A Day Out

A day out

Is not complete

Without

A place to rest my feet

Some floss for my teeth

After eating nice treats

Which I should pack in the bag

Along with some rags

To wipe the sweat

Because this heat

Is not one easily beat

And even with the largest water bottle

You can’t compete

But we need to have water

Or the day out will be a disaster

and I can’t forget the comfy shoes

so that way I don’t get bruised

if I fall on my face

because no day out should end in disgrace

or course, I can’t forget my keys and IDs

and any tickets to gain entry

because a day out is a time out

for me to relax and shout out

that I’m not working today

and my day will go by what I say

and I say it’s great to be away

to enjoy something new

Pack Mentality

you’d never tickle a prickle

or be rude to an obstinacy

you’ll shiver if you see a quiver

remove the blockade for the parade

who does transactions with a business

or asks a cry to cackle

who’d throw albumen at a yoke

or be too haughty to hunt with the pride

bet you wouldn’t dance with a rhumba

or take your illness to a fever

could you walk up the hill with a descent

or be lazy unlike a labor

willing to fly with a kettle

or wear black with a stand

maybe tether the leash

or ask the tower to lay down

you can’t quiet the sounder

or be brave with the cowardice

don’t play with the shadows

the garden hates the clouds

you can’t be blind to the gaze

or get dragged by the string

we may do better with the richness

in the parliament of fowls

Sometimes

Sometimes you wake up and you find no strength to come out of the bed

Believe me

You are not the only one

Sometimes you see the past.

You see the present

And you just wonder

What have I done all those years 

Believe me 

Many people had the same question

You look yourself in the mirror and you like nothing

But this is a reaction of 90% of people

That is life

We called life

A beautiful miracle

And day and night 

Is coming and go

Go out

See the sun

Have a great day

Walk to the sea

Think positive

You decide if you will be happy or sad

You decide only

Life is for everyone

We don’t have any manual

How to live

How to succeed

We fight everyday

And if we find love in this journey

Then we can consider ourselves as lucky

Keep dreaming

Keep believing

Miracles happens

…….

Peace, 

So expensive

We buy so many weapons

To maintain it

If we pray more

If we were kind to each other

We could say

We have Peace of mind

Poetic heart

Call for meditation

Inside our heart

Peace,

We say a lot

We make nothing

Peace,

Such as a woman

We adore

But few can get

Peace,

A value with no cost

If the humans understand the word…

I wish one day….

Nothing

Nothing belongs to us

We are free

We are the captain of our soul..

Nobody can say this or that  and you must execute

.

Nobody belongs to us

We are choosing according our feelings

Our thoughts

Our beliefs

Our stomach

If  a person make you laugh

The more u want to be with this person

We are nobody

We are nothing

More than the butterfly

Than the bee…

We are no creators but small ants

Or cigals

Or wolves

Show respect

Kindness

But no trust

Trust your instinct

Trust your heart

We are nothing more than a fly

We are nothing more than a bird

Laugh to your heart

Love your inner soul

And put your frequency high

Touch the stars

Make a wish

Stay a happy child

……

Eva Petropoulou-Lianou was born in Xylokastro, Greece. Initially she loved journalism and in 1994 she worked as a journalist for the French newspaper “Le Libre Journal” but her love for Greece won her over and she returned in 2002. She has published books and eBooks: “Me and my other self, my shadow” Saita publications, “Geraldine and the Lake Elf” in English – French, as well as “The Daughter of the Moon”, in the fourth edition, in Greek – English, Oselotos publications. Her work has been included in the Greek Encyclopedia Haris Patsis, p. 300. Her books have been approved by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Cyprus, for the Student and Teacher library.

Her new books, “The Fairy of the Amazon, Myrtia “dedicated to Myrto with a disability, and” Lefkadios Hearn, Myths and Stories of the Far East “, illustrated by Sumi-e painter Dina Anastasiadou, will be released in 2019. She recently published her book,” The Adventures of Samurai Nogas san “in English by a publishing company, based in England. She collaborates with the electronic literary magazine The poet magazine. She is a partner with the International Literary Union based in America. She collaborates for the promotion of literature and promotes the work of Greek poets.

Eva is a member of the “Association Alia Mundi Serbia”, the “International Society of Writers and Artists of Greece” and the “Piraeus Society of Letters and Arts” as well as the Corinthian Writers Society, the Greece Association, Mille Minds of Mexico, the International Ambassador of Namaste Magazine, the Advisor and Editor-in-Chief of Web Magazine in Hubei, China, an advisor and editorial board member of Las Olas del Arte in Belgium, the Vice President of the Global Circle Cultural Association in China and Mexico, the founder and editor-in-chief of Acheron Magazine in Greece and Vietnam, and an official 2024 candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize. UNESCO Italy and UNESCO Mauritania have awarded her books.

In a vision I had a hat and a coat, warm pants and boots. But nothing was at all for what people think of as style or fashion. Everything was functional only, and it was in the days before trouble and such. Happy. I was between two hills, in a clearing, behind my house then. I know exactly where I was.

On one side, where I came from, were large homes, while on the other side were sullen grey brick buildings, seemingly with no joy. It was snowing thick and fast and it wasn’t too windy. My eyes were closed and sometimes opened and I looked up and tried to let the snow land in my eyes. I would sense when it did and it didn’t bother me. I was with my spirit and with the spirit and the nature world and air and snow was also a spirit. Spirit spirit spirit spirit spirit. I was alone. All alone, world-wise. I turned sometimes like a whirling dervish. I didn’t really have a focal point like ballerinas use I just rather saw everything and became dizzy and fell over.

The ground was softened by snow. There was nothing gold at all, but later, I thought of it as a golden place for it somehow felt golden. I was innocent. I had always been innocent. That was how I felt the gold. I turned from my side which I had landed on, to my back and stared around. Everything looked different and from that perspective one spot was not good and one spot was not bad. There were just things. The buildings and their balconies, the high brown framed rooftop. Trees to the side. The fence where the ravine began. Grey.

My own wooden fence that sat atop a series of railway ties that made a retaining wall. How was I there? And why? I heard a bird, and didn’t see anything, but then thought I saw something fly through the winter air out of the corner of my eye. The neighbour’s yard, completely different, with no fence or walls or anything at all. Which is ironic or something because the owner was a skilled and successful engineer.

His youngest son adopted me as a younger brother to him, in real life. Though from eight siblings, he had nobody after him. He taught me how to tie my shoelaces. Later, how to fight. And he taught me well because I could win against a few of the older kids. And how to skateboard. I wonder whatever happened to him. The ravine things like trees just grew there also. A manicured cultivated world in parts, and a feral earth in others. Nobody went past. I could hear no soul. I thought I heard angels singing but they were distant, in the inside somewhere in another world. It was nice. I was warm but then began to feel cold. I stood up. I was still okay but my head hurt a little bit. The sun had been somewhere and now it was getting dark, given to a sudden dusk. I felt a bit nervous for some reason. Cleaning the snow off myself, and adjusting my hat, I began to make steps towards home. 

***
gardens bloom without permission
but I think I should ask permission to love you

lonely space drowns in infinity
I dream of building a sand castle for you and me

water kills sand
I’m killing our loneliness

time grinds my dreams
after many years together we are still alone

***
the window
of autumn is burning
in my pupils

***
dot
tomb for text

***
expectation of victory
number 13 during lottery

***
how many faces
do people have
with their faces
torn off?

***
The mouse gnaws time
The train kisses silence

The night seems surprisingly calm
The siren of the air alarm has become a habit

***
pregnant with death
executioners with
the eyes of the night
give birth to silence

***
A gentle wind
Рlays with the leaves
Leaf has no choice

***
bird stuck in the clouds
feet drowned in puddles
time falls apart
in my eyes

***
the snow is back
the bird is looking for a home
among the old newspapers

***
spring thunder
in the belly of nature
nature is our mother

***
Unborn Jesus cries because
he will not be crucified

***
orange joy in the snow
small trees are shivering in the cold
small children die in a warm bed

***
he cut off his leg so that people would finally love him
but only field mice are capable of endless love (and then depending on the presence of the necessary hormones)

black cat plays with a dead mouse just for fun
a mouse’s half-eaten corpse is lying in the middle of the road

lipless pigeons kiss on a branch of a felled tree
anti-tank ditches devour the remains of legs

DON’T INTERRUPT

My tongue is trying mightily

to memorize your mouth.

Ny tongue is training hard

for your prestigious,

and demanding,

texts to come,

MY I

Moleculed into existence by hope’s heredity,

any I is a sum of its actions and its beliefs.

At first these were fostered by practice and authority,

and then in the youth they were constellationed by passion,

and then in a careful age constitutioned by reason.

This nowI lies striated by habit and destiny.

CHANGING HABITAT

That which is between us–

:is it a floor or a corridor?

:is a wall or an interval?

:is it concrete or a ghost?

The cityscape altered,

our promenades became barricades.

Every touch feels more like a cut.

Marathons may falter.

A dozen christenings, one thousand crypts.

All the tears we wept, the saints invoked, the promises broke.

The ends of beginnings.

FIRST NIGHT IN THAILAND

Giraffic

I lever through the sweat the noise the dirt the traffic

(knowing she smiles somewhere, all brown and gentle hills),

gnu-like

legs unsplay, crookback unscrews like new.

Under her softink waterfall her eyes a-beckon

somewhere, here, in Bangkok.

LEY LINE

Lids closed, fingers open:

With mind and palm along your body map

I’ll trace the truth of you,

Enlightenment needs no light,

This (any!) erotic journey

starts at the muscular center of fizzog expression:

I read your phrenology Braille,

the honest simplicity of your long high forehead.

My explorers find your wisdom,

mind’s eye between world’s myopia,

pause softly between your brows,

before plunging

down—

Forefinger sacrilegiously slaloms the Mimizuki,

j-curves under the septal cartilage,

lingers awhile (for your aromatic delight)

and balances across your fairy-tale philtrum

(the corridor chipped from your upper lip

by Night, the Angel of Conception,

that one, who offered a semen drop to god,

who chose a soul from Eden

to cradle in your mother’s womb,

–who’ll guide you to heaven when you’re done—

a nice bedtime story trades the nevers for the nows.

My whorls rest at Cupid’s Bow.

I nock my arrow for awhile

where tongues trade moistures, exchange heat for heat,

rituals of encouragement for the holy trek to come.

….

Refreshed, the phalangic pilgrimage resumes.

Tips skirt the lover’s chin well to keep from falling in,

then hook under the jaw’s overhang in freefall

hardly braked at all by the void deck

of Adam’s not-quite-absent apple

(the unswallowed remnant of your first man’s forbidden fruit?)

and advance down and down,

hesitating at the mammary gate

(moist by now with the seer’s perspiration)

but able to resist the curious alpining temptation

in the knowledge that the end is near,

the mountains can wait —

sometimes the summit is not the sum.

Down and down, quickly now,

no urge to contemplate the navel

if consecrating the bishopric is the goal.

The pope pops in to Cathedral’s portal,

enters stiff-necked, humbly exits.

The Tree of Life shakes from the roots.

….

All existence starts twice,

once with Mind, once with Life.

Landmarks come and landmarks go

but the path is marked by one straight line–

any perceptive fool can blindly find the way….

And yet the silk hegira road goes on

even farther, beyond the oasis spring

for those who wish to follow —

around the archaic curvature of Mother Earth,

that halves the buttocks’ apple

and turns the heart upside down,

and then up 33 stations of the spine,

–spine–the measure of stiffness in an arrow shaft,

–spine–the furniture that clasps the book together,

–spine–the hard stairway to the base of brain.

…

A NEW WORLD

My old lady dropped a needle

From the cloth she was sewing

A fart of zaracatan or tailor’s fart buzzed

That, in the silence of the afternoon

Made me flee quickly from the sewing room.

The news from an old radio, Iberia brand

That my old man listened to very attentively

Made me stop in the dining room

Because it announced that because of fashion

Because of use and with dead dictator teachers

They want to implant sacred fascism

As if this were something new

Because since time immemorial

It appears in congresses and senates

And in all the processions of the temples.

-Old man, I said to him. The feast of sacred fascism

And sacred communism

Is the feast of the innocent peoples murdered.

All their governments

Are governments that allow crimes and deaths

Chairs allow.

He reprimanded me saying:

-Don’t talk nonsense, scoundrel.

The universal history of human understanding

It proves it well:

That the unbelievers, morons and deluded

Dictators and serial killers

Have great appreciation.

I left home. And, in the street I stumbled

With a man who, by his appearance

Seemed to be taken from a winter’s tale

Perhaps from the G. Adolfo Bécquer’s “Miserere”

Who, when spitting towards the sky

Almost the spit fell on my head

From this idiot.

He spoke to me, and said to me asking:

-What do you think about the fact that from America

We get a sacred fascist Donkey

Whoreman and multimillionaire?

I answered him sarcastically:

-It’s not a donkey, it’s an old bulldog

A waterman who takes fountain pens

And colored and black pencils

Who has made a cologne

With the smell of donkey sperm

That if you put it in your hair

Will give you the glow, fire, flame

Of his carrot head.

-Apparently, he answered me

They have made it to their taste and whim

A vihuela or guitar

Supposed machine for making money

For the use of criminals

Well, he wants to imitate the Argentine lighter

Who, with his chainsaw

Wants to saw the hole that fits

Between the legs of men

Especially women

Who follow him and adore him.

-Daniel de Culla

A Chicken Is An Egg

A chicken is an egg’s way of making another egg

First things first though as the circle arcs along

The days come and go bringing more of what has been

I think the light shows the way I should always go

But then the darkness comes and I know that I don’t know

Help me see the process before it falls below

Just beyond the horizon I believe it steady moves

Though I am left behind wondering what comes now

There’s always something special about a sunset

Reminiscent of the bright lit day it leaves again behind

Then it drifts into the night and shadow overcomes

I don’t see how to follow a guide that’s out of sight

I feel the loss of knowledge sunk by time’s constant flight

So I stumble slowly within the cold and now’s unsure night

When We Were Met

When we were met and the world was fine

Not a thing could hurt us

I was all yours and you forever mine

I discovered colors I had never seen

It all smelled of apple blooms

And I thought I knew everything

We walked together in hand along

We held each other close

We had become one with a love of our own

Then before us came distractions from our self

Temptingly unfamiliar feelings as familiarity set in

And before I could cry forgiveness you put me on a shelf

I asked my father to explain you to me

How I could want you so

Why you would walk away

Yet the sun keeps passing over my head

Against the blank blue sky

What I got was —

Where were you when I hung the stars

Where when I created the world and let it go

How can you even pretend to know

But tell me clean —

How a dream could take my soul

How it could then dissolve like a rainbow’s arc

Leaving me without reason or cause

Finding my self wandering through the hurt filled dark

I’ve got the horror — show me some love

I don’t need more lessons — show me how to love again

I give up on tomorrow

I don’t want to dream anymore

Take away this world of sorrow.

Just leave me alone

It is the last night before the final day

And all that has been given will be taken away

No hope can replace what’s gone to stay

I asked my father to explain you to me

How I could want you so

Why you would walk away

Yet the sun keeps passing over my head

Against the blank blue sky

What I got was —

Where were you when I hung the stars

Where when I created the world and let it go

How can you even pretend to know 

There are nights when the stars arrive

They cloud the domed dark heavens

And if you watch them slowly unwind their path

Sometimes one breaks loose

And flies across its way falling as it streaks

Like a doomed but sparkingly brilliant consequential light

Then gone

I asked my father to explain you to me

How I could want you so

Why you would walk away

Yet the sun keeps passing over my head

Against the blank blue sky

What I got was —

Where were you when I hung the stars

Where when I created the world and let it go

How can you even pretend to know

How can you even pretend to know

The First Ones Off

The first ones off the ship that night

Floated away to lives again

Those who deferred brave and selfless

Froze to death when the water came in

Those who were early to work that day

At desks when the planes crashed in

They’re the ones who suffered and died

Those wandering that way late only heard the pain

We’re taught to be strong and to do our part

Never shirk and always tell the truth

But reward isn’t promised to those who pull their weight

They’re the ones who are holding up the tent

So when enough of their brothers aren’t helping anymore

It all comes tumbling upon them crashing to the floor

She Bears The Touches

Like a new day she brightens the lobby air

All others pause in a Romantic pastiche

For some reason then she sees me and approaches

Though I’ve stopped as all the rest have

Then we are drinking in the lobby bar

Among the tired and swollen salesmen slouching

Hidden from their workphones talking sports and profits

Sidelong glances at her to tease their endless night

And we seem to be the one

The one between us

I have to leave tomorrow

But I don’t want to tell her

There can only be tonight

Unless she would leave her life for mine

And she bears the touches the many touches

The touches that leave their mark

Such beauty such grace tainted only by her life

Touches scar stunt and shape what is best

Until it fades and dies with time and experience

Oh such warmth found on a dark winter’s evening

She heats the bed like a drink of old brown whiskey

And slips across me like some delirious dream

As I respond with best guess touches of my own

When she kisses me her mouth is softy open

While she holds me down and under her stern need

And all I want is to see where this is going

Bright colors drift by and everything’s gone fuzzy

As we become the one

The one between us

I have to leave tomorrow

But I don’t want to tell her

There can only be tonight

Unless she would leave her life for mine

And she bears the touches the many touches

The touches that leave their mark

Such beauty such grace tainted only by her life

Touches scar stunt and shape what is best

Until it fades and dies with time and experience

She takes the night for her own and leaves me with the dawning

I can’t move to stop her as everything in me has drained away

She left me like the night falls slow then gone quickly

And I feel like something special’s happened

But I’m not sure how or why to find her

So I stay drinking in the lobby watching the door and waiting

Thinking we were to become the one

The one between us

I should have left today

But I don’t know how to tell her

There might only be tonight

Maybe she would leave her life for mine

But she bears the touches the many touches

The touches that leave their mark

Such beauty such grace tainted only by her life

Touches scar stunt and shape what is best

Until it fades and dies with time and experience

By Demens

I have signed away your soul and made you mine

As climbs the greedy moss upon the unexpecting tree

So stay and I will slowly take what you used to be

All of your joy — All of your happiness

I’ll extract all your dreams and memories as I steady grow

And encase them within my creeping quiet while you won’t even know

Nothing will I leave you

But for blank silence and shadow

Nothing to long for nor to move toward

While I make your body tingle constantly antic

As if the nerves only are alive

A buck scraping his antlers grunting in rut

A dog rubbing his nether across the carpet

Thoughtlessly frantic

Each touch will be your reason d’etre

And you’ll never sleep or even sit again

With declination you’ll forget to eat or wash or know until the end

As you wander blindfolded by me to the next sensation

Until you can no longer move

Your mind hidden from what surrounds you

Your body released on its own recognizance

To forage for touches and unimagined adventures

Neither aware nor remembered

This is the world I make for you

The horror that all is unrecognized

To be lost, displaced, and all is down

Then the wheelchair with you in the greasy gown

Finally fetal again clenched now a dumb dying child

Submerged within the last silence

Don Edwards lives and writes in Los Angeles.