Valentine's is almost here,
this year I'll be prepared,
I won't bemoan this empty life,
and cry that no one cared,

I'll buy myself a pretty card,
and write myself a wish,
then come home with a fresh bouquet,
and give my hand a kiss,

I'll celebrate the one I love,
who yet remains unknown,
to put on airs and so pretend,
this year I'm not alone,

With chocolate-sweetened compliments,
I'll court with all my pride,
the only person I have known,
who's never left my side

(C)2005, Christos Rigakos

my sickness--rusty nail that pierced my heart
it pins me to the shadow in pursuit
that tails me through the burning light of day
and swallows me in night's cold emptiness


(C)2001, Christos Rigakos

oh how coincidental is this fate
to grab a seat within a new classroom
between my current and my former mate?

who knew that destiny could calculate
the weaving of three strings upon its loom?
oh how coincidental is this fate

the swinging of the pendulum so great
within the grandpa clock before the room
between my current and my former mate?

my senses convolute when both create
a rare concoction of combined perfume,
oh how coincidental is this fate

when memories flash back and forth in state
my heart from extreme ends being consumed
between my current and my former mate?

eventually they'll meet, communicate
the sign of the beginning of my doom
oh how coincidental is this fate
between my current and my former mate?

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

Oh, in this way, my grief, I fight:
with my soul's deepest groans,
I write and write and write and write.

I write all day and write all night,
in melancholy tones.
Oh, in this way, my grief, I fight:

with words that growl and snap and bite.
And, pining for those lovely bones,
I write and write and write and write,

for all that's left within my sight's
the covering of hand-placed stones.
Oh, in this way, my grief, I fight:

by sun's and candle's waning light,
expressing pain through trembling moans,
I write and write and write and write.

For brother I will grieve tonight,
he's left me all alone.
Oh, in this way, my grief, I fight:
I write and write and write and write.

(C)2008, Christos Rigakos

oh it's the end, the world will end today,
the Mayans said, they said it long ago,
according to opinions people say,
the modern sayers saying what they know,

it's noon, the morning hours i have survived,
now fifteen minutes till the clock strikes two,
i find in all the silence i'm alive,
the sayers thinking twice 'bout what they knew,

survivalists in barricaded doors,
with rifles loaded, ready on the walls,
will pace upon their dusty wooden floors,
awaiting for that ring when death makes calls,

today for many, dying one by one,
the prophecy was right, their time is done

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

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

oh once upon a time i found a soulmate,
filled my heart, it overflowed, i drowned
so deep to ocean's floor i simply died,
translated to the heavens of the skies,

though years, it was a drop in ocean's depth,
that we would be together in our bond,
against all my beliefs and thoughts it broke,
oh yes, so possible, it truly did,

she changed and fell right through the floor of glass,
past clouds and vanished to the earth below,
so mortified to stone i followed suit
and landed in an open grave closed shut,

to my surprise a new love, moschiach,
did resurrect me from my stateless tomb,
and showed me things i'd missed from my dear love
long past but not forgotten in the mind,

yet she could not accompany me there
upon the clouds in steps rising to sky,
for she was chained to one some distance off,
and she was his, and though our hearts be tuned,

we could not mesh and cleave into one flesh,
yet showed me soulmates are not one for one,
for there must always be another one
somewhere in space and time, like us, like this,

and now standing before my former grave,
with hope for life yet hopeless in my search,
should i climb down and sleep or walk a path?
a path to where? to whom? now death, now life...

and so i wait, eternity if must
be done, somehow, for here alone i can't,
an oddity among the pairing souls,
comprising all that heaven's meaning is

(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

Oh, what is love if not but what it seems,
The chain that binds two hearts throughout the year,
And not merely a latch to hitch one's dreams,
Unhitching when the dreams no more seem near?

And what's a lover but a partner-soul,
Enjoined to share just one earthly abode?
Where one departs, it leaves an aching hole,
To which the other sings their bitter ode.

Yet often love's a means to reach one's end,
The other finds their love is not a wheel,
But merely woven fabric quick to rend,
When profit will not gain one's business deal.

Commitment is a promise carved in stone,
That lasts until the flesh departs from bone.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

oh, who am I that I may moan my hurt--
the throbbing of the heart's unhealing burn--
but dust upon the earth, a thing of dirt?

I whine too much for one who's life's so curt,
when far worse lives are lessons to be learned,
oh, who am I that I may moan my hurt?

for others have not shoes to wear or shirt,
and neither have they roof or floor to yearn,
but dust upon the earth, a thing of dirt,

remains the fabric of their pants and skirt,
yet on my satin sheets I toss and turn,
so, who am I that I may moan my hurt?

I've lost a brother, in this pain I churn
my heart, my cries for him are always spurned,
but dust upon the earth, a thing of dirt

is what we are, become, in time so short,
with nothing more than hope of a return,
oh, who am I that I may moan my hurt,
but dust upon the earth, a thing of dirt?

(C)2009, 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

Oh, woe!  Oh, woe!  Oh, woe, my girl has died!
Her funeral's tonight, oh, how I grieve!
I knew this day would come, I would not hide,
yet as the news has come, I can't believe!

A strong and faithful servant she had been,
who carried me when I was found alone.
She promised to stand by my side till in
the course of time my flesh would leave its bone.

In white attire she'll lay within the cask,
as my old marriage laid within the same.
I'll pour my soul as spirit from a flask,
upon her sleeping face and call her name:

Oh Hope, dear Hope, you've left me far too soon,
and joined my former wife in honeymoon.

(C)2013, Christos Rigakos

old mother
bent over
the grave
seems closer
this year



(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

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




(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

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

old woman
at the windowsill
staring out

her skin
a veiny leaf
dried in late autumn

her lips
pursed tight
crows feet count her age


her hair
powdered snow
on black tar streets

her eyes
glazed yellow
staring at grandchildren

her memory
Spring air filling
a young girl's nostrils, lungs

running, laughing,
holding his hand,
her handsome boy

a smile betrays
a glimmer of youth
and for a moment she glows

a car horn
startles her giggle
to a sour lemon scowl

(C)2013, Christos Rigakos

Once in a while frustrations boil over,
spilling all over my white shiny stove;
dousing to smoke my flickering pilot,
exhaling my courage like inert gas.
And woe to anyone smoking their anger
'round me or near or yet even far;
I’ll blow up a tempest in porcelain tea cups
and throw up a hell of a storm in a jar.

(C)2004, Christos Rigakos

open skies
love birds fly off
on the mind
empty tree branch
where we sat under



(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

on the tree branch
outside my window
a squirrel chews furiously
on a walnut

as sales have fallen
business declined
frustration
is a fat sweaty man
sitting on my chest
i cannot breathe
i surrender
and lay as if dead

watching
outside my window
as the squirrel
finally cracks the shell

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

opposite
the cemetery
laughter
echoes over headstones
children's peek-a-boo




(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

Our friends, they see your eyes in mine,
our special sideways glance,
I am your echo left behind,
and every often chance,
I catch them looking in my eyes,
discerning you from me,
when tears well up in their own eyes,
it's only me I see.

(C)2009, Christos Rigakos

i am
disconnected
among the living, dead
i move about unseen, unheard
unknown

the world
rejects my face
it hides its eyes from mine
it wears the face it shows the dead
unseen

i walk
deserted streets
where midnight moon alone
illumines roads for creeping things
unseen

(C)2002, Christos Rigakos

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

under dirt
in a box
no voice
     teaching about nutrition
no breath
     exhaling cigarette smoke
a brain
     shrunken
          no more knows
shut down
     irreversibly
          dismantled
in silence
in a box
under dirt

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

pouring out
old water
even my heart
needs catharsis
now and then

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

Presumptuous to speak the obvious?
If only what we see is not as such.
Then all presumptions truly weigh not much.
Investigations make demands of us.

With every word the world is on to us.
Their weight of stares requires of us a crutch,
analysis of meanings and of such,
until of reasonings they empty us.

No man lies naked splayed before strange eyes.
He wears the clothing made in current style,
to give illusion pleasing to the world.

And so the world peels back the layered lies,
and lays them in a neatly gentle pile,
until the truth of man is full unfurled.

(C)2013, Christos Rigakos

seashells
line my bare shelves
barely--line my bare walls
collecting emptiness to fill
my house

(C)2000, Christos Rigakos

shall i compare you to a pizza pie?
you are more cheesy and more temper-hot,
as overcooking turns the dough too dry,
so summer days cause dough to bubble-spot,

sometime too hot the flame of oven burns,
and often oven doors keep men away,
and pizza guys do wish the pizza'd turn,
to cook all 'round with much more even sway,

by chance or nature's changing course untrimmed,
men eat too much pizza and then gain weight,
and no diet can help to make them trim,
for they cannot return the slice they ate,

so long as men eat pizza, drink coffee,
so longer will they sit to crap and ***

she barged so uninvited in my space,
so futile were my palms and outstretched arms,
forbidding her from entering my place,
mistrusting her that she may bring me harm,

rebuttals--counterpunches to my claims
that she was just another soulless ghost--
had penetrated fences, and her aims
to win my heart succeeded more than most,

but here we are almost a year from then,
i've pushed her off, she shares her heart with one
not me, but one who seems above all men,
and i have lost where once i thought i'd won,

now i'm the one who's barging in her space,
my own rebuttals falling in disgrace

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

she boiled my blood inside a *** of steel,
with bread she cooked it thoroughly till foam,
had covered all, unseeable, unfeel-
-ing, vengeance wrathful, hardened to a loam,
          where blood is life, she caused the life to be,
          unlivable, no more a life to me

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

She broke his arms, his ribs, his legs, his heart.
He was a man who loved with all he was.
She ripped a very loving man apart.

He gave her money, pushed her shopping cart,
he bought her heart's desires, and without pause,
she broke his arms, his ribs, his legs, his heart.

His crime was having loved her from the start,
and far beyond her limits without cause.
She ripped a very loving man apart,

and though she was a very sour ****,
he loved her still with everything he was.
She broke his arms, his ribs, his legs, his heart,

hock-spat at him, and in his face did ****,
to agitate that love wrapped tight in gauze.
She ripped a very loving man apart,

and stomped him in his sleep, stiletto darts
pierced flesh and pocked him, loving as he was.
She broke his arms, his ribs, his legs, his heart.
She ripped a very loving man apart.

(C)2008, Christos Rigakos

she scolds about the sacred little things,
if ever sacred things I fail to see,
those moments, pictures, flowers, cards and rings,
tall city monuments that face the sea,

for she reveals great stories when she sings
the meanings of the moments come to be,
do i not also see what moment brings?
why as a man are meanings lost on me?

yet when she kills the heart with mortal stings,
she calls to raze the buildings by decree,
why still my heart holds sacred and it clings
to monuments she built and now shall flee?

for meanings are those things that fall apart,
when love grows cold and from her soul departs

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

She speaks in figures, nuances,
          in subtle hint-drop rain,
the truth's in what she never says,
          her spoken words are vain,
for nothing heard is what it seems,
she'll only hint at what she means,
          to hold a dialogue is quite insane.

So when a question grabs her mind,
          to ask it she'll refrain,
instead she'll traipse around, behind,
          from side to side in pain,
to ask ten questions unrelated,
avoiding that one unabated,
          all questions leading to that single, main.

Frustration builds at every step,
          with every question asked,
for every one such question shlepped
          around's a weighty task,
I answer all and each reply,
confounds her every subtle try,
          for none of them fulfill the one not asked.

(C)2013, Christos Rigakos

She stood atop her balcony and stared,
Beyond the masses fawning at her face.
She raised a stoic chin  frozen in place,
A porcelain visage emotions spared.

While all around pomposity adorned,
With brightly colored fabrics, silver sets,
Gold, diamonds, gems and pompous little pets,
All things of which the huddled poor were scorned.

The centuries' tradition well remains,
Ingrained such that even the poor decree,
The rulers rule, the ruled should not be seen.

Yet none the privileged logically explains,
The separation's needed wide degree,
Why God who's blessed should more so save the Queen.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

She swooned and swayed,
the moonlight played
its shadows cross her face,

in tune the trees,
with June's degrees,
then joined her at her pace,

and I, the wind,
blew sighs therein,
and moved them all in place,

in symphony,
they all would be,
perfection in their grace.

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

Through purple-greyish smoke billowed from lips both mine and yours,
our eyes glazed, blacklight seen reflecting on our silver ores.

Dark purple painted walls with red designs keep calm the folks
on leather couches billowing with eyes like silver ores.

Oh you and I, the strangers here, all have our many reasons,
some came with them, some made them here, eyes glazed like silver ores.

An Artificial Reason calms our minds in this Mad Season,
crucified on G-clef staff, eyes glazed like silver ores.

This sanctuary, whispered 'round, and found through word of mouth,
somewhere, we've all forgotten in the glaze of silver ores.

Our therapy, if long or short, time counted by the songs,
recovery is measured by the glaze of silver ores.

As one leaves so another comes, replacing on the couch,
the glaze of one with glaze of other's eyes like silver ores.

(C)2013, Christos Rigakos

since our parting
another's taken her place
loneliness
with unwavering loyalty
never leaves my side

(C)2001, Christos Rigakos

since our parting
we've become intimate
the side of her face
receiving my kisses
from a distance

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

six years have passed, the family is fine,
for we don't speak about him anymore,
but mother, with a frequent random line,
which closes lips, draws eyes down to the floor,

no, we don't speak about him anymore,
but fill our mouths with all things that distract,
our open living room has one closed door,
we chat about all things except one fact,

discussions, all sweet-tempered by our tact,
with tact we step around the elephant,
our dire necessity's survival act,
we've learned to force the smile and quell the rant,

at end of day each one within his room,
speaks to his memory in tones of gloom

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

Some say the world will end--2012.
Can count the years remaining on one hand.
How will we deal, how will we all survive?
Who cares? It doesn't matter, not at all.
For death is death, no matter how you go.
And once your heart stops, and your brain shuts down--
a curtain call, the lights dim down, that's it,
and all your fears extinguish with your eye.
Why fear the rumored, what may come some day?
Why fret about the quakes, the floods, the fires,
the falling skies, the screams and crying eyes?
The bus may hit you in the morning light.

(C)2008, Christos Rigakos

clear night sky
among countless stars
i seek just one
where have you gone
little brother?

reaching up
to touch the stars
this distance
now between our souls
the vast expanse of space

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

spring afternoon
the clouds rain
till they are none
when my last tears fall
i too shall vanish

(C)2000, Christos Rigakos

staring
into old pictures
a way back
to a time when brother
did what he did in pictures

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

straight through my spine the desert winds blow flute,
before my burial under the sand,
my skull an empty can, whistle and hoot,
my ribs a xylophone, femur in hand,

the dissonant cacophany--my taps,
a song for funerals devoid of men,
the vultures took my flesh in neat-sized scraps,
efficiently disposed in nature's den,

oh, once a garden, lush with greenery,
our love, abandoned by my rib's dear Eve,
now with her heart removed, the scenery
decayed, and to the burning sand i cleave,

my covering completes with eve's new dusk,
out of her sight, this old forgotten husk

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

sunset
over the horizon
our love
sinking into the sea
of distance


(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

that Scythe has rent my heart, i'm penetrated
the blade's removed yet its cold steel remains
our spirit's gone, our breaths remain abated

upon us both the crime's been perpetrated
and though the blade is marked with just his stains
that Scythe has rent my heart, i'm penetrated

his essence from my own's been dislocated
my life remains with only his remains
our spirit's gone, our breaths remain abated

my soul's been scraped, upon my thoughts' been grated
his blood powdered, mixed with my tears, i'm stained
that Scythe has rent my heart, i'm penetrated

and as grief's torments whip my heart striated
all joy swirls round and round a filthy drain
our spirit's gone, our breaths remain abated

i frame my memories,they're venerated
as cries repeat in minor key refrains
that Scythe has rent my heart, i'm penetrated
our spirit's gone, our breaths remain abated

(C)2010, Christos Rigakos

the cat waits
beyond his door
an empty room
where he still spends his time
in my memory

(C)2007, Christos Rigakos

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

the compensation for my competence?
     a can of Coors occasionally crowned
with sticky notes instruction-filled and dense,
     with worn old shoe string thick and tightly bound,
a brief hurrah before a list to do,
if time were air, with duty i'd turn blue,
     a present given as a false pretense,
  
his recompense? a crushed Coors can atop
     the boss' desk, a drop spilled on the wood,
a single sticky note stuck to the drop,
     "your list of things to do, i could, I should...
yet reach up to that single book, top shelf!"
("Learn How to Fix Your Life--Do It Yourself!")
     soon management will purge all its dead wood,

and driftwood i will be among the planks,
     and crates expelled above board for to stay
afloat, the company in all its ranks,
     will learn that without wood the boat will stray
not only from its sure intended course,
but from the surface to the floor of course,
     to join the tiger shark and manta ray,

soon supervisors, managers and such
     will join department heads, vice presidents,
chief officers valued, appraised worth much,
     thrown overboard to chase those dividends,
that sink so silently to ocean floor,
where there exists no air lock's safety door,
     when futures join the pasts through these presents,

my recompense for knowing when to quit?
     a can of Coors occasionally crowned
with smiling lips and laughing breath of wit,
     my happy feet in new shoes leather-bound,
a new ship where appreciation rings
the ship bells of respect on many things,
     smooth sailing through safe seas without a ground.

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

i trained a bloodhound in my quest
     to find the fount of youth
upon its memory impressed
     the habits of a sleuth
round every rock and grass and tree
it spied what others could not see
     in search of one most abstract hopeful truth

the training ground was in the park
     where children roamed and played
the bloodhound, trained to bay and bark
     where innocence displayed
it sniffed the scent of every child
with purity not yet defiled
     its diligence always duly repaid

by daily treks its efforts grew
     enthusiastically
and by the same i surely knew
     the end was soon to be
round pools and lakes and finally
a river leading to the sea
     the fount of youth would soon belong to me

at last one day upon the dawn
     the time was now at hand
it came to me, my head it fawned
     its tail most quickly fanned
the hound had licked my head around
it barked and bayed and i had found
     the end was quite unlike what i had planned


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos