Poetic Philosophy

“Falling leaves”

This is the March 2026 community poem collection.

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)

Link: https://meet.google.com/syb-orey-dua

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.

~ A.A.© 19/11/25

THE WOUND

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

You know you’re still breathing.

~ Anisia Evelyne Morariu