“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
Untitled
In the bathroom mirror
Every time I wash my hands
I carefully practice
Forming my most obese face.
If you drill a little hole in my chest
You’ll see I can no longer hold back
My lips, they twitch and with difficulty arm
An ironic and idiotic smile.
My teeth are rotting at their roots.
At the second little hole I drill into myself
I hastily step into my bathtub and slip
On the remains of cat vomit I didn’t remove
And I don’t even have hot water to rinse myself away.
Would you want to step out for a moment then?
With the third little hole, it’s too late.
The doors are locking,
The window latches are shut tight.
A shiver will interrupt your last thought.
~ Kostis
Untitled
The endlesness of nighttime sky
The vast domain of how and why
I hold the questions in my heart,
Where heaven (on earth)
Has a place to start
A house for angels and for love
For down below and up above
Yet if it is the path, the purpose of man
What does it mean or measure then,
When I stand here face to face
With the boundaries of projected space
An open question, an open book
Enjoy the ride, observe and look!
For life will only make us sense
When sensed or lived, or even seen
As the beauty of shape
And measure and mean
Defining a void, that allows life to be
In the empty space between you and me
I hold your hand and meet you there
In endless times and everywhere
Thus, release the future’s burdened past
For eternal Now is all that lasts
And in the essence of the here and now
Majestic sky, to you I bow
Geometry of space and time
Perpetual motion, rhythm and rhyme
Reveal the distance, so close apart
A living soul, a beating heart
Where it ends, well … no one knows,
Eternal motion and on it goes
From here to there, from now to here,
From far away and nowhere near
From the cosmos and from you and me
And in every presence a place to be
Infinite and everywhere.
~ Inez Wijnhorst
Wind Down
Lover, your sweet coming used to be mine—
it was comforting, mild, and a pleasant form
of procreation, noticeable and most fulfilled
through your affection that softens a hard day.
The warm touch of your hand and moonlight
moments, often linked to timeless memories
like the midnight calls of birdsongs that blend
the blooming fragrances of jasmine blossoms
and other brief beauties of the breathing earth
to behold in the dark, constantly changing sky.
When will I ever see your ethereal love again?
Tell your secrets, so I can feel you even more,
and I will offer the story of “I, me, and myself.”
I will not forget you exist and the nice feeling
of knowing enough to be able to identify you.
I will tend to conclude that, although the buzz
of a past love prelude like a sound of summer
was always omnipresent in my own heartbeat,
you were undeniably a god—a calling to mind.
Just thinking about you makes me feel wicked,
and I honestly cannot wait to stir your impulse
to perform well without thinking with a sigh of
longing that sits patiently somewhere between
“yes, no, and wait”—for what will we become
from the mutual light of “love well, mate well.”
Where is the warmth and aroma of your breath,
and will you come, oh Zephyrus, if I invite you
to have tea with me in the gentle wind at morn
and make my call up a little bit less important?
~ Ernesto P. Santiago, Greece | Philippines
Thoughtful Bulimia
I will call you an extract of pleasure
I will scatter a thousand burning words
Where your gaze falls
To burn, spelling out Love
I will endure a thousand vigils
Digging in endless silences to discover
The buried debaucheries of your thought
I will raise a thousand huge waves
To wash away your dull and unfathomable secrets
And to moisten your mind from profane reflections
I will free a thousand stray winds
To drag you into the sweetness of lawlessness
To subdue your unruly body with flattery
I will converge on you a thousand voluptuous glances
Ruthless, raw, unrestrained
To tear down the faded walls of your modesty
And without resistance, without shame
To surrender to me.
I will seduce a thousand depraved pleasures
To pour my fever into your blood
And to get drunk, stray savage, from your soul
I will call you an extract of pleasure
And I will drink you-white bottom-of-monotony
A rough and unstoppable soldier who became
Unexpectedly defeated
On your bare, spring, flowering meadow.
~ Georgios Atmatzidis
A LIGHT, GENTLE BREEZE
A light, gentle breeze enters the quiet air,
The mighty roar of day grows hushed and still.
It clears my thoughts in loneliness and care
Of thirst for wealth, for power, lust, and will.
I strictly follow this refined design –
The law by which all nature holds its sway.
And slowly I perceive, reflect, align:
Why I am here, and what is asked of me today.
I merge myself with nature, vast and strong,
That shifts its seasons endlessly in time.
For weak is humankind – to chase so long
The empty dreams it calls its highest climb.
I cross the heights of earth, both low and high,
Within a breeze of light – be it warm or cold.
On star-strewn paths beneath the open sky,
The universe awaits me, as foretold.
~ Radka Lyulyakova
RESPECTFUL NIGHTLIFE ANIMISM
Late summer night.
The nostalgic ear captures tight
the respect for the things of Nature.
Through the Valley the Tramontane
blows arrogant and pressing.
The reeds kneel in chorus
at the ostentatious passing.
The rustling sound echoes
the Undertows in its fragility.
While the Ocean bows, unrequited,
in nocturnal gallantry.
~ STEFANIA CONTARDI
MY GIRL PASSES BY, AND THE LEAVES OF THE TREES TURN INTO EYES TO SEE HER.
There are no days and nights;
there is something
that disguises itself as light or darkness.
The stars are tiny holes
in the eyelids of my little girl as she sleeps;
On her small body the sewing machine of time stitches moments.
Stretched on the tips of my toes,
I lick the clitoris of the night;
the stars swoon and fall into my palms.
I follow bloody traces.
All night it rains teeth; suddenly,
a little fox with a severed leg! —my wild little beast.
“I cut it off with my teeth and fled.”
Hop! I step on her shadow; she cannot escape.
“Fuck me and maybe you’ll love me,” she says sadly.
“The body is the only road
~ Larry Cool
Sweet Violet
A soft breeze drifts through the night,
carrying the scent of sweet violet and distant rain.
Stars sprinkle silver across the sky,
their light trembling like a whispered secret.
We sit, shoulder to shoulder,
feeling the gentle tug of air around us,
a rhythm that matches our quiet heartbeats.
Laughter floats up, dissolving into the night,
and for a moment, the world holds its breath.
Even the trees lean closer,
as if they too want to listen,
while the breeze curls around us –
a tender, invisible thread
that says: here, in this hush, we are home.
~ Eva Voss
A LIGHT BREEZE
Travelling through space without a care in the world
My new life had begun and was being unfurled
Through galaxy’s and past stars I travelled
Watching secrets of space being unravelled
Planet after planet I passed by
Then the Earth I did spy
My radio began to crackle as through the atmosphere I did tackle
All my power was demanded then a message came through to say
The Eagle Has Landed.
~ Rich Palmer
Winter Watch
A red fox steels
low and lean,
quiet as the pines
across the mute fields,
camouflaged by autumn colours
yet his imprints remain in a carpet of moss
all along the path.
He slinks unhurried towards the evening stillness
and the dusky winter light when out
of the frozen trees swoop a tidings of Magpies
all teal and petrol blue,
wings flap in a flurry of panic,
they chase and spin,
peck at the fox’s long bushy tail,
usher him into the ditch,
and the ruffled lake beyond
where he softly merges
and disappears completely
into the fiery sunset.
~ Maire Morrissey Cummins
Perseides Station
Perseides passed me by
though I, at night
waited at their station
where tree canopies glowed
in union with the cosmos
my careful eye below
and native body, pale
as the physique of clouds
naked in solemn prayer
wind on my skin, at least
a god’s breath in darkness
with eyes closed then
I saw a single star, falling
towards a further station
on wings of milky light.
~ Russell Hiroshi Jokela
Untitled
The kettle wants to whistle,
The corners want warm light,
The frost upon the window pane
Wants melting from the night.
We want a ” golden kitchen”
And warmth inside our house-
escape from such a heavy winter
The living fire gasps…
The yard is long and muddy,
The wind is sharp as glass;
We watch the frozen woodpiles
while the winter hours pass…
Our hands are tucked and hiding,
The chill begins to sting;
We want the gift of embers
Without the heavy things.
A rough and splintered burden,
A chore we’d like to pass
To drag the weight of comfort
Through the threshold of the house.
We dream of “Living Fire”
To wash the spirits clean,
But we’d rather wait for someone
To bring the fire wood in .
We want Hope
and
Healing,
The body – light and free,
But no one wants to shoulder
The burdens of the tree…
~ A.A., January 2026, Stob, Bulgaria
Mi amor
You are my rough sea
My pretty orchid
my shining star
I am singing for you in the dark
while caressing you
You are ready to give birth to an
orgasm
The fragrance of spring is here
with thousands of larks
poppies
kisses
quick breathing
waves of laughter
winds
trees
sandhills
Who is sobbing silently ?
You are among all these innocent fragile and brave
Holding the white bull by the neck
as an ancient priestess
in front of an altar
Seven knives shine in the dark
Sweet pain and blood come out
of my mouth
It’s already late for cosmos
~ Poppi Pantelaki
Today
The clouds over the valley today
have formed
a range
of snowycapped
mountains.
Like I’m living
in the Himalayas
with the Tibetan monks.
The tops of the snowy mountains
have a tinge of pink
from the rising sun.
My illusion
is ruined
by a man jogging
in dayglow green.
It looks like he’s in pain.
And also
a Pikachu
lunch bag
that has somehow been
forgotten
and left on the doorstep
of a local pub.
I hope
the child
had a locking in.
The illusion is further
ruined:
one cloud
has split away,
taking
the pink
with it.
~ Tim Boardman
SURVIVE
Survive,
may the light enfold you
in golden swaddles,
gentle newborn.
Rage
beyond the darkest gloom of existence
and rejoice in the sparkling summer nights
of your carefreeness.
Grow,
spread your earthly roots
until they touch the weary clouds
that fly and cry.
Cry with them
when the storms of the soul
will pour down in flashing bursts
to stab your heart.
Endure
the cowardly locked doors
of immature maturities,
the whims of those
who have already won
yet still long to see you fall.
Survive
the deadly aged terrors:
may the afterlife not bury you,
but lead you into new universal mysteries.
~ Lorenzo De Luca
Untitled
It tore my heart apart,
But I didn’t utter a word.
I remained silent,
Even until today.
Words—scattered, meaningless things,
Carried away by the air.
They would lose their weight,
Pointless,
As you wouldn’t understand.
You know,
It hurts.
It’s like a bomb,
Struggling not to explode within me.
Like a thousand stabs,
Blood spilling from open wounds,
Never clotting.
I wish it would.
I wish it could.
But still, I believe:
Some things
Are better left unsaid.
~ Elenalda
Yours to claim
The hard road was your choice.
Now, nothing stands in your way.
Neither the thorns that stung you –
whose pain you know too well –
nor the bitter draughts
you are bound to taste again.
You know deep down
this is what you want.
You live it, it is yours,
and it will be yours to hold.
Though the world’s bitter wine
parches your very soul,
and the blades of grim warriors
tear you apart,
shattering you into a thousand
pieces – you do not falter.
It is yours and you desire it.
And when the light of true day breaks,
your two hands- bloodied,
aching, strong, and brimming –
will turn that bitter wine to balm,
and those knives to purest silk.
It was yours and you knew it all along,
and now, it is finally yours.
~ Sandy
MY HOLLY OAK
Bonding mine and my neighbour’s citric orchards
explodes in foliage green a Holly Oak,
huge, copious, nacreous clouds her holy cloak,
wood-tower refuge for mice, squirrels, songbirds…
Nowhere else, not in the entire seedless universe
grows, glows, such a show of Titanic nature
to shade, protect, if only we protect her !
Days in bird (nights in owl) song she’ll converse
in chorus of life ; cicada chirr symphony
sparks her lush, verdant, rainbow-warbling canopy.
Grandiose mother of our planet, relief
from man’s poisonous gassing of our air.
Words don’t encompass her poem in leaf ;
her verse bursts from below, tellurian flare
and like a father is proud of his firstborn,
I saw the season’s first acorn this morn !
I water her with care, about her hover,
not ashamed to admit I hug branch and bark ;
that’s right, chuffed to be known as a tree hugger,
I even trill, my soul all in a lark.
~ Eugenio Cappuccio
Untitled
I recognise you by renounced prayers,
by chimaeras in exile.
A bed of molasses binds us,
winter advancing with its sickle.
The sun bleeds into the sea,
chokes and knots itself to the island—
we call it home.
~ Sabrina Tolve
Present Continuous
I live in the Present Continuous.
No other time do I remember, nor will I ever know.
Only my mirror whispers to me,
claiming it holds the power to enclose the tenses of Time.
And yet, I live in the Present Continuous.
~ Nikos Panteris
Sabotaging Time
It was during invigilating
an exam
that it happened.
Time seemed to stop—
the second hand
on the clock
was stuck.
Unable to summon the energy
to move round,
held by gravity,
twitching
at six
or just past six, to be precise.
The sky was a clear blue,
not a single cloud.
Traffic slowed on the bend
into town,
or maybe the hospital.
Two cleaners were packing up a car,
finishing their chores
for the day,
loading sprays, liquids, cloths.
A Deliveroo man
was dropping off his meals
several Big Macs
at student housing.
Our students were lost
in their exam papers,
or in thought,
or simply lost,
staring, forgetting.
I picked up my book by Karl Ove—
I hadn’t touched it in a while.
I’d used a birthday card
as a bookmark.
It read:
‘You are the love of my life’
~ Tim Boardman
Hey
You are here and now,
forever and a “how”.
you give and forgive
all and almost live
the life of a why
so serene, so try,
be as you utter
be your own master.
Fully succeeding,
Purely enjoying
Who -you -are:
One -in -a -million-star!
~ Alina Elena
If you knew
If you knew
That life is beautiful,
Would you still go on like this?
Keeping your head down?
Avoiding starting what you like?
Rushing to put aside what you want more and more?
~ Oana Chisalita
THE WOMEN OF THE SEA
What I write is an interrupted sea,
without its dry, ferocious pulse.
The sea has no name, but breathes birds.
The women stare, fearless,
waiting for the sun to return the ashes,
waiting for a new germination.
They taste the water until it is salt,
they stretch out their bellies and their clothes,
drenched with bleach.
They lift, at the hem, the sheet of the sea
to mourn the death of their children.
There is fire in their breasts —
in those mothers of foam and clay, I know there is
a white light escaping from their bodies,
opening their memories,
their wounds and their sorrows.
I bite the silence, in the last nudity.
And the women of the sea wound their veins
with saliva, squeezing out cold blood and mud
onto the soft earth.
Love warms their hearts, searches
their memory, in the tears that slip from their lives.
It embraces the violence of remembrance.
And the women smell of salt, their skin creased by lime-heat.
And the men dash into the sea
through its naked roads.
They tear it open to satiate the hunger of their souls.
And there is thirst in the sand, in the old wrecked boats,
in the fishermen smoking cigarettes, smoking life
beyond the horizon, when memory
is an immobile, dense gesture that violates life,
that fractures words
and hurls the sexes into the water, down to the last loss.
~ Luís Aguiar
Lethal Fluid / In Memory of a Claustrophobic Dream
I prefer to exhale rather than inhale.
In this purple castle within my heart, hidden by hills,
In a desert strewn with stones,
Barricaded by walls.
You look like a swimmer just before jumping into the water and I
Drink a glass. A glass of you. I begin to see walls filled with bottles, filled to the brim
With you.
And I refuse to sleep until I empty
Another one.
My head is empty like the glass. The turbulent waves inside me
Calm down.
It happens in sleep. Or maybe in a dream.
The next performance in the theater of my soul is about to begin.
The bed trembles before an abyss. Don’t move. We’ll both fall
Into an abyss or maybe just onto a carpet,
Soft, full of yellow roses among forgotten ruins,
Or perhaps the corpses of flowers.
We share a candy. We pass it from one to the other
Until our kiss is as sweet as pure cocoa chocolate, and our eyes,
Open, follow the scent of love floating above
A bitter
Nightmare.
Suddenly the walls are bare and the wine in the vats has turned sour.
This mountain of loneliness whose magnetic pole is your eyes
Was it only
An unwritten
Dream?
~ Anisia Evelyne
One Way In
The door was locked
bolted
blocked
against the entry
of the merest draught
shut tight
all gaps closed
against the ill wind
Don’t let it in,
they cried
we’ve blown it away,
then closed up the gaps.
But what about the gentle breeze?
That should have space
to enter.
And will we know
which one is blowing
when we feel
the first touch.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell.
Blow it away,
the ill wind.
Don’t let it in.
But if there’s a sweet breath
within it
that should have space
to enter
and there’s only one way in.
for both.
~ Lynn White
Verge
Standing by the river of doubt
reaching out to your looking glass self
Climbing the hill of riddles
where the answers never answer
just pricking like a skelf
Walking on the edge of you,
on the borders between madness and want
just a step before the fall
in the chaos where you will be dissolved
This is the moment to recall
the seagulls’ flight over fear
the written pages of the leather red book
you once had to tear.
And through the storm yet to come
let the savage song awake from the veil
breathe the frozen wind, the purest rain,
Kindle with force the lighthouse flame
and follow your path
to the shores that lie beyond
darkness and haze
~ Magdalene
EDEN ME !
at night
when turmoil stopped
and nothing disrupts anymore
when day has sunken down into abyss
then…gradually…
mystery rises
exhaled.. silently…from the deep core of earth
breath rising
steaming
spinning webs of essences
weaving holographic tissues
–only to grasp–
by a witness of truth
–enter through the doors if perception–
with awe
…or else under seel at once
bound to wait for the next wave of breath…
~ ANDRUSCHKA
Illusions
Noiseless wrinkles
On our forehead
The frontiers of history
Shed oblique glances
At Homer’s verses
Illusions
Full of guilt
Redeem
Wounded whispers
That became echoes
In lighted caves
Of the fools and the innocent
~ Dimitris P. Kraniotis, Greece
Previous community collections
- Winter Whispers [Dec-2025]
Poetic Philosophy 