***-runnin'
to the cemetery.
Goin' grave-diggin',
Tonight.

It's three to three,
and I'll be back
home.

At the half-way
house, in time for
breakfast.

Till then,
I'm chasin'
the ghost.
I used to call my reflection.

Courage is only fear ,
who's said it's prayers.
Incantations won't ulter this reality.

You can't negotiate your way
out of hell's emptiness.
Language knows no boundaries.

But Latin is more effective.
Despite our constant speaking in tongues.
This is exhausting.

Like a Venus retrograde.
I'm screaming on the edge of nothing.
Waiting for your echo,
to bounce back to me.

If time doesn't exist.
Then why does mine feel so wasted?
One day was a nice thought.

But I can't live in no man's shadow.
I cast a few of my own.

You wrote my heart
For the first time
With a sweet afterglow
Of moonlight kiss

After sunset
We found each other
And every single night
Thereafter

Now the window doesn't
Seem real
There's a fog
Instead of a thrill

I clean it back off
But I can't see through

Do you still happen
To have my heart
With you

When growing up I pushed away my father's molding hands,
     asserting I was different than he was and was my own,
     yet I allowed my friends to mold me, there I had been hewn,
     becoming them in function form and every fiber strand.
I disappointed him who spawned me from his very *****
     and saw me henceforth as a stranger living in his home.
     At last resigned to this demise he hid his hands and tone.
     I had betrayed my maker for a sack of thirty coins.
Far later I'd returned to him a prodigal old son,
     and hinted, showed and sang and danced his many favored tunes.
     Disinterested he questioned it.  No longer did he care.
These days I search my father's mind, though now it's surely gone,
     and seek those ancient treasures gone by very many moons,
     and wish he'd know that I am him though he's no longer there.

(C)2019, Christos Rigakos