With water, malt, and yeast, and hops I dare
to craft an odd new ale with full due care
I've aged in hickory and old oak jugs,
and serve a round in handcraft German mugs,
to all the patrons drinking at this pub,
yet most just sniff and snortle up a snub.
Instead they order shots of foam-frothed ****,
imbibe and guzzle to their drunken bliss,
then slur a slew of sloshed-up limericks.
And to my ale they kick against the ******.

The clay *** on the shelf that one day fell,
     And broke to shards and splinters of itself,
     Bemoaned its fate, bewailed its shards to tell
     The other pots of clay upon the shelf:
"Oh, help my rotund but so stricken frame!"
     "And meld the cracks and all the parts of me!"
     "Behold the mess I am, behold my shame!"
     "For what am I if I can't hold my tea?"
Oh, silly ***, what are these things you say?
     Who knows you better than your planner-plotter?
     Yet you confide in other pots of clay?
     Why not instead confide in your Potter?
They cannot help others if not themselves,
So seek the one beyond the pots and shelves.


(C)2020, Christos Rigakos

Inquire not of me, nor of my life!
     All knowledge, by instruction, is withheld.
     Our blood line cut, your kin no more my wife,
     your right to know by your own hand dispelled.
Your silence had you ousted from my heart,
     when I besought your most beloved names.
     Your hush kept me at bay, and us apart,
     as I sought you, my son-ship you disclaimed.
Now if perchance a thought of me has raised,
     please quick extinguish it and mind me not.
     Why resurrect the ghost of one you've razed
     upon your kin's request, and made as naught?  
True love, when born, has immortality;
when false it lives only conditionally.

(C)2018, Christos Rigakos

I travel nightly to and fro on windswept sandy dunes,
and watch the far side of the moon, for it won't face me here.

I hear the Mourning Dove start sighing meloncholy tunes
in morning light, which starts too soon, and always finds me here.

I ponder life so quizzically, and contemplate the rhunes,
for I must never ask the Moon, whose silence chills me here.

Behind the glowing clouds that veil the fine majestic moon,
the bride awaits beloved groom, as I stand watching here.

"I am your mate, have you forgotten, my dear silent Moon?"
"We are a single flesh, in tune.  Why have you left me here?"

"Your face aloft and turned away, to stars you wail and croon,"
"and seek your other now lost Lune, while I am waiting here!"

Her farthest edges faintly glow. I'd pay to watch her swoon,
to my heart's rhythm late in June, yet I'm imprisoned here.

My chest, that swells by what I knew of times our love did bloom,
deflates remembering its doom, and I am stranded here.

"Too high to reach, in clouds cocooned, my far beloved Moon,
return to me on Earth and soon, or find my bones still here.

(C)2020, Christos Rigakos

The seed is in the fruit, indeed,
     the fruit is in the seed.
For what is it that grows from it,
     by coding that it reads?
And can it be a different fruit,
     if to this code it heeds?
It is compelled by code to swell,
     before by birth it's freed.
And as the seed becomes the fruit,
   the fruit's indeed the seed.


(C)2020, Christos Rigakos

One's lofty dreams, ambitious goals, what not;
     One's self-esteem, self-worth, self-praise and such:
Delusions of a stumbling drunken sot!
     Esteemed values whose worth weighs not so much.
One's intimates, loves, friends become a crutch;
     Of comforts, safety, food, concerns and care
Held tightly, are released from one's own touch,
     When oxygen is scarce and breath is rare,
Corona's taught us very well the worth of air!

(C)2020, Christos Rigakos

An unseen force has plagued the Earth at last,
     And shuttered man, and cleared his busy streets,
     Unlike those unseen forces of the past,
     For homes have now surpassed all man's retreats.
In New York City's heart, Third Avenue,
     Congested with Taxis, buses and such,
     The silence and the breeze are all so new,
     To few masked 'Yorkers, distanced not to touch.
Yet love abounds throughout our pestilence,
     Yes, there are still some swelled, afluttered hearts.
     Their masquerade is made with diligence,
     And tantric love is made six feet apart.
Those lovers not yet quarantined in homes,
Stare longingly like new masked garden gnomes.

(C)2020, Christos Rigakos