This poetry collection holds the poems submitted for the 4th Poetic Philosophy Gathering.
Event Details
2026 4th POETIC PHILOSOPHY GATHERING
Date: Saturday, May 30, 2026
Time: 18:00–19:00 Greece time
Location: Online (Google Meet)
Link: Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/tmo-wqga-gpg
Facebook link: https://fb.me/e/bybSWDmcJ
Submission methods
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.
~ Giorgos Grigoropoulos
Untitled
And what if
We are…
All of us – just Healthy –
Whatever the conditions might be…
And what if
We are always getting
The best of the moment –
In brief …
And what if
We skip the duality –
The good and the bad,
The high and the low…
And what if
We meet the reality
With calming, loving, gentle song…
And what if
We forget about judgement
And lose intentions to compete…
And what if
We still have the wisdom
To hear and to see…
And what if
We still have the courage
To make this world
Complete…
And what if words and sounds don’t matter…
And silent is the world ?
What color would be better
The black, the White, the Blue?
And what if
you and I are symbols
Of something never born
Does it really matter
What would be the score?
And what if
We are nothing…
Just wondering
What if???
A motion in the universe
…a between tone…
April 2026
Stob, Bulgaria
~ Andriana Andreeva
Languages
Between times, spaces are changing.
The sound creates formations.
Wings of waves in the back of words.
Inter nos loquimur.
The day shapes the colour.
A rainbow saturates the movement.
Paths of recognition are born.
~ Athiná Stylianí Michou
My universe
So torn so ready to break
So ready to slip in
So far the kiss
of light
The ache holds my breathing
Am I breath ?
My universe
It was veils
Hanging on a hope
It was a story
I forgot to tell
It was a song
I forgot to sing
It was a love
I spilt
dripping into emptiness
drops in a waiting shell
Washed against the shore
I cannot hold
The nameless,
cannot be
the nothing
cannot touch this moment
Of eternity
How to be birth
How to be death
How to let them free
Do you follow me
Floating in the pools of your eyes
Weaving light
tapestry
Binding cells
in Chemistry
Do you know
How beautiful you are ?
How beautiful you are
It is only matter
fading
Pigments dissolving
Okra, chlorophyll, emerald blue.
I will paint a dream,
with your memory
I will remember you
You dance
Without and
within me
The thought
is the star
Shining
On the shuddering sea
Sink in.
Let it be
Let me in
Let me go
There is still
a time to play
~ Daniel Plackett
Technology
Technology calls
Lives, deaths and sentiments
Up on the cables
~ Vasiliki Papadopoulou
Life.
Life from life
From nothingness, something
A world full of everything
So happy that we live
And yet, we die
So happy that we breath,
And yet, we suffer and cry
Listen to the silence of babies crying
There is something wrong with being alive
If all that matters is life…
~ Spyridon Kakos
Charlemagne 2
Where is the soul of Charlemagne—
Not crown, nor throne, nor name,
But iron will to hold the line
When tides of change inflame?
Can we still build a living wall,
Of flesh and blood that stands—
A shield that does not break or bend
When strain is laid on lands?
Can we turn the swelling tide
That shapes the laws we keep,
Or watch our children’s futures slip
Like loosened grains through sleep?
From Ireland’s fields to Grecian shores,
A restless, shifting hand
Leaves native voices faint and thin
Across their fathered land.
Fine words are sold like currency,
While truth is left to starve—
And promises of safety fade
In lines they cannot carve.
In stadium glare and silver screens,
Old faiths are dressed in scorn;
Each day feels closer to the edge
Where something vast is torn.
“Speak not too hard,” the chorus says,
“Nor judge too wide the stream”—
Yet failing hopes beat loud and low
Like drums beneath a dream.
It tolls the hour few will name,
Though many sense it near—
A fracture running through the roots
Of all we once held dear.
Do not mistake this voice for hate,
Nor twist it into race—
For worth is not in shade of skin,
But truth we choose to face.
Yet speak of home, of heritage,
And you are swiftly cast—
Condemned by names designed to close
All questions that you’ve asked.
Still we are not the things they claim,
Nor driven so by fear—
We guard the threads of memory
That brought our fathers here.
For power thrives where minds divide,
Where lines are sharply drawn;
A fractured people stand alone,
Their common spirit gone.
Confusion sown in careful words,
Ambiguity refined—
So none can clearly name the fault,
Nor see with steady mind.
But unity is not a mask,
Nor forced, unthinking blend—
It lives where honest voices meet
Without the need to bend.
I hold that all are equal born,
In dignity and claim;
And character, not origin,
Is what defines a name.
So do not fall to easy sides,
Nor yield to crafted spite—
Look past the noise, and stand as one
In reason, not in fight.
Defend your home, your kin, your ground,
With clarity, not rage—
For legacy is not a myth
Confined to some past age.
For he once stood in chains himself,
A prisoner, bound and still—
Yet rose through strength of mind and cause,
And disciplined his will.
He did not strike in blinded haste,
Nor rage without a sight—
He woke the minds that stood with him
To see, and then to fight.
Not all battles call for swords,
Nor every war for flame—
But truth, once seen and held as one,
Can still outlast a name.
So take from him no myth of kings,
Nor dream of empire vast—
But learn that strength begins within,
And unity can last.
The soul you seek is not long gone,
Nor buried out of view—
It waits in those who choose to stand
With clarity—and truth.
~ Peter Hanlon
Previous Poetry Collections
Winter Whispers Collection 2025
A light breeze [January 2026 collection]
Falling leaves [March 2026 collection]
Sunny Shadows Poetry Collection [May 2026]
Shallow Seas [June 2026] (current)
Poetic Philosophy 