Happy You-Year! :)

Another year is coming to an end with all its good and bad days (who’s counting them?) and - bottom-line- I would like to dedicate them all to the glorious self: self-love, self-respect, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness and self-worth. I’ve come to the conclusion that they can make you figure it all out. Coming to terms with yourself, not trying to please anybody, allowing the others to take you as you are or leave you for good, following your own heart and mind… that’s how you can find your inner balance. Live life your own way and, if you are happy, you can share that happiness with the people you love. If you are not happy, there’s nothing you can do about it.
However, I won't forget to count my blessings as well: if they made my 2012 into a movie, there would definitely be 2 (damn ;)) ) hours of incredible scenes, heartfelt emotions, selfless feelings and breathless memorable quotes. So, here I am, not only pleased, but also really thankful.
As for my New Year resolution, it will be to continue to choose ...doing the right thing all next year even if/ when it seems to hurt ‘cause making the wrong choices would be far worse. I need this world and the future to become better places and they will be better only if each of us does what’s right.

Round-the-clock Affection

I love life
between black and white,
its million gray shades,
the polychromatic easel of the street
in the morning.
These days
I am constantly falling in love
with our truth
Standing between us like a mirror
Where we can look together
Without being blinded by memories.
White bandages
Lay abandoned by both on the soft carpet;
My wounds have closed yours
in time
and their scars hurt only at night.
Sometimes
I find myself daydreaming,
while rehearsing the old lines;
You always surprise me with new gestures-
I love life,
its loneliness which leads me to you,
and what it becomes in front of the mirror
on the soft, gray carpet ...

Christmassy :)

Christmas is almost here and all I can say is:” It’s such a small world and people share more than they think they do!!!”…
Christmas is about taking time to appreciate the simplicity of life, its blessings and even its trials. It’s the time when we realize how much we love our dearest ones - family and friends - and how much love we still have inside for the others. On Christmas, it seems right to let our hearts open for a while without any risks or fears...and feel happy.
This year, I’m not wishing for material presents. I have noticed that what can be bought is hardly essential. On the contrary, what truly matters are the priceless little things which are hidden inside our own hearts, sometimes abandoned, sometimes ignored, sometimes underestimated…This year, I would like all of us to fully acknowledge that living with kindness, generosity and gratitude is a win - win attitude… that … happiness is never selfish and it can never be achieved alone.
This year, I wish all of us … forgiveness - which will give us light in return, sweet tenderness - which will bring us enough peace and warmth to surrender our worries, humility - which will help us to see the miracles inside those around us, hope - which will keep our eyes open and our smiles real, gratitude and patience- which will make the fulfillment of our dreams worthwhile and enough love to feed our souls with life…
This Christmas, let’s take time to believe, to hold the hands of the ones we love, let’s make room for the birth of Jesus in our hearts, let’s listen to children’s carol singing, let’s enjoy the smell of the fir-tree and the taste of our favourite foods … Let’s smile more often, love with all our hearts and remember to pray…and be thankful. >:D<

Un-written Agreement

Social conventions ask for all year consistency
even though we are not born average-
they require following invariable routes,
worn out patterns,
even when the norm is
to either adjust to seasonal changes
or contemplate their weather reports;
We learn that no one is the same
and no compensation law can fill a whole
when it’s too late.
Then, why are these hurting limits allowed?
There should be round-the-clock warnings
To help prevent overfeeding our hearts.
I need someone to censure or at least monitor
my future wish lists only- there are so many reasons now
for unfelt feelings
to become this year's Christmas card entities.

Placebo

Self-imposed hope patterns
Will always compensate
for the tumultuous inner healing
with unexpected peace imports
showing up blinking minutes before too late
A matrix of self-curing forces
enclosing the grief,
Chasing its chimeric shadows
back into the depths of immune relief
Ignoring the cold call of the old flesh and blood
Pursuing instead
the imaginary chords of an unheard echo
Ticking the midnight chaos subtleties
A deceiving emotional trail
for two strangers’ vanities-bonfire effigies
turned into ashes
raving and raging about fitting
to the same Procrustean bed
we’ve been looking forward to sleeping in
blazed into prescription memories
Whose seemingly worse symptoms
get amputated by faith.

Enlightenment

No sense left to make sense,
nothing to be desired
in its fullest of grace,
in the mundane ageing of a waving sunset
With purple shades of stability jumping off the night borders
So young
like an insane dreamer
used to waking up in the morning
and claiming the previous day’s prophesies
from a stranger
whose unreciprocated yet obscurely seducing illusions
leave sleeping slaveries behind
always at someone else’s disposal
courteous and humble
their primitive nonsense taming only recurrent fears,
their lucid exceptions,
an obvious contrast,
awakening the echo of ticking fees.

Crimson Directions

Pacts made.
Remorse erased.
Punctuation marks deleted.
From any am to all pm
“postponed”
means “cancelled for now”;
“Never again” translates “unrepeated”
until
Growing the old child within young,
I'll turn off the wrong weather forecasts
Inside
and drop down the final curtain.
Lost yet found,
Played but unmade like an impersonal prediction;
Only one right time and place.
One line, one act, one stage.
One hand to be held
and cry.

35

Emply or full
One half is hereby left behind
The last
in a rally obstacle race;
In the background
A silent - perhaps even mute- beggar
left aside on the sidewalk, not even properly used,
then thrown away
like an expired product;
on the right
mere mortals idealizing and fantasizing about eternal love-
playing God.
Broken pieces can never make a whole
With one of them missing another for life
Dropped down so many times, for so long,
too low to remember , to even imagine how it feels to be loved;
Love’s not love
If it’s not felt the same in two hearts at once
Like Christmas snow born from children's tears
and not old sorrows.
I just wish I hadn’t felt anything
Or simply didn’t remember
I did.
From above the ground
Just know it’s never, never in their kiss
But only in their stupid, secret priority lists.
We are not born who we want to be
We don’t become who we want to become
either
Gambling through life
Betting everything on a first card
Losing
Without saving anything;
Last times must be the safest choices:
Just throw the dice and wait enough for their edges
to stop
On the right side.

Hopefully Overrated Amens

One fine day
I’ll be granted enough heaven
To chase all the skeletons in my closet away,
Ask’em all for forgiveness
and pray
for eternal bliss, take a really deep breath-
UNTIL
I can reach the bottom of my deepest calmness,
Cross the hostility borders of those sinned against for too long,
double-checked
like decorative, symmetry doors,
making amends,
for the unshared sermons,
long-perished omens, forgotten passwords and almost failed wrongs.
Then,
To come to terms with my own existential record,
I’ll bury the bitter hatchet of regret
on my own,
set fire to the ignorant horizon
And draw a better line
between the zenith and the abyss
with blood shadows.

Yet
above all
if my heart is in a good place
I’ll steal some infinity from you to just lie down and die.

Dirt-rich Secrets

Serenity prayers
morbidly postponed
by the solitary absentees
whose betrayed, bankrupted, broken childhoods
laundry the memory loss lane
With fragile dew point tears
instantly made
by autumn’s concrete loyalty
to old meadows and valleys and hills;
In light of today’s options versus tomorrow’s reasons
Some self-examined subjective selves
Sublimated in a globally turned apathy hourglass
whose frozen sand wipes off the undissolved blood types
Equally reclaimed and recounted
by elusive goodbye notes
Bear with me for a while
But mind you
Though pathetic and sympathetic,
I am not really going to share
those last
deathbed
words.

Halfway towards Another Hedonistic Paradox

In a room without strings
fueled by procrastination only
the expired insecurities of youth
levitate
deprived of the latest kind of attachment device
ever invented
to remind humankind of their own signatures
on the dotted old line.
With age, one finds out
there are worse wars around the corner than they used to learn about;
First-hand experience becomes common knowledge
in a bit of a precious second,
while we are still alive
but still unable to figure out why
we are supposed to live only one love at a time,
and destined
to gently send our illegitimate soul mates into exile
how come
I am missing the dismissed only,
And solely remember the banished
in the supposedly forgotten corner of my mind?

Hermeticism

The same inner voices trying to stab us from within
Urging us to resist but failing
to warn us
About free falling;
Too many eyes kept on the same price
Make compassion irreversibly set down,
get over
before it’s really over.
Willfully immersed
In the perplexity of hurting on the insured side
I’m out of my fight
minding my own lost battles and victories
sharing veiled kisses and free hugs
daydreaming of the rain so altruistically kidnapped
in the palm of your hand.
Morning sunbeams captured in a closed call,
Reality chased into coded diaries;
Hypnotized by the same hostile routine,
following unoriginal, intoxicating sins,
I'm spelling first names nesting an evil-inclined indifference,
in defiance of their selfless reflection.

Compass free

I can always tell north from south
Chaperone the invisible oysters,
The velvet shadows laying down their voice weapons
In an ocean of virtualities.
The open, transparent, almost magnetic wounds -
such a melodic whisper;
The layers of uncertainty performing metallic allusions -
a nonsense wave jigsaw,
a lost, meaningless smile clouding your lips,
Removed.
“I love you” - another irony of language
stated in an eternal yet rapidly decaying present
forcing us to make impossible pledges,
assume the best of a stranger’s long-term promises
Ignored.
Lured and drugged by perennialism,
Some are only afraid of needles.

Inspirational Simplicity

Chances are
If it’s not meant to be this time
No one’s going to be judged
Not by us anyway wrapped only
in this sweet lavender night.
One is told colours
bear different names in a language
And rainbows the same
We are too greedy to cease seeking for symbols and signs
Too busy reaping harvests we never planted;
Looking back without teary eyes now
would expose
an even emptier heart.
Kindness remains a priceless surrogate for a single ride
The healing scars made by the thorns of withering roses
will always remember the blood-scented fragrance
instead of the petal trail left behind -
Staying true to oneself is harder
than taking a metaphorical bullet,
than being grounded for life, unable to slow down your steps,
Too far from a déjà-vu Neverland
Irreconcilably surrendered and incorporated in its divine landscape
Yet so discouraged by its heart-shaped barbed wire
A striking contrast immortalizing our complexity
We bungee-jump chained to our deepest fears alone
Like two peas in a ribboned pod striving to breathe
Bottom-line
It’s not going to happen once-upon-my-time.

Evidence of an Injured Mirror

Caring too much if we are loved even when we don’t care back
Surviving our own delusions for a life time
Longing for too long in places we don’t belong
Staring at familiar imperfections along the way
Re-inventing the wrongs of the past with masochistic grandeur
Hallucinating our worth, resuscitating hope
Changing our minds after forgiving our trespassers
Taking everything back and returning the gifted testimonials
-To puzzle the senders -
Expecting it will cut out for good the old good days that we leave behind
Ostracized by revengeful scenarios,
Fraternizing with temporary allies that we formerly used to despise,
Racing against imagined enemies, beside imaginary friends
Oversleeping and being late
for life-changing dates which never take place
Crying the same
on weddings and funerals
Looking up words which don't exist in advanced learners'dictionaries
Unable to tell the difference between a fake smile and a self-destructive pride
Mutilating our hopes, amputating our desires,
Not-knowing
We only have deeds to regret instead of feelings or thoughts.

Seventeen

This one is about high school. My high school years were pretty much the same as they normally are and should be: amazing friendships, the unforgettable first love, millions of dreams born to become true and a number of right people being there for me in order to support, motivate and inspire. High school was such a good time and place to grow, to become who I am today!
Going to a(nother) high school every day now makes my own high school memories stay alive. 17 years ago I had no idea about what was going to happen. I had expectations like everyone else and fears the same. But the lessons I learned and the feelings and memories I collected then turned me into one of the richest people in the world. (You should call Forbes magazine, I seriously belong there.)
What I value most about high school is that it showed and taught me about being independent. Also, if you took away all my life memories and experiences and allowed me to keep only the ’91- ’95 ones, I would still be very happy. ‘Cause love, friendship, acceptance, tolerance, generosity and trust are enough to bring happiness and also, once they have settled in your heart and soul, they will never leave or abandon you.
I know that high school couldn’t do all these without the right people. Thank you, my high school guardian angels!

PS I hope I am managing to give something back.:)

Win-Win Correspondences

Pre-dissolved initiatives unified by candor
Still mourn’ inside a floral, almost tangible dusk,
Framed and stamped by desire,
Kept aside by the submissive guard of selfless denial
getting addicted
to the scent of expired calendars.
Mutually ignoring one’s absence
Seems the perfect dignity trap
Meant to preserve one’s lost glory,
its prejudices against a repented doubt.
A past of future promises had better remain silent
forever
Like an unwritten letter which would take too much time,
Like a destined recapture of imaginary pictures
Mentally taken by the blind.
We used to know nothing about humiliation
Until our phobias were confirmed by experience;
That begging for mercy has become such an archaic concept
Is another life fact.
When too afraid to step out of a comfort zone
I just un-teach myself to look back.

Sweet September(ing...)

My mood is definitely season dependent. An autumn has always felt like a better spring to me, the beginning of something worthwhile - to expect the least - only because of the start of another school year…That first day in September is more important to me than the Millennial New Year’s Eve.

I look forward to getting back to work, to seeing my “old” colleagues and meeting the new ones after the summer holiday... Teachers can be fascinating - incredibly pleasant and funny - as long as they are off duty. Especially in September!

Seasonal Epiphanies

Some things do not need 'refreshing'. They have become so familiar that we often forget to lay our eyes on them and we almost always take them for granted. But they do not revolt against us, they never complain about us nor criticize our ingratitude ... It's their accepted fault for agreeing to become organically merged with us, for having chosen to become ours, to think about us, to dream about us, to put themselves on hold for our sake in both time and space, in reason and feeling, in pride and prejudice, in war and peace until something stronger than death, even more terrible than compromise or self-sacrifice is bound to claim supremacy or monopoly on the former symbiosis ...

Some things will always remain 'ours', always unique, like parents, childhood memories and daydreams.

Everyone should perceive life not as a single journey, but as a series of emotional excesses, excruciating passions, selfless abdications and overwhelming defeats, heartbreaking farewells and irrational hope. Everyone should know that love is not unique, but unrepeatable, not the same but different each time... much better, more complex, closer and closer to the truth. Like a progressive experience whose meaning will not be revealed until the final stage.

Artificial Spleen

Worn out by an eagerness of undefeated wars
A new dawn
- collecting its blank cheques for the better or worse-
Brings down a rainbow of invisible curses
scattered and ready to be taken for granted
in the righteous name of a noble cause;
Nobody stops after taking one first step.
No steps are taken without struggling against one's hopes.
An amply rejected emptiness still persists on my fingers
Pushing my fears to and fro;
We may remain the same in the infinity of euphoria infamies,
Seeking repentance for the betrayals staining our mood
a smile has always been
the perfect disguise above an oblivion precipice.
A brand new “hello”, facing the September sunrise,
still warmed up under the remnants of the latest dew,
will be not only remembered but missed.

Sheherazade

I’ve paid my share of hazards
While reconstructing the fair-tales of the confessing heroes
Taking advantage of season change
and doubt failure and relief forms
Only to control
the safety passwords of myth survivors.
Towards an aspirational happy ending,
Virtually uninterruptable by unexpected hopes,
I’m tearing up magic wands to make fuel for a fire,
Rolling down a sinister ladder of smoke,
Over the edge of the same epic, coherent desire.
Repeatedly ignored,
I jeopardize and complicate my self-
Trying to capture a ghostly apparition
in a plausible snapshot
trading pounds of my own flesh
without knowing how an immune system really works.
“There will be no life-threatening repercussions this time”
They used to say.

To avoid a vain curiosity and acquaint with the modern stage
We are all gingerbread people
Running away.

Condemned Loyalties

Unfavorable magnitudes planting sorrow seeds
By the streams of dividing platitudes
nearby
the twin roots of a self-portrayed venture,
Sharing subtle and overt traits
with the accusatory eyes of the accused…
Breathing in the same room...is enough.
“Let’s ascend from this disparity of undeserved sanctions,
Far above the impoverished river banks,“ she says.
...running down against evils and ills,
through the valley of praying...
"Paying no price for the journey of growth,
doesn’t preserve your balance",replied the echo.
We’d better cease transferring these brand new sins
to those easy old targets;
while sitting on one’s knees, sharing the guilt,
Instead of the ultimate destination-
Fancy ascribing an ultimatum to the moonlight breeze.

Underneath Each Mask

Put on
in fear of prejudiced vision or image-threatening blasts,
Terrified
by offensive excesses of privacy,
Resorting to seductive spiritual sensations,
There’s an impersonal immunity -
Beyond the pale of senses - its adequate remedy;
Inside,
in the absence of physical things
involuntarily inspired by public curiosity.
Acclaimed
like a postmortem masterpiece,
Against intangible perception invasions
- properly misunderstood and misled-
towards a gallery of unpainted portraits,
foreshadowed by silent, contaminated tears
embittering the sarcasm of controlled exposure
defamed yet indifferent
to unimplied, tacit intentions,
the legitimate breaches of self-confidence,
whose last high-intensity whispers,
almost destroyed by triviality,
unwilling to be slandered and libeled,
continue to breathe.

Same Story Within Story

Deported yet indispensable,
thrown away
from the rooftop of fate,
falsified and twisted by spring winds
anonymous manuscripts
are brought to a new life
inside the borders of disposable amnesties.
Framed and cuffed,
Lacking any real choices,
welcoming the zeal of impatience,
the defying instincts of youth,
its irrational response to chemical attractions
seeking refuge
in seemingly mutual affections hidden between the lines.
Simply,
like that,
I rule my own world
severely, profitably, intrinsically
taking stands against savages
who refuse to publish or perish
in defense of what makes me me and you you
more or less immersed in defenseless confusions
invoking and provoking
a worrying pile of rebuttal rights
leaving the orphaned abused
like a mapped future
risking a jungle of question and exclamation marks
for the same footprints of the same trespassers.
Marginal distrust advances from forgotten identities,
- the consolation of losing one's reputation
from assimilating recession...
While playing the waiting game
&
receiving the silent treatment,
I'll be solely following the directions of my time
showing itself
now and then
like a redundant angel from underneath the scars.

A World Divided

A few years ago I was visiting a castle in France when, all of a sudden, I had to witness a conflict between two small groups of what-looked-to-be-quiet, harmless pensioners. French is not my best friend but, among their violent exchange lines, I could identify and understand two name-callings which seemed quite brutal, accusatory and shameful under those circumstances : “sarcoziste” and “monarchiste ”.

I was shocked because up until today my opinion has been that our political beliefs or preferences shouldn’t define us. People can never be labeled or separated like this, based on the natural differences between them such as gender, race, religion, education, political beliefs etc. We cannot move around and have people call us “men” or “women”,whites” or “blacks” ,“muslims” or “orthodoxies” ,“graduates” or “undergraduates”, “basisti” or “uselisti” etc.

Someone’s true identity is established and should be judged by different accomplishments and values and the personal relationships between us should not be affected or corrupted by our temporary inclination to support one side of the story or another. I don’t think that we should put the blame of this generalized discontent or enmity on a certain political figure or group. Each of us is responsible for allowing somebody , the media or the “system” to use and abuse us or our rights. Each of us has the right and the obligation to make the right choices, promote the right values and make the right difference in their families, local communities and society...

So, as an educator, I am asking a few simple questions : how can peace and harmony be achieved with so much fighting and insulting? How can we love our country, our people, how can we appreciate and respect ourselves and the others when we don’t know who they really are? How can we understand their opinions when we are not ready to accept their different ways of thinking, feeling and acting? How can we cope with our lives, with the joys and gifts of the present if we are slaves to dehumanizing tensions and bad influences ? How can we ask to be helped by others when we refuse to help ourselves? How can we see the truth if we are blinded? How can we feel any love at all when we let anger, hate, hostility and anxiety control our hearts?

My conclusion is that in times of hope or despair, hatred and contempt cannot be the right attitudes. We have all learned about the benefits of tolerance and solidarity. So, instead of negative feelings and attitudes, let’s all remember to smile and hope and trust, if not for us, at least for God and the future of “the better angels” of this nation. Let's remember how to be proud and how to live together like a family, not like enemies. I know I don't want see any more pain. Do you?

Charade

Poetry is supposed to be simple without being easy
Self-reflective without being too obvious
Transparent like a good translation
Combining grammar with the proper knowledge
of the exception rules
A stream of heartfelt emotions turned into words
Or just conclusive, isolated thoughts
Giving them visibility together with publicly shared relief
Your inner self being seen and heard on the outside
Like underground roots deliberately outgrown
Unnaturally settling for heights instead of reaching for depths.
Early mornings in their fullness of hope
Witnessing the intangible skyline,
Watching the clouds passing by while melting your senses
and other nocturnal masks down with the minerals
Heading and hearting towards the same destination
so desirable yet unavoidable
Like a merciless edge appeal or a full moon tide
Like the hesitant shutter at the sight of a semi-expired rainbow
Failing to seize the peak of its unexpected appearance
Looking for rational meanings
which could mean anything to anyone
from the ultimatum of a crosswords solver
improvising quizzes and puzzles and guessing games
to the urge of parading
for the sake of standing ovations in the middle of spring festivals.

Impersonal Memorabilia

since you promised me we’d transcend time
right from this earthly place we call home
my affinity has decided to disobey
all logic,ignore all its visible threats
and despise the strings of reason instead;
your vows never spoiled the purity of a soul
even though they fail to share or divide
its divine memories and moments of doubt
with a humanity
turning its pace, its peaceful expectations and concrete reality
into brightly lit slogans and rhyming oaths.
I believe it is environmentally friendly nowadays
to recycle Valentine cards, to re-use them to advertise
the universal symbols of mutually consented feelings
at a half-confessed price
from admiration to attraction
lies a dessert of what-if’s and guilt on sale
-revealing the imperfections of mind-
the unsatisfactory choices of bargaining
for a less than decorative heart -
the bitter taste of a sweet defeat, of temporary compromise.
Right after the loss of hope a new miracle is born
whose ascension of depths from neglect
is portrayed again and again
into a mirror whose vulnerabilities
overlook the absorption of faith;
like a fate pilgrim with closed eyes
at the always noble shrines of deceit and regret
overcoming the old and forgotten middle-February-relics
I’m still waiting for an answer virtually impossible to collect.

Ur-Ban Traffic

Partly in love, partly free from socialite parties
I’m still being judged -
- on suspicion of having followed the most unpopular
continental fads, trading new trends,
for the abstract pieces of an overstretched mind
So here I am
A frozen– smile for each supersized hero
and their faking outlaws and their framed moves
whose misunderstood rebellions
turn my suspense, its honest hesitation, into a muse
There you were
blame-storming and story-telling afterwards
the wretched patches of the self- blind
those tempted to climb
the windless roofs of the concrete edges
the age-free glass of their temples,
the shameless rushes making no virtues of their consolation
so innocently compromised
There we will find ourselves
demoted by the magical weakness
of beating organs and biting voices
the inner pressures of reassured hopes
and the grey nuances
of estranged emotions and poisonous thoughts.
A conscience always renegades
all these musical pledges and graffiti phobias
without the distantly confusing remains of any idyllic evidence.