David Dephy — A Georgian/American award-winning poet and novelist. The winner of the Finalist Award in the 2020 Best Book Award National Contest by American Book Fest, the finalist and shortlist winner nominee of the Adelaide Literary Awards for the category of Best Poem, the winner of the Spillwords Poetry Award. His full book-length poetry Eastern Star has been published by Adelaide Books in New York in October 2020. He is named as A Literature Luminary by Bowery Poetry, The Stellar Poet by Voices of Poetry and The Incomparable Poet by Statorec. His works also have been published and anthologized in the USA, UK and all over the world by the many literary magazines, journals and publishing houses. He lives in New York.
ALL THE SHORES OF MEDITERRANEAN SEA
Twilight fades.
Beyond the shore a voice echoes.
I wasn’t exactly when, but I realized,
it was dusk—
that chasm between, the crystal-pink
and the twin flame, the lilac flow—
all I knew was here and now,
when I fell in—
and all I could not
hope—a second that was
everything else other than our names,
an affinity, a breeze with sound, a cry of joy,
that tugs at our center of gravity.
Along the shores, the past rolls over us,
rushes by into the empty lanes where all our stories
are retold, where they carry on deep into the dark.
Are we the couple to whom that occurred?
What we thought we choose to become? I have all a man
might need, but received much more. She kissed me, and said:
“Just drive, my love. There is something about the open road.
It makes our few footsteps feel like so many more.”
Kissed by the wind like a sail, the galleon drives on.
I have been drowned and opened up,
made whole and poignant by a wind
who casts me adrift.
Oh wind, we are made of quenching aspirations.
The passion of your sea lives within me,
and that kiss quenches me as a song—
as a song of time,
time passes as time does: so much behind us,
a little less to go. No easy ride: peace can be
vexing—what we’ve left behind as the sun
dips down low.
May 7, 2020
New York
WITH A MILLION SMILES
With a million smiles and still lonely.
I said: “Only once. It’s because we’ve forgotten our hearts.”
You said: “Once is enough, if with compassion.”
“Must have been a dream,” I considered and said zero,
but late one night, on the knife-edge of dawn,
I found the words: “Once is enough,” you mumbled,
your brow bracing the Mediterranean sky.
Looking at the flying triangle of storks up above,
I feel hope. Yet, we all are alone in our own journey,
but many are going with us, we do not know why,
we only know who the enemies of hope are,
leave them alone. Don’t say a word.
I found a bridge in between us, when the footsteps will be yours,
and the echoes will be mine, maybe many rises up against us,
leave them alone, rewarding murdering psychopaths,
privileged parasites, will end up all together, don’t look at them,
I found a garden for us, where the roses will be yours,
water will be mine, when the lips of ear, of course,
will kiss us time to time, when daylights never die,
when the smells of those rays will enrich all our nights.
Looking at the empty sky, I hear our laughs,
no fighter aircraft up above, but kites.
April 28, 2021
New York
Poetry in this post: © David Dephy
Published with the permission of David Dephy