Flies in the haze morning sputter and splay.
Water drops from leaves rolling with the blown
Blades. The windy whoo of the owls fade,
Blue buried eyes cradled in the hollow
Trees, the swamps seeker is quietly rustled,
Wings of panoply, spangle-speckle the wind,
Over the flames of autumn, talons thistle,
Crown the dominion of the fall, fade in
Sporting meadows colour, till the dive,
Balm of field, marsh, all ignites. Lever pale
Winds finger through the leaves gravely
And rake as you raid, shoulders that burning vale,
Casualties of insect, the lemming song sings
Mouse and vole flash, dark, sparkles the clearing.

I did not look back following the light.  
As copper chimed in the rooting cellar
Of the morn, my heart muffled in delight,
Still in shroud, my father farmed the water.
Set his son to love and the kindred waters,
That man of fire swelled, plumbed with pride,
Made of self, stride and hollow pipes to solder  
His starry hands and elbows panicle the sky,  
But I, being water sign, a young Orpheus
Born in the underworld, found music and words
And maidens of air and earth and wanderlust
To the sun I ran, my fathers call not heard.
I did not look back following the light
Until my love called delivering the night.

Deep in the screws of his lonely keep,
Waiting for word of a land promised,
Sentinel man watches across the sea
Never knowing faith was so dishonest.
Across the sea of doom lies his joy,
What awe, so spindrift were his days
And what lay behind was no corridor
And all his dreaming has left no ways
Forward, but to sink with hapless sorrow
And flowing to the thirsty ocean seas,
He pours another drink, toasts tomorrow
And all the empty horizons of history.
Spiraling down he leaves his diggs,
Praying, death be not a doornail's rig.

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

Sing to me and keen on the white-washed wind
of all the spectacle and horror you have seen.
Bring all the colour back and then rescind
the power given where the powers have been.
Lift up your heads from blank and dreamless sleep
and be uncomfortable but be true.
See all iniquities, though they be deep
and they will come to be revealed to you
for what they are, and then you can be gone-
when those who would enslave you in the night
know nothing of the learning of the song.
They never will anticipate your flight.
This cause may leave a heroine unsung,
but one who'll tell the truth to everyone.

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

I, round the brae of Howth in chalky light,
Lamented my lot more spent in sport than play.
There, land appeared disinterested and sight
Was a teary well.  Cold was the shivering day,
And my frame, a ghost of shadow, was erased, 
It receded like the fog.  Just then, overhead
I saw brave birds engaged, a raptor traced
A mourning dove’s faltering flight, how it fed
Its own shining sense of purpose, for not
Wanton sport or lordly state do falcons
So hunt, nor did the bird in peril belabour
His reason, rather he tried avoiding those talons.
A question answered itself within my breadth,
Survival resides in a pageantry of death.

It's not the time of dandelions;
they've all been blown away;

those fragile fragments now remind
the shooting stars of day.

And though the seedlings blown away seem gone;
they float as static light and air along
as pieces of a never ending earth –
a universe recycling its dearth.

All matter is
and always is.
A dandelion
may be his

smile. And think – drink water from your sink –
it may be reimagined stars you drink.

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

When love was young and bore an immigrant
Soul, how fresh and adventurous the years
And brinkmanship, my rite, was took for grant,
Aye, in my flotsam and jetsam, I spent no tears
Which by and by a greedy sea of beginnings
Has left no bounty, but cargo delivered or turned
To wood adrift, which built but useless things,
Children love tossing in fires bonny burned.
Here I lie, on the waters edge, searching—
For something to contain my emptiness,
My wanderlust, but like shy waves lurching,
I wrestle now, toward land, not loneliness.
Though I spent my life as a flag unfurled,
A disembodied soul is without this world.