Love is a threat, to be paid off....

in competition with my other ambitions...
We human beings are dangerous weapons...
if we are weak...

Wet chestnut leaves stuck to the cobbled pavement.

I am staring up at the high grey walls
shuttered windows i had pictured in my dreams.
I remain faithful in my wanderings.
No substitutes.

I had watched my back....
sat in coffee shops, observed cars,
fishermen, cyclists...
I had walked through classical gardens
perched on benches.

The sounds of piano grew a little louder.
The views of the Seine through the windows
at each half lending.
I am nervous, cause i am not John.....
I see views of several rivers at once.
The one fast flowing,
another calm.
A third strict as a canal. 
Brown skinned children watched me from a doorway.
A young girl in the bright cottons,
flitted past me on her way...

Lovers arm in arm.

Accept me....

The hills darkened as i drove

the roads grew deeper
the rock peaks of the hilltops were blackened
.....as if burned...
Stone walls enclosed

med me.
I entered a village of slate roofs
crumbling walls, old car tyres
plastic bags.
Piglets and hens wandered in my path,
inquisitive sheep eyed me.....
but i saw no human soul...

I drove over humbacked hills
into a plantation of blue conifers
that turned green
then polka dot.

The road became a track.
I crossed a ford and entered a rural slum of rotting cauliflowers.

Hard jawed children watched me
from the threshold of a tin shed.
I crossed a second stream or the same one.

Someone was facing me...
God?

The stone walls gave way

I was flying over wide valleys
patched with sun
crossed with streams...
Chestnut horses grazed in perfect rectangular meadows.....

In my apprehension everything was too late...
I sensed despair...
Why had i never played here as a kid...
walked as a boy?
Run in that field, lived in that cottage...
These colours, why had i never painted them?
You were all thes hopes....

Breathe humid, old, frightening

Echoes when there is no sound....
My palms flat on the ancient stones
wringgled to my sanctuary...

I am fighting...

PHOTO   ARGYRO TSOURTI

Nobody who has not lived in secrecy

appreciate  its addictive powers
Nobody who has renounced the secret world
recovers the deprivation....

Longing for the inner life is unendurable ....

We dream of the secret hush ....
Chu

rch air is like no other.... 

HEEDLESS OF THE NIGHT AND RAIN- John BAKALIS-2017

He face was stony

even paler than before
Her fingertips trembling
I've been too bloody glib
and i' m going to pay for it.....

In the spirit of old comradership....

My years were singing
I heard screaming, then sobbing
Then the groaming of the wind
A storm was getting up
An autumn snowfall
Tonight a veritable sea storm
slapping the shutters whistling in the eaves
I stand at the study window
watching the raindrops
slash across the glass...
I peere into the blackness

A white hand tap tapping on the window pane.....
in the conventional lover's bower....

  

The lights are below us...

Beyond them lies the sea...
Stars and a half moon
make a nursery window
of the sky
A windscreen
Long eyelashes and full lips
An air of reckless daring
and highborn purpose
greatly undears her

I realize that i have to step out of the ring

to be forgotten.
We are two destiny seekers
talking stock of one another.

Not in as many words...
the same old creamy look in your eyes...
know where to reach me...
Which  extension i am speaking from
I am lovesick
thinking that an eternity is reckoned
There's a lifetime in a secomd....
Wondering where i read it...
I can not prepare my tone...

I am ringing late...
playing silly buggers....


PHOTO   ARGYRO TSOURTI

She smiles her scampish self

deprecating smile.
Scampish she shadow of the sun hat
making a mystery
of her upper face.
A thing she knows perfectly well.
Turn beauty, turn.

Their two smiles connect
and light each other.
Hers quizzical
His less confident of its reception.

Gracelessness a sign of virtue....

Grey buildings, bloody cold
Smelled as the truth welled up
in a world without faith
or ''antifaith''....

Blandly....
I am not good at dates....
I am not the ''good kid'' of the neighbourhood...

Her death and after

the dance of the phoenix
A sign seeker
in vision i roam...
into my glass....
They say that God was in the...battle...
In the battle i was...
as a dream follower...
in shades....
Walking i saw four footprints...
in a way to my mind....
as a dark eyed gentlement....
I heard the storm..
and a dream question...
I was  a vampirine fair
Deep desiring
My lost love


PHOTO   Mrs  IRO TSOURTI

EYES THAT FIX' D IMPLORE- jOHN BAKALIS-2017

LINE OF NOWHERE

Chained and helpless
slapped threatened.
Something had happened.
Keep to your story. Move things along.

A figure slip inside.
Keep a lid on the burst of hope
I am in pieces.

I follow into a line of nowhere.


(Sometimes i try things, that don't get along. I keep it that way. Maybe an other time).

THAT COUNTENANCE THERE FASHIONED....

Nervous as i was
An appraising look through the glass
Fill, fill me with confidence.
She lied in the photo.
Hard and dark expressions....
try hard to hide
lies.....actress ....expressions...
Come to my frame...
go through everything.....
There are missing pieces in our story.

HUNG DOWN THAT BRIGHT WEED-JOHN BAKALIS-2017

Man with hopes and dreams.....
once upon a time.....
Circumstances, age brought me down.
Sadness, dwelt in...me....
Thought dismissed.
Inspiring.......moment....shut out the world...

A FAINT ORANGE GLOW-JOHN BAKALIS-2017

To the dreams i had,
visions of violence.
Eyes of men,
breathed each other's sweat.
Big earlier dream,
an abstract artwork
on the wall.
A nightmare......

They fell real...
A nightmarish pu

zzle.
A faint orange glow on the orizon....



PHOTO -IRO TSOURTI

AND THOU-JOHN BAKALIS-2017

A sudden start
Lying on my back
A darkening sky.
In my field of vision
the orange glow of the sun.
Bursts of activity, my memories.

Lapping against the rocks
the sound of the sea.
Cries of seaguls.

FEEL OF NOTHING-JOHN BAKALIS-2017

Touching my arm
camping down...
smile prety and genuine.
Long forgotten memories.

I looked at a cup of tea.

Struck me with absolutely clarity.
An old fashioned shash window.
I am half out of myself.
It was a sunny, warm jabbing me.....
I slowed, taking in the sounds,
smells around me.....
Feel of nothing....

Photo GIANNA GRAUND

ROUND THE TERM OF THE LAST ZERO-JOHN BAKALIS-2017

I waited .....a minute
listening to the whispers
whispering voices,
downstairs.
Faded away, voices?
Skulking in shadows.....
I wasn't mean't to have a shadow!

I'd thought the feeling might go away....
I was as hell of me....

I spread a puzzled smile...
I was no longer....
Oh dear....a dark outside world, foreboding...
Round the term of the last zero....
It might jog a memory.
A porcelain skin, petite build
doll like....
A whirlwind ''romance''.

MEMORIAL IS RAISED-JOHN BAKALIS-2017

The cellar steps,
of a red wine...
smacked my head...
pretty odd set up...
Days just seem to drift....
Kind of  soft fog....

Am i paranoid?
Wrong end of my fifties.
I lost my fight with gravity.
My pick of single ladies
of certain age....
that kind of gravitas....


(Photo-Iro Tsourti)

TOO SHOCKING TO BE TRUE

It had been a long, hot day, a twenty mile to the east
but it was over
but it was deegrees warmer, in baking afternoon heat.

Both sexes stripped to the waist under the sun's blinding orb.
Loved the sight of so many bare breasts.
They filled the air with whistles and cutcalls.
The odd feeling too shocking to be true.
Ploy?
Dawn had gone, morning was here.

The notion of imprisoning
nothing of the sort.

Moves were an age-old routine
performed every 3 to 5 days
wherever they were.

The leader was silver haired, well built.
Smelling blood.....
He was a traitor in his wildest dreams.....
shocking
hopes of glory were in ashes,
he placed a finger to his lips.
Shared a skin of wine.

No spirals of smoke rising from the roofs
no women were up, preparing barley porridge,
or baking flatbread.
No wine to wash your mind....
The sun set in a blaze of glory
staining the sky beautiful shades of pinks and reds.
The narrow gap, a thin beam of sunlight, woke me up.
Stories that have travelled all the way
being twisted and distorted with each telling.
Reliable as the ramblings of a drunk who pops up a bar.
Funny, not to be believed.

POEM ON THE GO

Others' faces tell their own story...
omens from the final sacrifice to be good...
i told of my dream last night
The dream of the burning eagle....
Prone to drinking and fighting...
seeking favour of the gods
Rectangle of stone sat upon a plinth carved with scenes...
traveling along the faster, paved roads west...
shades would haunt...
paces from wall to wall....
Eyes rise to the blue arc of the heavens....
wich was decorated with a scattering of lambswool clouds...
the skylarks yet trilled from on high
sign that spring was passing...
Keen-eyed expressionless...
I have built a bridge that will last forever.....a stonework...
eying the sinking sun...
bound to get away in the poor light....
at down.....

Eagle standards as our own,
to the thunder god
God pass your hand over
of trumpets in the nick of time.