Poetic Philosophy

“A light breeze”

This is the January 2026 community poem collection.

Submissions are accepted until the end of January from the Submit your poem page or via the harmonia-philosophica@hotmail.com email.

Anyone who wants to also recite their poems to the community, can do so by participating for free in the 2026 1st POETIC PHILOSOPHY GATHERING, the details of which are shown below.

Date: Saturday, January 31, 2026
Time: 18:00-19:00 Greece time
Location: Online (Google Meet)
Link: https://meet.google.com/jtn-bpsf-yjh

Details you can find at https://fb.me/e/7gewbiiZ5. Feel free to document your participation there and share with your friends as well.

The event is free. Just join and have fun, by either reciting your poem or connecting with others. Feel free to contact us for any questions.

Submitted Poems

BALTHASAR’S UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE

we took the long way home
knowing not everything had gone well
later we followed the reports from there

of course it weighed on us, heavily
it turns out that knowledge of the stars
was not accompanied by knowledge of people

we kept analyzing those days
how it might have been played better
and also what to do or not do next

we had already been burned once, our desire
to confirm the result, to participate
cost the blood of innocent people

we even wondered whether it could
have spoiled everything at all, we joked
bitterly about balthasar’s uncertainty principle

opinions differed, either to let go, to trust
or, since we had intervened, to return
there was some teenager there

in the end we returned to dimmed lenses
and the study of scrolls, a view emerged
that everything is unfolding as it must.

~ Zofia Koścień

TREVOR

A passenger pigeon named Trevor,
Felt the thud of a slug under feather.
With that single shot,
The hunter knew not,
That he’d wiped out a species forever.

~ Stephen Dennis

Without reflection

I went to the lake shore in search of peace
But the lake did not want to talk this morning
And so my questions remained unanswered:

What does a duck think when it sees a swan?
What does a cattail think when it sees a cat?
What does a spider think when its web is covered with dew?
What does a water lily think when the sun goes down?
What does a reed think when it is carried away to a dam?
What does a water strider think when all the water has been strided?
What does water think when it cannot see its own reflection?
What does the lake think when I leave?

~ Emma Daniela

Untitled

By night, the half past twelve steps up. 

The garden its ears gathers. 

Hides its years in the ping pong ball. 

The garden thrills its voice. 

Time shouts: I’ll never be able to return.

 A hug wakes up. 

A birth flirts with life.

~ Athiná Stylianí Michou

Fire-born light

Upon Priam’s Steps

Pale Pallas, adorned, set up her dance

Upon unmade beds

With swallows shaped by thought alone, amassed

On marble floors and asphalt roads

A verger sought amaranthine gold

Perhaps she wandered lost in swamps

in her quest to taste the holy water in markets as such

And from the immortal one there grew

Basil and myrrh in courtyards of the few

O blessed hunters of the dragon’s lair,

I praise you for the poets’ care

Somewhere a chanter melodiously cries:

“We have won!” with his clenched fist raised high

The crowd approaches now in silent awe

The leader who with holy candle’s law

Sets fire to the walls built through the ages past

Those walls used to befit true Laestrygonians at long last

Fire-born light through our black-veiled nights

Bullets of white into our sight

~ Nadia Papaioannou

Now

If all there is is now and nothing more
No anywhere but where we sit or stand
No heaving seas upon a darkling shore
No other sun to shine on distant sand

No other breeze to tangle in your hair,
Such gentle tendrils, brown and softly curled
Around your neck, then there can be no care
No sorrow strong enough to shake this world.

But feel each pulse, each flutter deep within
That transient, eternal metronome,
A touch of fingertips and lips and skin
And in your breath I hear the sound of home.

Come, lover, let us cherish every now
No need for expectation, promise, vow.

~ Liz Balfour, 16th June 2014

The Playwright’s Hammock

On a random October morning,

I awoken to the sound of phantoms from my attic,

Sleeping, mockingly, at least, on my comforting bed,

A whispering canvas spoke to me,

Escaped and immersed in such vivid dreams,

Slightly slumbered songs on strength,

Smug skipped my face and I lay down my weapons,

In disbelief, I let whatever happen, happen,

The rising Sun, from wherever it came,

A condescending playwrights hammock,

He sits and reads and writes,

Disgustingly knowledgeable but drowning in destruction,

‘The world’s smallest heart,’ one of the marvels of lovers,

I pulled the Moon closer and the seaside rose,

My chicken fillet burnt and I chose noodles,

With an oyster card I fixed London’s Underground,

I sailed the seven seas and solemnly swore

It was a pirate’s life for me,

Of riches and agony and walking the plank,

And everything and nothing and all-between,

Mad men, mad mad mad men,

“Please, come quick, Orion,

The smell of these Lilacs hidden behind mad men of business,”

And trickled down like filtered coffee,

I become tucked in a world made up,

Filled with lust more than love,

The Sun and Moon finally fell from above,

Dragging such a heavy corpse,

One that was once a beloved,

Clubs playing light atmospheric techno,

The bourgeoise set ablaze my attic,

‘Burnt corpses fed rats, and the rats fed the humans

Till rats were no more, and the humans ate corpses,’

My fingers giggled and cackled;

I’m a belly of greed and I’ve hardly seen a quarter,

Safely seeking stars,

From rooftops, streets and bars,

Through crackled jingles and broken jars,

We dream of Mars and healing scars

~ Nadim Dabdoub

A light breeze

It seems such a delicate thing
Air that supposedly caresses
But I feel only the cold
And the hidden threat
To lull me into false serenity
That isn’t there

That breeze has a voice
It leads me on yo who knows where
I know I’m lost
But there is no choice
So gentle..so devious

The skies watch me as I follow
The whispers of that breeze
Walk on Through day to night
Time does not exist
It takes me away
Until I am gone

~ Harriet Coppard

Previous community collections

• Winter Whispers [Dec-2025]