(...)
It is perhaps this association between birth and beginning each school year which led me to respect knowledge. The entire month of August tends to fly by, unnoticed, in anticipation of the day I see children forced back into ill-ventilated buildings to emulsify themselves in education, for knowledge. Knowledge, that Moloch of an idea! Hobbies, interests and Summertime activities were heaped on flaming tongues with words in order to illustrate their ultimate insignificance. We hoped to bring out the blessing of wisdom from its mouth. “What matters is the coming Winter, not the frivolous activities of undisciplined youths.” It is as if the leaves of every tree were humanity's hair, and August had pulled back every strand to blow the woodsy breath of Autumn smoke into life’s ear. "You won't be this way forever." I am yet seduced by Fall’s cryptic murmurings and led to believe in endless, Halcyon flight. With arms draped around us from behind, knowledge draws me into oblivion, with unlabeled memories and I throw my desires into Moloch’s mouth. Now that I am burning, my self is the voice of this demigod. My birth certificate is my body, holding a memory to be inscribed on some later form beside some other numbers. Life has only so many Decembers.
(...)

the tunic slid down off her
          supple *******, the milk
and honey of my hungry eyes, slow flutter-
          -by like butterfly kisses,
eyelashes on my heart's now fevered skin,
          for skin, yea, all i'd give,
to touch smooth porcelain-like
          vase, or marble Venus, statue-
-esque I stand, attentive now she covers-
          -up, i too take cover, diverting
eyes, in opposite directions carrying
          the weight of just one moment

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

Never been interested in
a conversation, just in
conversation itself.

I talked about the weather with
an acquaintence and a
friend of a friend last night
for forty minutes.
The latter isn't someone that
I really know know,
but you know what I'm saying.

We chatted about the coldness that hovers
over San Francisco and how
the heat in the summertime is actually frosty and how
the winter's warmth is, surprisingly, quite pleasant.
"You will only understand this from living it."

A conversation about weather
isn't supposed to actually play out
completely,
and yet, I'm still scratching my head
as to how forty minutes passed
with the two of them
in our Connecticut woods,
covered in striped longsleeves
and sunglasses to protect
our thoughts from a day passed under the sun,
walking around the Bay Area.

An old, sitcom-like joke
come to completion at a party, drowned
in ***** and musical-chatting,
chord-by-chord,
by guitar, drum, and bass,
in the room adjacent
to our tongue-chilled garage.

Last night my mom and dad got into a fight
Because my dad wanted to watch fights on the DVR
And drink beer in the basement all night!
My mom asked him to watch TV with us
And watch his fights later
But he was mean
And he said no.
So my mom said
"You might as well sleep down in the basement tonight too"
My mom says my dad is so selfish,
And he always leaves things where they don't belong,
And he tells silly jokes, and doesn't like to do dishes.

But, I woke up in the morning, to the smell of crispy salty bacon,
And brewing coffee.
I went to the kitchen
And my dad was cooking eggs, bacon and pancakes
And he was chopping up fruit salad.
The only meal my dad cooks better than my mom is breakfast
And my mom says he's the only man that a can cook her bacon, just right.
I helped my dad put the eggs, with yummy gruyer cheese, and black pepper,
And a little cup of ketchup on the side
Because my mom doesn't like it on the plate,
On the breakfast tray.
And I snuck a piece of bacon, when I put that on the plate,
And the pancake plate with butter and sticky syrup
And then the fruit salad mixed with yogurt.
Then we brought it into the room, and my mom
Went from mad to smiling when she smelled the bacon.
She kissed my dad when he gave her the tray
And said "Don't think your off the hook, Russ."
And my dad did his sorry puppy impression.
"But" my mom said,
I forgive you."

We left her to eat her breakfast,
And as me and dad went to wash the dishes
He said
"Remember, Alice..breakfast in bed fixes almost anything...
Until you ***** up again, and then...there's always chocolates"

wallowing in myself

the rain stops outside
been at it for days.

I walk
to my bathroom everytime
and everytime
the tarantula creeps or darts from
under the toilet seat

and then his little brother from out
the sink drain; I'm on the crazy train now
appalled, I die back into my room

It's raining again.

Generous coasting of the west coast
leaves me tangled in roots from roads
intersecting with waves surfed by
long blond-haired beach bums and
babes who pant at a muscular man
that pushups on the boardwalk
next to towels drying on the
handlebars of my bicycle.

I ride and ride and ride
through weather thought to be
unrideable by most cyclists
even if million-dollar-prize
tempted them at the finish line
and a set-for-life sponsorship
was promised to any and all
who could fight through the storms
of what I stoically battle.

No gear or goggles,
just legs of toned steel from
nights spent heating them over
a log-lit fireplace on spit
while keeping intense conversation
with lover across my gaze
until she escapes unexpectedly
into dreams, unaccompanied by me.

My legs are on fire,
no rain can extinguish them
and no slick roads
will stop my going.

Sapped to a pastel
against the brightly colored world
(I'd rather live in dreams about you).
I've started taking things that aren't mine
to feel closer to memory.
All pale pinks of my skin
washed in the greens of your eyes.
The bonfires I build, the misty greys I exhale
are all smoke signals to you
across the world.
*Come home to me;
you are a home to me.