set

cadavers free.

Dynamically unveiling an expanding carpet
Of hydrogen particles coalescing to spring
Stars to grow, spin and sparkle, explode
In blinding invisible light, thrusting golden
Debris forming rocky spheres, aligning
To revolve finding balance finely tuning
And allow life to burst and us to see.

When hypnotised eyes only
search for signs in depths of dilated
pupils of he who would be able
to drive you blind;

When courage overtakes you
unafraid and tempted enveloped
by veils of overwhelming heat
craving for inebriated contact;

When all you can think of is his smile,
voice, words, body, and fantasy
imposes his silent presence even
in his roaring absence;

When blistering fire burns
you from inside hindering
breathing panting merely conceiving
his touch on longing skin;

When individuality extinguishes,
ambitions evolving making duty
his happiness afore anything
for his would be yours;

It is impossible to ignore
or deny the devouring feeling
whispering repeatedly to your hungry
stomach ‘You are in love’.

If only I had a brain I would wander
The lands, discover my surroundings,
Emulate nature to my benefit, replicate
The mastery of lightning, sparkle
Fires to keep warm.

Draw in caves to communicate, invent
Words and a language, grasp insight
From imagination, materialize my thoughts.
Become myself a creator, build
A creature to my likeness,

Understand who I am.

As humankind evolves in time
What used to be primitive tribes
Guarding territory, people, progeny
And food, have mutated into
Governments flaunting flags and political
Agendas to fulfil, within four years,
Drafted on greed, implemented
By concocting fear.

Rulers hence redraw, imaginary lines
Based solely on war, and conquest
Fostering survival of the fittest,
The law of the jungle established
In allegedly civilised societies,
Lobotomised by technologies,
PCs and mobiles made of black
Sands, from Congo with love.

Four million people killed by war,
For tantalite to be mined,
Purchased and transformed
In modern gadgets we all own.
Other resources elsewhere up
For bids by unbidding forces,
‘Take what you like and as you please’
The silent motto composing our wellbeing.

Gold, blood diamonds, petrol and water
Conflicts, justifying decades of ******
Worldwide, from Middle East unrest
To Rwandan genocide, passing through
Sudanese Darfur to cross the ocean
Fight for land, tear down forests,
Grow soybeans for vegans,
Pastor sheep for jumpers.

Now modern times have come
New notions are ****** to hypnotise,
Overpopulation for minds to criticise,
Though calculations unable to mystify
Grant eleven thousand square meters
Of inhabitable land per person. Space
Thus not being the issue rather, resources
Are deliberately unevenly distributed.

When twenty percent of the people
In developed nations consume
Eighty-six percent of the world’s goods
Leaving an average of thirty thousand
Humans die of hunger and malnutrition
Daily, there is no morality. When consequently
The remainder, comes knocking for survival
On closed doors, there is no humanity.

When we hide behind phantomatic
Risk-like borders and fake needs,
For two phones a PS4 and three TVs,
As we throw our dinner leftovers
In the garbage and let water
Run warm for 5’ before we shower,
Neglecting collective guilt, responsibility,
Laying fresh sheets on king-size beds,

Turning blind eyes to the news
And deaf ears to the door bell,

How on Earth can anyone sleep?

Until the day we shall all wake up
Notice NASA photos of our planet
Taken from above show no lines
Of separation, and that Earth is
Home to all, in equal measure.

First glance caught by whiteness
Of teeth unfolded by laughter, of he
Who was surrounded, in conversation
With curious people hanging,
On every word of his brightness.

Deflecting my attention I ordered
A Ti’ Punch. As I waited eyes compelled
To return to previous image, focus
Lost, he was gone. When impulsively I began
To search for him frantically, I knew.

Felt his imposing body behind me,
Turned around and recognised myself
In him, as he looked at me as I do,
When the mirror’s eyes reflect
Tenderness and let me know, I am loved.

Dilated pupils immediately desired
My lips to meet his only impeded
By decency, as he commands a ***
Asking me who I am, intending to listen.
I speak in a voice not mine, delicately softer.

His, a thunder, deep and beguiling,
Soothing to my ears, giving rhythm
To my heartbeat. Fascinated
By everything about him, his candour
And politeness, his interest and knowledge.

Sharing feelings for humanity, views
On the world, politics and the news,
Giving insight to discussions, offering
Different perspectives, enriching me
By the minute, as I absorb his essence.

He saw right through me, uncondemning
My compassion, undismissing my emotions,
Respectfully regarding me his equal,
Aspiring to be a little more like me, as I
Aspire to be a little more like him.

Closed the bar together, walked
The night streets laughing, in his bed
At dawn the light beams shining,
Heated bodies, in his arms enveloped
Ever since, my voice delicately softer.

When the lonely nutshell decided to blow,
Out of itself malleable creative energy
For space to unfold into endless expansion
Begin the infinite story of a new-born Universe,
It did not cater for symmetry, nor for perfection.

Sparkles and outbursts differentiating
Populations of particles never equal in quantity,
Matter naturally outnumbering antimatter
For something to exist. Blessed imperfection
Consenting the collection of dust, to form bodies.

Celestial. In stars nuclear fusions transform
Hydrogen in new elements, generating oxygen,
Helium, carbon and many more. Attracting
Neighbours to rotate and orbit around them,
Planets courting a light-giving queen, for life to spring.

Settling dominating forces to unify and divide,
Gravity and dark energy for the first to keep
Things together, for the latter to impede
Collisions and implosions. Dynamic evolution
Heading towards unprecedented, stabilisation.

The great scientist determines imperfection
Is what allows you and me, to be. Yet
When finally the nutshell reaches maximum
Entropy, impeccable thermodynamic equilibrium
The game ends. In a Big Freeze.

Where all dies, including stars,
You and me, as it unwillingly attains
Balance and stagnation, motionless
Bodies unable to exchange, heat.
Ceasing existence, in murdering perfection.

Intangible perception of reflecting light,
Electromagnetic radiation stimulating
Mammalian photoreceptors, six million
Cone cells densely packed, in a point three
Millimetres area known, as the fovea centralis
Residing at the core, of colour-grasping retinas.

Red, green and blue, bases of interpretation,
As all others can be matched with a combination
Of the three, for trichromats to see, distinguish
Energy of wavelengths to believe in deception,
Think that colours do exist, a gift of pigments
Inherited from early vertebrates, while fish

And birds may see Ultraviolets, as they are given
An extra one. Classification in categories,
Yellow, orange, purple, indigo and many more,
Associated with objects through wavelengths
Of light reflecting from them depending on physical
Properties deciding, whether to reflect specularly,

Scatter or absorb. Objects thus have the colour
Of the light leaving their surface, while rainbows
Continue to enchant exquisitely, the eye of the
Beholder struggling, to understand the physics
Of such bewildering apparition. Waiting for evolution
To give it a few pigments more, for it to see beyond.

Icy clusters of rocks and dust, leftovers
Of extra matter scattered around a star.
Following the orbit guiding a perpetual run,
For seeing creatures to gaze at midnight skies
In search of glistening shooting lights.

Comets, so named by the ancient man,
Enchant humans to strive and understand,
Beholding their subliming approach to the Sun,
Where radiations and winds melt solids to sparkle
Spews of gas. An aura, a coma and a tail.

Nebulosity inclosing the nucleus confers
On the object a misty glow, distinguishing it
Form a star, hiding water in volatile form.
Tails extending to astronomical units lose
Trails of debris at times, visible to the naked eye.

When finally orbital highways cross,
Meteor showers arise. Debris igniting
As falling stars, enter the atmosphere.
Perseids in August begot by Swift-Tuttle
Comet, Orionids in October by Halley's.

Games of splendour to remind us where
We come from and how it all began.
When antediluvian comets did not shy away
From colliding unswervingly with Earth,
Reach its crust. Inundating the planet with H2O,

For us to be here, witness the show.

In a Universe fourteen billion years old, a galaxy
Amongst two trillion others moves, through space
At two point one kilometres per hour, pulled
By a gravitational focal point once named, the Great
Attractor and now known, to be grander than supposed.

At the edge of it a star out of many more, collects
Planets to follow its orbit around its core. Amid them,
A terrestrial one ten billion years younger sets,
The grounds for life to spring where evolution’s course
Gives birth to an extraordinary creature like none before.

Destined to mature a mind capable of questioning,
Understanding and develop a thought, budding
Into a creator itself of concepts built by imagination.
Its first ancestor two million years old, its father
Two hundred and fifty thousand, make modern

Human, **** sapiens, a baby on the timeline
Of cosmic history, playing with toys it has constructed,
To learn only subsequently how to use them. Retracing
Steps back to present, to look at humanity with indulgence,
Through the loving eyes of parents, who never turn them

Blind. Reprimanding its mistakes and disasters,
We are all guilty as charged, with the sole ambition
Of channelling its consciousness for it to bloom,
Fulfil its potential, as it acknowledges its blunders
And corrects direction.

Sure some may view the world as grotesque, with
“Chronic adversity and whimsical exuberance”, witnessing
“Savage wars, apocalyptic climate change, plastic ocean
Pollution, nuclear weapon proliferation, overpopulation,
Immigrant crises, everlasting animal cruelty” and more.

Though if denial of it all would be an insult to intelligence,
Failing to see the kid’s good deeds would be a slight,
To humanity and the Universe deciding to give it life.
The toddler is learning to walk, creating meaningful
Relationships, discerning right from wrong. Voluntarily

Willing to make amend, unfollow blindly rulers’ greed
For conquest, power and neglect, desperately seeking
To separate its waste, hoping for recycling to help,
Clean dirtied waters, soils and air, boycotting businesses
Linked, to weapon industries to cease, being a murderer.

Harbouring fellow humans trapped, in critical situations
We are all responsible for, turning towards vegetation
To feed itself and newcomers, burning furs, pouring
Water on fires, while elephants thank us for not stealing,
Their tusks to make ivory jewels and piano keynotes.

So my dear friend rest assure, humankind will continue
To evolve. In the process indeed it will find a way
To live in harmony with its equals and its world,
Until the day, like any other species before it, it will
Go extinct to be replaced, by something different.

For nature also implements its endless creativity,
Next invention of which, we might as well be,
Primitive ancestors.