Submit your poems with comment here, or via the Poetic Philosophy Contact Us page! You can also send an email to harmonia-philosophica@hotmail.com.
Submissions
LITTLE WAVES
Small waves sing their song to the night.
They enchant the black sky and the silence beguile.
They tell another story of other shores,
of other martyrs, of lives too short.
Of prayers sailing to the wind,
of mothers who their chorus sing
for sons who will not return
for those who will leave no more.
Listen to them with your eyes closed
and perhaps they will tell on what shore
the light of wisdom runs aground.
Only a few know if not none:
The sea tells it to the wind,
the wind tells it to the man
who still knows how to stand
at the wave’s deep adagio.
~ Stefania Contardi
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from a distant land Who said: a tower of steel and glass once stood Amid the dust, and cast their shadow far Across the sand. A shattered frame of rust Lies half-buried beside it, broken, cast, A head with rigid smile and sneer of cold Command still speaks of one whose restless wars Fed long on praise, and power gripped in gold. And on the base, these words remain inscribed: ‘My name is Trump, a ruler none surpass Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’ Yet nothing stands – no crowd, no gleaming mass Only the wind across that empty span Repeats the fragile empire built by man.
~ Tim Boardman
Churchyard
There’s a ramekin, 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
Near a Spring
I’ve lost my hair. I’ve lost my lust. All my shining dreams have turned to dust. My friends are going or becoming lost. They’re waiting for me in the hot sands near a spring, where they crossed.
I said to Simon, How lonely does it get? I still haven’t heard – yet but I hear him laughing, questioning in the temple of love high above.
I walk with a stick – not for support, but for the look of it, second hand bought. I was made like this. I had no choice. The need to express. The need to create. To prove I exist.
I sit in the house where the light is strong. Outside, the signs of spring are waiting, in the garden where they belong.
My friends are going or becoming lost. They’re waiting for me in the hot sands near a spring, where they crossed.
The river isn’t flowing as fast. The earth begins to dry. I stare outside, waiting for you to arrive.
My friends are going or becoming lost. They’re waiting for me in the hot sands near a spring, where they crossed.
~ Tim Boardman
As If You Were a Stranger
I will always gaze at you as if you were a stranger — not because I failed to recognize your eyes. On the contrary… I recognize those eyes so deeply, they sink me, drop by drop, into the abyss of my solitude. I will always gaze at you as if you were a stranger, for shadows still dance within the room, the folded sheet teeters on the edge of the bed, the scarf sways, trembling with the heavy breath of my silence. That frame still leans against the pillow, conjuring despair and a presence that lingers, carrying the memory of touch. I will always gaze at you as if you were a stranger, for your smile resembles the executioner of my soul, etching it indelibly across the horizon of my being. Like the moon refusing the sun, weighing the tide in its palms, as ships loosen their ropes, leaving behind the wake of homecoming to pound, to recycle, to revive the derailed hopes of seagulls— like a lighthouse collapsing under a shipwrecked “I love you,” crashing with windborne pleas upon your shore. I will always gaze at you as if you were a stranger, because my wounds bloom into spring, and sleepless winters burn in the lava of your eyes. Because my hands anoint awkward wishes that surrendered to the marshlands of fear. I will gaze at you as if you were a stranger, while I weave Clotho’s ashes along your footprints—and you bolt the dreams to the reefs of estrangement, scattering love’s ashes like golden dust, tracing the absence you see… within my gaze.
Submit your poems with comment here, or via the Poetic Philosophy Contact Us page! You can also send an email to harmonia-philosophica@hotmail.com.
Submissions
Untitled
Branches shift the night. A hug of leaves seas the day. Someone, alone, between doors opens the time. His time clocks between his footsteps. Steps in the space between. Along he walks. Between earths he rides. Arisen are the arrows. Death upon the sorrow. Death upon the cry. What is it left? Time in one only point.
~ Athina Styliani Michou
Midway
The object on the stairs had been there forever no one moved it it had become part of the furniture part of the stairs
I picked it up a dust ring had gathered around where it sat and the carpeted stairs looked lighter where the object had been
it was warm from sunlight holding onto heat like old things do silent and steady as we walked by
we never spoke of it this object though we stepped past it daily it had presence an invisible presence midway on the stairs
I turned it in my hand something once useful now orphaned by context and yet still claiming space
it smelled faintly of time and old conversations
I didn’t know what to do now that it was gone from its spot I held its weight
and for a moment the stairs felt too open too empty too bare
I placed it back exactly where it had been let the dust ring resume like nothing had changed
~ Tim Boardman
Cento For Coming Before Me
My name is Nobody.
I am indebted to my father for living, but—
I can’t imagine my heart breathing in light without you,
Mosella.
God has no religion,
A world of dew, but even so
Our life is what our thoughts make it.
In Luke 23:28, Jesus says “Do not weep for me.”
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere,
Fortune favors the bold.
If
Dreams,
In and out of one another streets of life,
Howl
On this land
My last goodbye,
Do not stand at my grave and weep
The chaos.
When we two parted
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc’d by fate
To be in love,
Because I could not stop for death.
Still I rise,
Too aware of the lives that make me whole—my inner world,
I carry your heart with me:
Unending love,
Song of myself,
The more loving one.
At the rainbow’s end even the caterpillar gets its wings
When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes!
~ Ernesto P. Santiago
Note: The poem credits: 1. Odysseus in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. 2. Alexander the Great. 3. Ernesto P. Santiago. 4. Decimus Magnus Ausonius. 5. Mahatma Gandhi. 6. Kobayashi Issa. 7. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. 8. Jesus Christ 9. Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi. 10. Publius Vergilius Maro. 11. Rudyard Kipling. 12. Langston Hughes. 13. Ernesto P. Santiago. 14. Allen Ginsberg. 15. Mahmoud Darwish. 16. Gat Jose P. Rizal. 17. Mary Elizabeth Frye. 18. Gerard Nolst Trenité.19. Lord Byron. 20. Virgil’s Aeneid. 21. Gwendolyn Brooks. 22. Emily Dickinson. 23. Maya Angelou. 24. Ernesto P. Santiago. 25. E.E. Cummings. 26. Rabindranath Tagore. 27. Walt Whitman. 28. W.H. Auden. 29. Ernesto P. Santiago. 30. William Shakespeare.
Untitled
The golden wings Of thought Cross being Like roses Of thorns In the morning
(Original:
Le ali dorate Del pensiero Attraversano L’ essere Come rose Di spine Al mattino)
~ Mauritius de Shardan
Farewell Letter
These past few days, winter felt like a farewell letter, like a parting embrace, like a final “farewell” kiss pressed upon the newly blossomed hyacinths.
A letter written in green ink – the green of leaves just barely opened, beguiled by the deceptive April sun.
The sky — a blank sheet against which wild geese stretched their wings;
a page stained by clouds, hesitant about which color they should wear.
These days, winter took its leave, a “goodbye” that felt almost like an “adieu,” a regret such as I have rarely felt — perhaps kin only to my own regrets, almost resigned, almost leafing into a man.
This winter passed so heavily that it felt like a certainty, so familiar and so sad that one would have said humanity was tailored to its measure.
These past few days, winter abandoned me, leaving behind only a letter written with the last flakes of celestial dignity, a letter at the end of which it told me:
“I have left; do not look for me.”
~ Gheorghiţă Bînă
Dove Tutto Rallenta
On certain evenings, I allow myself to have been too hurried to catch the scent of apple blossoms newly blooming on the alleys of life. I allow myself to have been so late to this feast called life, from which some apparently bite great chunks, and from whose crumbs I felt I had always fed. I allow myself to have been too afraid, too timid, or too doubtful, admiring life like a beautiful woman passing before me, before my gaze, petrified by such grace— a presence of life such as one only sees in the eyes of newborns. On certain evenings, I allow myself to no longer be. I settle into non-being for the span of a few emotions and simply admire the piercing colors of the sunset, so that the shadow may so discreetly cover my past, and suddenly, that whole blood-stained battlefield is no longer red. On certain evenings, I allow myself to have been something or someone else, but only because I tried to resurrect an imaginary body that was not mine, on that same battlefield, darkened now, where I desperately try to awaken my corpse, which was living until just recently. The eternal return to the initial form of life, impassive to our stubborn refusal to die. On certain evenings, I allow myself not to have been.
~ Gheorghiţă Bînă
The identity of mind and soul
Identity of the soul, written with odes of pain and joy, cracked the mirror that is clouded by the breath of lies. Identity of the mind, etched by drips of silence, drips truths in cracks that no one sees. And yet, these two identities, hidden in the luggage of life’s journey, are not declared anywhere. They have no number or stamps, nor a photograph to betray them. They are not imprinted on any paper, on any precious document of everyday life. They do not fit in cases, nor in passing glances. And yet we carry them – all the unspeakable things of the mind and soul, at every step of the way, burden and redemption together, revealing our naked truth.
~ Bania Sofia
ALWAYS ON CROSSROADS
I found myself on crossroads once again, Slipping through the fingers of the fate… The air I breathe is thick or thin, depends, That’s how I know which way to go when one road ends…
One road is ending, another one begins, On the new path I take I have no sins, I leave them all behind and go ahead, Going along with thoughts inside my head.
The winds of change are running through my hair, And in my house of fun I have no chair, No bed to rest my bones or lay in pain, No feelings to be wasted or in vain…
My limbs are getting stronger with the dance, My voice is singing loud, asking for change… My heart will pump just love while I’m alive, I am the only one creator of my life!!!
~ Marta Onila
Untitled
This is a perfect day for silence so I scroled down all past days in my world of 17 square metres I saw those asymptomatic trees as if they were in my room If I stretched out my hand I could feel them grow this is how I became a modern Sisyphus I went on reading although I knew it would make me lose my eyesight Then I wrote a book although I knew nobody cared Actually I wrote just one poem in a thousand and one variations
~ Ionuț Calotă
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, a bird Either caught or having fled Bears the thorn in it
Submissions are accepted until March 25, 2026 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 2nd POETIC PHILOSOPHY GATHERING, the details of which are shown below.
Event Details
2026 2nd POETIC PHILOSOPHY GATHERING
Date: Saturday, March 28, 2026 Time: 18:00–19:00 Greece time Location: Online (Google Meet)
Following the wonderful energy and deep connections made during our first gathering in January, I am delighted to invite you to our second meeting. As the season shifts, we return to this intimate space dedicated purely to the power of your own words and the recitation of original poetry. No lessons. No critiques. Just original voices.
Whether you are a seasoned writer or have just captured your first philosophical thought in verse, we invite you to share your work in a supportive, reflective environment. As always, if you aren’t ready to read, you are more than welcome to join us simply to listen and experience the “symposium.”
How to Participate:
To Recite: To help us organize the flow of the evening, we ask that those wishing to read submit their poems beforehand. Please send your poem(s) via DM or via https://poeticphilosophy.com/submit-your-poem/ by March 25th. Please state that the submission is for the 2nd Gathering.
To Listen: No submission required—simply join us at the link above!
REGISTER your participation in the relative Facebook Event at https://fb.me/e/dcsUtPaPl ! Feel free to share with your friends as well.
Let’s welcome the arrival of Spring by once again bringing the philosophy of the heart into the harmony of the spoken word.
Submitted poems
Untitled
Have you noticed that everyone goes for an anestethic to get through this thing called “Life”… Some… Some get coffee, Some… Some get tea. Some smoke, some vape… some others drink- it gets them “free”… Some go on a diet, some go off a diet, some others- go to the gym … Some others dive in AI Some others just get high… Some others get crystals, Some others get pistols,… Some others get tarot or yoga, or sleep… Some others get a “healing”, Some others get a “hearing”, Some others just get to agree… Some others get arty Some others sing and party… Some others dare to disappear… Some others hike the mountains Some others call on the aliens Some others get tarot Again or just get to dream… Some others get religious Some others get rebellious Some others get books to read… Some others… Some others… Some others…. Which anaesthetic do you actually See Some others… Some others… Some others… But almost never us …. Do you agree?
~ A.A. Stob, Bulgaria
Untitled
Stone in a rule of triangle.
Through lines in points the hour arrives in a word.
A word that speaks to the subconscious.
Runs through thoughts and minds.
Memory stays steel: “A hundread kisses goodbye”.
The leaps got read and the word spoke the wanting.
Still the wishes are called.
The words are yearning.
The lines are healed.
~ Athiná Stulianí Michou
Untitled
There are some blessings too
after my mother’s passing
the gradual emptiness of space
the lightening, though heavy
spare belongings now
do not impede or weigh
my thoughts, but set free
allowing now the cosmos
to enter, or me to think and say
without glaring television
and only one meditative CD
I look out as if anew, at last
on the glowing horizon
where I see her eyes too
once laid on the resting beasts
of wooded hills and cloud physiques
and time is nearly still
like the suburban stream’s
imperceptible current
ruffling the heart’s golden sands
leaving me again, quiet
among immortal beings.
In Memory of my Mother, Yoshino, 2.2.2026
~ Russell Hiroshi Jokela
Patience…
A root Which grows too deep Between the stones, This root…dies. In another place, In another time, A root is born That bypasses the stones. Drops of water fall, They hollow out the boulder, So the saying goes… Between my fingers, I sift the sand. So it’s true That it once had a different, Because of its stony face? In the rustle of the rain, In the gusts of wind, I listen for someone’s name… I listen for my own name… After all…I’ve been there before. Someone called me. The echo will return. Patience…
~ Artur Urbański
Not-Ex-Nihilo
Dedicated to Thomas McEvilley, author of The Shape of Ancient Thought
Borders erected to count, to divide, draw a record, a census Humanity has mixed up thought and calculation.
One is mine and one is yours and ‘I’ want both, I am the control command, Internet-centric, geocentric, I am god, I draw a line, a neat red line, a green line, a line around ancient thought, between the colors of the human mind.
The ancients had calculus and spirituality entangled Hypatia used it to show heliocentrism.
The ultimate rupture, between calculus and spirit, were the atomic bombs, Hiroshima and Nagazaki, the unfathomable number of dead in three high-pitched minutes, a major capitalist profit.
Humanity was hypothesized with nuclear energy, now we have reached annihilation capacity.
We have not come to ex-nihilo. Now, I claim to regain my collective unconscious
I vow to resist, in the quagmire of tech asphyxiation, we will inherit the opulence of ancient thought.
~ Karine Leno Ancellin
Untitled
I give you warmth, I give you light When darkness descends I take flight For around the world I constantly shine Bringing pleasure so divine Nature thrives on my glow As leaves and buds begin to show Spring arrives, blossoms abound Surrounded by flowers all over the ground With my summer heat and lack of rain Nature begins to feel the pain Flowers wither as Autumn draws near While falling leaves suddenly appear Winter arrives, trees are bare My glow has dimmed, I’ve little to share But very soon we will be back to spring To enjoy the warmth, the light and all that nature has to bring.
~ Richard Palmer
March
Bad tempered, not always— but my body was severely tested by dark nights of the soul. O my mind, gay and full of revelry, we mocked each other till we both cried from laughing. You told me, “Love yourself below your means.” So now that love I have in me means more to me than love I don’t really need like a backup love, a fantasy ideal. I would love to have an extra lover, but my worth not of shapeless substance lacking structure. Many thought those with extra lovers are formless and void, covered in darkness, like earth. But I think most just have mood swing, some with physical imbalance, others having high emophilia, or people with love issues— just like redundant gods in the alleys and streets of prescribed beliefs. Still I want to walk in morning light, guided by instinct, like a spider.
~ Ernesto P. Santiago
Ego death, a poem
Cracks in the bones of yesterday’s Gods, Spark cinders of sight to our child’s mind. Wisdom woven into the songs of doubt, Spin coils of madness if not spun in time.
Play for me, the harp of softened truth, But only to caress my brittle blood. As this will be the telling of my candour, Of how far my path has led me into mud.
Slowly boil the hair of my youth, To wake me from my slumber of deceit. And there I stand naked before the crowd, Unwritten, by the pages of my own defeat.
Tread lightly over my tomb, As your chaos will still settle the dust. I’ll guide you through the forever webbed arch, Take note that your footprints may never be rushed.
Leave no trace of my ghostly desires, And there I will tell you the secret to life. But be wary of what you may convey back, As words of old carry more weight than might.
~ Lemi Son
COMPLAINT
Poets do not hide behind words Crimson shades, lurking on the paths of thought To seize their prey with soul-wrenching pain Bound by a primordial memory They collapse in rhymes and thorny verses that torment their insides Because words are written in blood, on windless nights and cloudy mornings When inspiration haunts sleep and torments the flesh, unceasingly.
Is what we were running from Each in our own way. You left, I stayed, But it was the same quest: The one for a wound-free life…
And then we turned around And there it was. Because we wanted to heal it, We turned it into a scar— Because that’s what wounds turn into When they heal.
(It has been written by the Old Peoples of this land In their magnificent, wise, long forgotten language: “To heal is to cover with scar: Επ-Ουλώνω”)
But we didn’t know that then, Or we didn’t notice. We didn’t know that it couldn’t be healed; It’s not in its nature.
But it could be sung, And painted, And written, And sculpted, And recited, And let free to fly out of the window Like a bluebird, Or a bumblebee, Or a flying dagger— The kind the monsters who made it Fall on.
These things were not made The way we think they were made. You see, It has to be sung and sung to. That’s the simplicity of it.
And it took me 55 years to get it.
~ Maria Panagiotou
Untitled
Deaths frailty to see through pin holes would be enough is a lie that you would play out and they would need to mask silence , To mask great knowing Deaths frailty is that it tries to outrun its shadow It begins at the end of its race And should you realize halfway through that chasing tempo is all we do Well Underneath where you dont exist meets that hollow to slumber deeper To see through other eyes our voice at the end of everything Everywhere Deaths frailty is that the abyss would question what it is to be vast Deaths frailty is Deaths frailty is that people need a reason to keep going Deaths frailty is that its the scariest thing to let ourselves be healed To stop
~ Jose Brignoni
Skin shadow
There is a door in my chest there lies my heart, but she still holds the key.
Time was, we were lovers, now passing time, each in our own world.
Sweet summer child, touch me again in your distinct ways.
~ Patrick Williamson
Untitled
Flutes on the colors of imagination
inspired by rejected paths
through the reverse of my own near extinction
inspire me to volumes of words
on subjects of which I know nothing. . .
I can only imagine if I had done nothing
where the inspiration would flow to me from
to create material from a void with no passion no mass and no light. . .
Burning brightly into the form of a designer
which is the torch which solidifies into the knowledge which makes up the mass of all that is.
Love, light, and peace
~ Elaine Malinowski
Spring
It’s the time of the year for rebirth: Strands of many-coloured green Thrusting out of the earth. I have watched you sleep Many months Now you may as well come out… Soft and fresh and strong and firm Feeding the caterpillar worm Glisten beneath the early dew Beauty without doubt.
~ Liz Balfour c. 1978
Journey to What’s Missing
‘The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.’
~G.K. Chesterton
Where did the wonder go? The unknown of planning a trip. I miss the happy mistakes Close calls, opportunities not missed. The world has gotten smaller. Shadows have been lifted. But in the light of phone screens Adventure becomes comparison. Trips are planned by machines Itineraries optimized for people asleep. The path less traveled Becomes harder to see. There is no more unknown. May mystery rest in peace. Experiences traded for updates, Empty calories, a mental escape. Wanderlust dies and in its place A passport of stamps Over priced souvenirs Still the same person, Still have the same fears. Travel stops before it begins. We forget what it means, pilgrimage. To be open to all, good, bad, and what is.
Because this is life. Learning, letting go. To become someone different Then who you were before. My past travels unravel, torn at the seams. What was the point with no discovery? As above as below And inside as out. It is hard to find yourself Except in times of doubt.
Where can you go To escape from yourself? Every moment recorded. No time left to sell. Trading in hours for dimes For a glimpse of a different life. Treasures all tarnished. Now seekers turned away. Enlightenment has a price tag Souls too indebted to pay. Living in an illusion of bliss Inside a sea of loneliness. I keep looking for journeys Both outside and in. To rediscover what missing. Remember what’s sacred. I hear it in whispers From the dark side of the moon. Certainty is an illusion. There are no real truths. My travels may not be far Measured in money or miles, But the path is steeper When you’re chasing the sublime. As the world gets smaller I want to shut my eyes Pick a direction to travel And just see what I find.
~ Antoine Votaw
The City We Became
I search for silence the way I search for atomic bombs Flying above me with the tenderness of silky hands Fire runs through my veins A continuous fire.
The city, full of sleepwalkers Their hearts, solitary hunters They can’t escape fate Except at night when their wounds suddenly reopen and With lips irritated by thirst They find their suffering again And the bewildered face of love wandering Sidewalks full of colors, fresh bread, fish still alive.
Heartbeats braid together with fingers rubbing their temples Thoughts line up like the stems Of roses on a freshly painted fence The selfishness of love has bored The streetlamps But the branches of the trees dance The streets exhale Empty glasses reflect the lights Of the city and the slot machines Gamble alone on luck while you Breathe breathe breathe
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