cloud writing
across the sky
i seek his face

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

his laughing voice
filling my ears
the memory of him

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

mother cries
over again
her son's name

(C)2007 Christos Rigakos

i grab an iron scythe and bolt a metal ball
unto its handle's bottom, roughly sharpening
its time-worn rusted blade between two flat-side stones,

a leather wrist strap hung below in case it falls
out of the swinging hand, to grasp what's happening
when metal slices human flesh down to the bone,

my questions, each with force that deeply penetrates
will breach her shield and nick her armor slicing wide
to move through flesh, expose the hidden living blood,

and all that's cryptic in her heart, although she hates
confessions, she will moan thus cleansing all inside
till secret truth has quick deluged in filthy flood

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

oh summer nights past bedtime little boy,
upon your windowsill your elbows ached,
far past astoria park 'cross river, joy
in buildings with lit windows row-like raked,

you watched, the lights of cars over the bridge,
queensborough to its fifty-ninth street end,
imagined bustling streets, smokey sewage,
stood cigarettes on tarred streets round each bend,

the living night alive with bustling life,
new york strangers engrossed in sense-filled play,
in music, food, drinks, laughs, the city rife,
enough to fill fables and tales next day,

oh child, in isolation's painful sting,
vicarious living would pleasure bring

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

the good old baritone advises her,
his sopranino daughter tweets disjoint,
arpeggio his point, her counterpoint
a syncopated rhythm of meter,

her high pitched protestations in her pleas,
and low-pitched grumbling sighings alternate,
as puntal, contrapuntal altercate,
to musically the rolling of her eyes,

his stern yet soft soprano wife defers,
while yielding to her baritone's movement,
conducting, though, the orchestrated theme,

as tenor, alto sons  caesur' occurs,
her soothing background voice reveals eschewment,
with daughter's movement stuck 'tween measures' beams

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

with iron bolts rust-fastened to her copper face,
her brass eyes only move her pupils elsewhere far,
resolved and steel-willed she has left my side, her place,
her gaze and love for me now hang upon a star,

cold metal forged within her furnace blasted high,
a permanent visage no more will feign to move,
her thoughts aloft so far, the sight of her so nigh,
she's stopped the stopwatch of my time to prove,

amazing how the human flesh can turn to steel,
how fascinating transmutations quickly peak,
how one so loving woman quick unlearns to feel,
how one who knew no silence quick unlearns to speak,

unraveled slow to tatters, now we've come undone,
i sleep the moonless night that's lost its living sun

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos