dear man, you did one wrong, don't celebrate,
you'll hear again about it till this date,

dear man you did two wrongs, get set to flee,
she'll cry about your wrongs, they will be three,

you did three wrongs, start looking for the door,
when next you spat, she'll bring to you all four,

and lord forbid your four come back as five,
this pattern promulgates while you're alive,

when five wrongs then return to you as six,
you'll wish for tickets down the river Styx,

and six will show as seven different things,
and ten, eleven, only diamond rings

appease the wrath of woman but do fret,
for pachyderms and females don't forget,

your flaws will always exponential grow,
and this a man must always need to know.

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

there's strange fruit hanging from the tree
          we planted in the garden
those giant eggplants i can see
          in cloth wrapped, burnt and hardened
the white ghosts cooked them on the vine
while chanting blasphemies in time
          to metered prose of Tennyson's E. Arden

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

i find myself at rest, lain sickly prone,
a broken figure in contorted pose,
halfway in mud, my head beside a stone,
an unintended consequence i chose,

at last the bottom of this deep ravine,
thrown from a cliff when reason found its way,
i tumbled down a path i'd not foreseen,
i now await my healing as i lay,

o'er shards of flint and glass, o'er cobblestones,
was i dragged furiously by one who fled,
so flesh did lacerate round breaking bones,
and blood spilled wildly, i should have been dead,

yet my sweet's chariot my hand released,
she rode off to the west, i rest in east

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

Oh, why give credence to the speechful lass
who judges sanity among the two
admirers differently, one fail, one pass,
and take to heart the failure judged in you?

Why question why--when both have done the same
exact deed with no difference in the act--
should you be deemed a nuisance and insane,
and he a hero, opposite of fact?

"He stares at me, this stalker and a creep,"
says she of your mere passing little glance.
"That staring handsome hunk I think I'll keep,"
she coos, his eyes ******* her in dance.

Attraction makes acceptable the deed
that otherwise repels the heart in need.

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

with every thought of you,
my heart explodes roses,
filling my mind's sky
with rose petal rain,
and every red petal
bears your name,
showering me with smiles
with every thought of you.

(C)1997, Christos Rigakos

old pigeon bones
aside the maple tree
not touching
a winter wind blows through
our kindred spirits




(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

i have no eyes to see nor ears to hear,
no speech beyond my teeth or any breath,
i'm dumb for lack of thought in front or rear,
and paralyzed to stillness in my death,

so by enchantment i am moved to ask,
do ever you adorn my stone with wreath?
or is even a wreath a burdened task--
a limestone needing pulleys to bequeath?

and if no wreath, are you yet moved to haunt
this resting place to whisper to my mound?
or does this too remain a task that daunts
you to refrain from passing by around?

i often wonder if my plot still yields
a headstone or the mark of potters field

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos