Unpacking an old box I scrounged and found
a card for Mother's Day from my ex-wife,
professing love for mom that will abound
through time and space until the end of life.

Four years have passed--since first she filed divorce--
no card or letter, nor a seldom call.
A once abundant love could not be forced
to crease a smile, for it would now appall.

Why do I flinch once more and wonder how,
the love departs, which oaths swore never would?
Why they all say, "but things are different now,"
though hearts were sold as things that never could?

Amazing, how such endless loves quick end,
as flimsy tattered fabrics quickly rend.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

I find myself...
mesmerized,

by family photographs,
whose subjects all are...

dead...

the great aunt smiling,
frozen in mid-song,

the little boy squirming,
in her lap,

the tabby cat on the floor,
watching them both
intently...

all eyes looking,
frozen in mid-stare...

their actions,
frozen in mid-time...

those very vibrant,
living loves...

gone...

forever


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

The normal way of life is such:
          the old give way to young.
To understand does not take much,
          explained in simple tongue:
Adults that love do procreate.
Their selves they form and replicate,
          continuing the song which they have sung.

The first into the world are first
          to leave the world behind.
They dry and shrivel in their thirst,
          are ground to dust and rind.
They find their solace in their spawn,
inside whose flesh they carry on
          their signatures, in place of their old mind.

The next await their counted turn,
          with shovel at the hand;
enjoy the lives which must adjourn
          into the unseen land.
Then find a mate to spawn their own,
before their own flesh from the bone
          departs into the dryness of the sand.

Yet once upon a blood red moon,
          the normalcy defers.
The next in line depart too soon,
          in snares of life's dark lures.
The first must intern on the shelves
of crypts the flesh that holds their selves,
          and taste what to the next this life confers.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

Eight years have not diminished buried pain,
nor dulled the temperature of love beheld.
We proudly wear your dark and crimson stain--
our mark of love, remembrance long held.

We miss that flesh, dismantled long ago,
that lived to fill our world so vibrantly,
which held on till by slumber had to go--
its vibrant spirit from it had to flee.

And now we hush a moment, welling tears,
remembering your life, recalling death,
to honor your own silence of eight years,
that so began with your own final breath.

The silence of your void rings in the ear,
the only sound of you remaining here.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

Upon this hill I plant the flag--
     Of every imp and scallywag,
rapscallion, rogue and rascal, knave--
      Whom kingdoms' laws could never save.

I gather every varlet, scamp,
      Around the bonfire of our camp,
And pass around the speaking torch,
      For storytelling tales that scorch,

To every sullied man, uncouth,
      Unwashed who smiles a scurvied tooth,
The scarlet-lettered harlot, *****,
      Who loves to scallygag her mensch,

The whoredom-loving scallyhag,
      Who trollops round the pirate's crag,
The tousle-haired and greasy scullion
      Cooking all a hot slumgullion,

And after tales of those unnerved,
      And scullion's slimy stew is served,
I toast a round of filthy ale,
      To all who live beyond the pale.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

In someone's mind there is a place of graves,
And farther still a darkened potter's field,
Where loved ones in memoriam are saved,
And those whose names should never be revealed.

I blow through iron bars and paths 'tween stones,
To find the carvings of my former name,
Which mark the resting place of my dear bones,
And date the finite years of my life's fame.

More anxiously I blow into the field,
Instinctively the farthest place most dark,
Where frost and ice have most securely sealed
A single mound without a numbered mark.

I reach for bones I can no more disturb,
Discarded far enough to not perturb.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

B** egan the day with only half a face,
E xiled from normalcy with half-dead look.
L eft chewing on the right side without taste.
L eft side will not be moved except to droop.
S tress wakes the hypochondriac in me!
P er chance it was a stroke?  The Doc said, No.
A ll signs point to a common malady,
L eaving inflicted many out the know.
S urvival is assured, but some will find,
Y outh’s strengths have now been ordered left behind.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos