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Christos Rigakos Apr 2014
I wondered once while still a curious child
of who I was before I was, because
I listened to those people on T.V.
speak wondrously of who they were before.
They'd found a way to cause remembrance,
under hypnosis, where by regressing
back and farther past their very birth,
and nine months farther back beyond the meet
of ***** and egg, and years more farther back,
they could describe the people that they were.
I wondered who I was before I was,
until one day I read a certain news,
a scientific study done to see
the people who some people truly were.
One hundred people hypnotized did see
their lives before the lives which they now lived.
And forty-eight were Abraham Lincoln.
I closed the newspaper and took a walk,
and never more subscribed to idle talk.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
Blank Verse
Christos Rigakos Apr 2014
She often seems confused, and pauses midway
through a task, unsure which way to go,
and drops her task to move on to another.
With hurting feet and tunnel vision, hearing
muffled, voices staticky and loud,
confusion is a sea she cannot swim.
She is an hourglass, her memory,
slow falling through the hole, and all her days
are passing through a chasm out of reach.
The old one slowly turning back to child,
needs mothering from children till she's born.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
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Christos Rigakos Apr 2014
She strolled along the narrow pathway through
the park.  Her soft skirt flitting  in the breeze,
her long legs smooth and pampered, sandaled feet
took mellow steps under the Springtime sun.

She caught the eye of Fred, who from his book
rose up bespectacled and drank the scene
of one young beauty carried by the breeze,
and thanked the Lord for all His wondrous things.

She noticed that he noticed and she sneered,
disdainfully and crushed him with the lids
of scornful eyes that closed upon his face,
and cursed the womb that birthed this pervert live.

She caught the eye of Tom, whose magazine
dropped to the bench from fingers preening hair,
his lion's gaze devouring this gazelle,
and she took notice of his notice there.

She threw back hair and turned to meet his gaze
with sideways glance, a wink, and half pursed lips,
amazed a stroll from bench to bench could find
a pervert and a stud so side by side.

Both men came to the park to sit and read,
and read indeed, then both, like men, did do
what men so do, and neither differed there,
yet one was deemed a pervert, one a stud.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
Blank verse
Christos Rigakos Apr 2014
The congressman from Mars whose many gaffes
Led to his drop in ratings at the poll,
And whose awful decisions marred his role,
Had found his explanation drowned in laughs.

And following his footsteps and his paths
The congressman from Venus bared his soul,
Explained why his career has borne its toll,
By drawing on his skin some stats and graphs.

Because I'm green, the Martian dared to tell
Constituents, that's why I'm hated so!
Because I'm purple, the Venusian cried

Unto an Earth whose races blended well
To shades of black, and who have learned to know
That gaffes behind a color can not hide.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet
Christos Rigakos Apr 2014
Oh, Love's infinity he often feigns.
The arrow's tip is buried in the heart,
Yet Cupid's weapon penetrates in part.
Though head pierce deep the tail outside remains.

As Love's infection spreads about through veins,
Its sweet eternal myth sets out its start.
Yet myths fade soon and hearts are torn apart,
And one who loved before so soon disdains.

Because the hand can touch the arrow's tail,
It pulls the length of it out from the soul,
The Mythic Love then dissipates to cold.

They all who buy the myth are doomed to fail,
Becoming merely halves who once were whole,
And fabled myths become a thing of old.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet
Christos Rigakos Mar 2014
Your love, with anguish, shows me passageways,
To exit doors and places of escape,
That I may flee impending sorrow's scrape,
Against my heart-skin in the coming days.

But love's advice begins my own malaise,
I'm smothered as under a weighty drape.
My heart compressed then loses its true shape,
While trampled under words of your own phrase.

I'd live serenely separate from this pair,
You often warn so bluntly yet so coy.
The thought of this is more than I could bear.

I'd rather live in service to your care,
Caressing you through duty or through joy,
Than live on loveless in such deep despair.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet
Christos Rigakos Mar 2014
Oh foolish man, do recognize your place,
Has changed, and what is now's no more as then.
She's planning to estrange her passion when,
She tells you solemnly she needs some space.

Do not agree, for it is not the case,
That she will merely wait within her den,
Return to you upon the count to ten.
Do not let go, and if you have, give chase!

For in that space of time you'd be apart,
She'll seek her courage, muster what she can,
To overcome the love, do what she ought,

And unobstructed, strangle her own heart,
Untethering to meet another man,
And render you a silent afterthought!

16:29, 3/23/2014
Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet
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