Poetic Philosophy

This poetry collection holds the poems submitted for the 7th Poetic Philosophy Gathering.

To submit a poem for this collection, use the Submit Poem form.

Event details

Event Details

2026 7th POETIC PHILOSOPHY GATHERING

Date: Saturday, 26 September· 6:00 – 7:00 pm
Time Zone: Europe/Athens
Google Meet link: https://meet.google.com/qpm-usvj-xqz

Facebook Event to register: https://fb.me/e/4IYH5buyV

Submit your poems with DM, comment here, or via the Poetic Philosophy Contact Us page!

Submitted Poems

If my mind could speak

How pleasant would it be if my mind could speak.

A world of creative thought’s unfold.

The glorious moments of life revived in a second untold.

Caution you might say but how much we play at time’s when the world stood still?

Our minds are a cast in itself grounded in a woven web of time.
Can we be brave enough to play the league of trying?

Or are we just thinking of our minds dying?

Think straight and easy but prepare your thoughts for some stressful moments uneasy.

The mind is a wonderful chess don’t let it rest too long before you regress.

If my mind could only speak.

I’d reap that game of success.

Never mind defeat or regress.

~ Eulalee Boddington

Churchyard

There’s a
ramekin glass dish
on the bench
in the churchyard

pink blossom
from the tree above
scattered around it
like confetti.

It catches the light,
casts a shadow
across the bench
and it is full
of cigarette
butts.

A small devotion
to tidiness
as the petals fall.

The pink
blossom drifts
to the edges
of the stone path.

The daffodils
are fading now,
their heads bowed
to their imaginary
reflection

And the bench
early morning
is usually taken
by a solitary man
with a can of beer
and a careful thirst.

He lifts the can
like a quiet hymn

The blossom falls.
The light moves on.
The bowl fills slowly

No sermon,
no hand on the shoulder
just the day beginning again
for the solitary man.

~ Tim Boardman

The Sound Of Silence

Sometimes the silence speaks
louder than the words,
louder than the music
as loud as the sounds
inside my head.
Sometimes the silence shouts
and I turn on the radio
and open the window
and block up my ears
to shut it out.
Once it was a welcome guest
entering as others left.
Once it was a time of peace,
a quiet time alone,
a rare time alone.
Now it’s all there is,

that deafening silence.

~ Lynn White

Untitled

Voice: You throw the arrow of peace
Shade: You settle the limits of force
Capacity: You put order to the sound..
Your feelings explore the universe.
Your mind grows the petals on earth.
And you become the wisdom in the variety of the words.

~ Athina Styliani Michou

Silence

Silence is not an empty space,
But architecture carved from thought,
A monument of all we feel,
And all the truths we never taught.

It rings louder than a thousand cries
A hum of truths too grand to speak,
The quiet realm where answers rest
For all the questions that we seek.

It carries whispers of the past,
The echoes of a soul’s desire,
A stillness burning in the dark
With cold, invisible fire.

So listen close to what is still,
Where unsaid promises belong
For in the depths of total peace,
The quietest heart sings the loudest song…

A timeless breath we leave behind,
When words surrender to the mind…

~ Cecilia Cotovan

Untitled

Let me pull at the war-torn
edges of our quarrelsome present
to find an intact thread
of who we are
beneath
the black ink sea
of the church chronicles
old laws and written history
beneath
the castles palaces and monuments
of the kingdoms
that have been constantly shifting
changing their names and shapes
beneath
the burial mounds
and the fragments of broken pottery
in the silence of ancient forests
and the wispers of the oldest words
that we still speak
our long forgotten past
is patiently waiting for us

~ Vanda Martins

Untitled

The edges of the sky
are turning red
the sun
behind the venerable oaks
is rising –
a crimson bloody sacrifice
to ancient goods
I find it frightening
though somewhat
mesmerizing
I wonder
how those pagan goods
were fighting back
and how the narrow path
for Christ
through swamps
was long and tragic
I think
it lingers still
this puzzling
silva haired world
that breathes days of yore
and pure magic

~ Vanda Martins

Untitled

We are used
to walking on eggshells
and inquiring
how to breath
we inherited
from our forbears
acquiescence
and martyr’s wreath
on brutality’s
fruitful soil
grew servility’s
bitter crop
how exacting it is
to milk out
our slavishness
drop by drop
on the senseless
though torturous fears
we’ll perform
exorcisory rite
let the phantoms
of dread disappear
our souls
let be
light and bright

~ Vanda Martins

Untitled

You can not lose your soul
try as hard as you might
unseen surveyor scrolls
your every deed and rite
some people’s wider way
or bluer deeper sky
can lure you astray
without a hue and cry
are you a lazybones
or restless army brat
that distant cities roams
continually but
beyond remote Cape Wrath
with waters pouder blue
your real soul and path
are coming back to you

~ Vanda Martins

Untitled

It was so real
now it’s done and gone
fragile and tender
slipping through my fingers
a subtle hint
a secret overtone
that inconspicuous
in the air lingers
It cannot be
constrained or caught in nets
it cannot be
invoked into attendance
you wait ashore
and rainbow trouts of words
will swim to you
and form into a sentence

~ Vanda Martins

Untitled

You have to shout
to show the world
you’re still alive
the likes
of Tiger Pistol Shrimp
are those
who thrive
in seven seas
they are
left right and center
spread
unlike the children
often
hardly seen
but heard
and so
those tiny creatures
fecund and diverse
instruct me daily
how to read
my verse

~ Vanda Martins

Untitled

Calling out
your name.
Wind will whisper
it around.
Only you can hear it,
calling out with
the moon angles.
Shout it loud
again.
Will you hear
it out there
on the other
side
of the moon?

~ Dessy Tsvetkova

Invitation

On a tender winter evening,
amid the remnants of Roman civilization,
the Leaning Tower of Pisa
smiles beneath the weight of wonder,
holding within its tilted silhouette
one of the world’s strangest marvels.
And I, lost in a quiet beer bar,
gazing across the Bay of Pisa,
search for the reflections
of poets I have loved.
I wonder—
perhaps even now,
my extraordinary poem of love
is still being engraved
in the ocean’s secret womb
beneath the Bay of Pisa.
A flock of skylarks arrives,
carrying an invitation
of love and harmony.
Nightingales, welcoming me,
scatter flowers along the path.
And so, I must journey
towards an ancient Protestant church.
On that Friday evening,
the bells begin to ring—
a summons to prayer.
One by one,
they awaken from their graves.
The prayer begins.
Yet, deep within my heart,
the sacred melody
of Pashupatinath’s evening aarti
continues to echo.
And the tender voices
rising from the Rigmo Monastery
send a shiver through my soul,
awakening within me
the ancient fragrance
of Hindu spirituality.
Now I stand
between those two graves,
while they embrace
one another, turn by turn.
Our eyes have grown moist;
our hearts have dissolved.
Together,
we have broken down
the walls of language and geography.
And answering their invitation,
many miles away,
beside the ancient pyramids
and the Aurelian Walls of Rome,
in the courtyard
of an old church,
I stand without fear
among my beloved friends.
P. B. Shelley, these days,
writes his poems upon water;
John Keats
hums his songs of love
upon the wandering wind.
Hearing of the grandeur
of Everest and Lumbini,
they smile in quiet wonder.
With the Leaning Tower of Pisa
standing witness,
we have made a solemn vow:
to transform this age
into an age of love and harmony,
and to write upon the pages of time
a new history
of universal brotherhood.

~ Himodh Pahadi

Meaning

What does meaning mean?

Besides the things I feel?

~ Spyridon Kakos

Environment Is You

I walk along the beach,
Shingle, rocks and surges,
The tide of time
With my life gently merges.

The wind scours
As old friends pass away,
The loneliness of family lost
In rocks, pebble-smooth display.

Now alone upon the sand,
Grit through the hourglass falls,
All is crushed’
Salt, love, stone and all.

Resilience is needed
For this fight
We all face high tides,
The bleakness of the night.

The beach is formed
Through cleansing and renewal,
Inner change’harsh truths’
Our eternal dual.

This space made fresh,
Framed in nature’s glory,
The wild world resumes
Its ancient story.

Walk on this creation,
Each step its essence restores,
Shaped by reflection’
Sand, waves and shore.

~ Peter Hanlon

IN ITS OWN PIT

I had turned the wrong way
at the end of that sentence.
My mind’
like a tortoise
I used to think when I was young
that everything would be fine:
marching bands, medicines, rabbits.
in its own pit’
Years have passed
and now
I say:
for anything to happen at all
is enough
for now.

~ Gozde Alcekic

shopping list

I.
whatever kind of waiting this is
you must have bought library chairs
to sit and dream of her
a bamboo book holder
(it will hold the book,
for your feelings
we can give no guarantee)
each sitting postpones time
by a day
octavio paz’s cyclical time
offers us no opening
your eyes on the phone
i will call you again when i return’
that phone will never ring
in any session

II.
does time pass
as the door revolves
newlyweds, parents, the elderly wear kappa
because their wives make them
(fluorescent orange is our preference)
the writing desks at the entrance
reflect counterfeit souls
nonexistent summer lights fill the room
from somewhere a servant will appear
to add tonic to the yuzu espresso
marshall berman said
that memory is about
embracing the ghosts
soulless writing desks
never came
onto his agenda

III.
marshall berman in ikea
trying to melt all that is solid
counterfeit boulevards open up before him
cardboard people cross paths there
and i watch him
he knows you, he must know you
he will tell me
he will tell me of your silence
he will make sense of it
let us run and flee this cardboard realm
your testimony is not cardboard
nor is mine
let berman come too
let him theorize our companionship

IV.
you made a film
that’s what they said
i heard your voice
i did not see you:
action!’
cut!’
between these two commands
i lose your voice
a loud silence arrives
at the film’s most exciting moment
an octopus perched on a deck chair
sending lanterns into the sky
somewhere you are smiling
but you have no face

~ Burak Erkut

There is a room

you don’t remember opening.
And yet, you enter it every time you say you are moving on.

It is not childish.
It is not adult.
It is transitional ‘ like an airport corridor where you never took off.

Inside are things you didn’t throw away because you didn’t know how to name them:
a notebook with a beginning but no second page,
a photograph you didn’t take but that shows you,
a sentence that stopped at the verb.

On the wall, a clock.
It has no hands.
Only scratches.
Each scratch is a moment when you understood ‘
and did nothing.
Not out of fear.
Out of precision.
You knew what it would cost if you moved forward.

At some point, a person sits across from you.
He doesn’t enter.
He was already there.

I didn’t come to judge you, he says.
I came to keep time.

You recognize him not by his face,
but by his posture:
leaning slightly forward, as if about to say something you never said.

If you had done things differently, would I be you? you ask.

He smiles.

No. If you had done things differently, there would be no need for me to exist.

He stands.
He opens a drawer you hadn’t seen.
Inside: small versions of yourself.
Not ages ‘ choices.
The one who stayed.
The one who spoke.
The one who left without explanation.
The one who stayed too long.

They are not ghosts, he says.
They are unfinished matters with a pulse.

He picks one.
He gives it to you.
It is not the best one.
It is the most unfulfilled.

This one concerns you directly, he says.
Because it still lives in the same minute as you.

Then you understand.
The crack is not the past.
Nor the future.
It is the fact that you never fully left any version of yourself.

The man heads for the door.

What if I close the room? you ask.

He stops.

Then you will stop writing like this.
And you will start living more quietly.
But more shallowly.

The door stays half-open.

When you are left alone, you look at the clock.
A new scratch has appeared.
It is not old.
It is now.

And for the first time you don’t wonder what will happen if you dare.
You wonder
how much longer the room
can hold you
without demanding
that you become one.

~ Thanasis Panou

The vineyard’s chant

From hilly expanses,
Daughters of a millenary land
In perpetual quest
For harmony between
The trees’ breath and human breezes,
A sudden rustle echoes, hissing whistles,
Where proud and noble rows are tuned
By the wind of the mountains
To a vibrant tinkling pizzicato,
As a rough harp’s soft chords
Making the vineyard sing.

This place’s sacredness
Envelops timelessly,
Baroque temple
Adorned with golden rows
In a shimmering of autumn
Where everything moves, all stays,
In an ethereal chamber
Of living colonnades
With purplish capitals
Making men venerate, along the vineyard,
An altar under the celestial vault.

~ Niccol’ Giusti

Gravity

It seemed to me that I was getting smaller, smaller.
And I stretched, I stretched

I would look up and never stop
My eyes would be red and hurt and itch
My tendons would ache
My neck would strain to break, to break
And I kept extenting my arms

I was getting smaller and smaller
but I kept going
I still couldn’t reach my unreachable
as if it were running behind the stars
as if it were running through the universe
as if it were getting away from me
It was getting away from me
and no matter how much I shouted, it never heard me
as I was so puny

And I never thought
Instead of stretching, to bend down
To see up close
everything I was looking for and everything I was
I didn’t think to look at my feet
To pick them up and see that I was stepping on
what I thought was meaningless.

~ Virginia Zervoyiannaki

Untitled

A mental cloud.

Reborn as a girl, I’ll be

If it dissolves soon

~ Vasiliki Papadopoulou