Athens

 

Where once I landed 

spirited from a silvery shining bird

I roamed your streets

Now clouded in orange dusts

this pearl of philosophers

cradle of democracy no more

From the top of the roof

I looked upon the Parthenon

and squared Syntagma

An iced coffee on the table

served with courtesy

and flair but well overpriced

History a tourist attraction

to the mainstream of trending void

without a love for science

Athena daughter of wisdom and art

how I loved to wander

your ways  your plaka  your heart ..

© 2024-09-01

Note.

Philosophy in ancient Greek meant: love for science / wisdom.

PS.

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Erosion of thought II

 

Part II

His bony tentacles scraped 

the withered red oleander flowers

of the green synthetic grass. 

In the distance waved a tree

its leaves at him. It was the last true

part of nature in this quarter

where even the neighbouring

twin girls had turned largely factitious.

Screaming their lungs out as

not a single parent had ever

made the effort to stop them from

yelling at the void of a world.

Watering the oleander shrubs

in the earthenware pots from a basin

underneath the plastic blades

of grass, he sensed a vacuity

in this minute preservation of nature.

Had not all become dystopian

as the fighter jet curved over

so low that even the twin's screaming

and his thought were outcried

© 2024-09-03

PS.

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Erosion of thought

Part I

Erosion of thought. 

My first erosion and thought 

on this Jacobaea Vulgaris 

between a river and sea

have been blotted out.

©  2024-08-18

Note.

And do visit this website: English | standing-together

Erosion of thought - Revisited

Some six years after the killing of the Rosenbergs

well, it's said their murder

It was in the very heart of Jerusalem that I was born

this Jerusalem of the west

And yet my cradle stood in a cold and darkened north 

in this grandparental home

There where my Zeyde and Bubbe taught both their sons 

about life, study and honour

In the port of Amsterdam in Brell's sixties I stood at the helm

of that whaler ship Barentsz

And not much later that child carried the sword up ancient steps

of a castle in his young heart

Blond and overly active pulling at my parents hands to go forward

to the exitement of growing up

(how) did I ever get home

Was it aged nineteen or at twenty that I tried to die crossing the road 

just in front of the speeding lorry

Or was it that starry, frosty night that I buried myself in a heap of snow

with an alcoholic haze for warmth

As the one thing in me that froze and died (that night) was the cerebrum

but the body kept for another hour

                                                a year

                                                    a decade

a lifetime with a heart, yet without a brain

have not both of us in all gone to extremes

(how) will I ever get home

"Somebody's done for" penned Sylvia mulling

(  ) and I believe it to be me

Perhaps my dead body will be perfect

© 2024-08-31

Note.

To the memory of the brilliant Sylvia Plath.

Jerusalem of the west a.k.a. Amsterdam.