15 to love, still able to win,
gotta tough it out,
winning is everything. Losing's a sin.
I'll keep trying. I'm still in with a shout.

My backhand slices
the ball to my foe
(Joe's my friend but in a crisis,
I shift where the winds blow)

He parries, sends the ball to the line,
his touch is immaculate,
cleaner than mine.
I leap like a cat

return it with ease
he flicks it back over the net
intending to tease.
I grimace. We made a bet

and now I engage
into higher gear,
my brain fills with rage,
my heart fills with fear.

Advantage to me,
the crowd stands to cheer,
Joe falls to one knee,
buckled, losing a tear.

I volley. It whizzers
past his frozen form
he tries, but misses,
defeated, forelorn.

At last I have won,
the gold cup is mine,
another dream spun,
back to the factory line.

I’m still fighting dragons, big scaly beasts.
Some I have vanquished, but some have me beat.
I picked up my armour, my helm and my spear,
From life's many conflicts year upon year.

And boldly some mornings I set out to greet,
These terrible monsters that want me as meat.
Advancing with caution, blood pounds in my ear,
Legs turn to jelly the beastie draws near!

With  deafening roar and spine-chilling haste,
The beast sets towards me intent to lay waste,
To rend and devour, consume and despoil
Leaving nothing but tatters to litter the soil.

Bravely I face it  resolved to subdue,
The evil incarnate  that comes into view.
The battle commences steel meets with claw,
Fearful but stalwart I strike at its maw.

It parries the blow asI fall to the ground,
And claws slash the space where I used to be found.
Now flat on my back I ****** with my blade,
Piercing the hide it attempts to evade.

The point of my weapon now deep in its chest,
Its  claws scrape the rings of my chain mail vest.
Its head twists around and I stare at its eye,
The evil intent there is clear to espy.

Jaws now agape and a lunge at my head,
And teeth whose sole purpose is seeing me dead,
The snap of its jaw almost tears through my craw,
The stink of its breath is the odour of war.

The essence of violence, the stench of decay.
The tincture of suffering the tang of dismay.
I gag at the foulness pervading  the air,
And retch from the pungence that sits with me there.

But I must disavow the prevailing scent,
So girding my ***** i tear and I rent.
I push with my blade driving close to its heart,
And the beast sensing death decides to  impart.

One last token of cruelty and frenzy and ire,
Disgorged from its belly, dragon breath fire!
A torrent of flame it spattered and spewed
Engulfing my armour the pain it imbued.

Like something from hell that hideous heat,
Scorching  my skin with the ache of defeat.
Ignoring the torment I pushed my steel hard,
Driving the spear tip deep into its heart.

Now it lay silent its fury all spent,
I crawled from the carcass in silent lament.
The dragon lay silent St George would be proud,
And I for my part had avoided the shroud.

                                             •  •  •

I woke from my slumber and checked my email,
A message was waiting that made me turn pale.
A dragon had found me, more combat to come,
It was my ex partner, the fight for my son.

I’m still fighting dragons, big scaly beasts,
Some I have vanquished, but some have me beat.
I pick up my armour, my helm and my spear.
I fight as a father to have my son near.
This I've been doing, year after year.



September 2010

my daily regimen, focused, intense,
a pugilistic kata of the tongue,
in preparation for our oral fence,
run laps around ideas, expand lungs,

my visualization of that day--
we spar with strikes and parries, counterstrikes,
in reasonings' most ****** kumite,
my verbal knuckles down her oral pikes,

so armed with good reasons to reconcile,
arriving at the place where she should be,
she proves to be so much more versatile
absent, my wasted versatility,

i cannot win with passion or with rage,
a lover's heart which simply won't engage

(C)2012, Christos Rigakos

partying is better than sitting at home like a parents boy





i like parries in every single way

i like kids who party despite what their parents say

you see they drink alcohol and get drunk and they are having fun

their parents are talking if they are the only ones to be young and dumb

why can’t we party, it’s fun and cool, why not

i want my own stories to tell my grandchildren rather than just telling your stories

i know you had fun, so why can’t i, i deserve the right party mood

cause all young dudes wanna party

i like partying watching the footy yeah

c’mon dudes pour some ***** on me i am cool

get into some trouble with me, but not bad trouble

make sure nobody spikes your drink, ready to party right

i like partying in every single way

with victoria bitter and carlton draught and a jim beam, how cool

so c’mon dudes pour some bourbon on me and let’s party on

i think parents are the biggest hypocrites on earth

they party really bad but they hate us doing it

i like to party, i like i like to party every single day

with a west coast cooler and a bottle of scotch with coke, how cool

i know we feel like vomiting and we sometimes feel sick

but we need to understand what goes on in the club

yeah, the good times, and there are plenty of them

who cares how bad your hangover is, think of the good times

i like partying because for a young dude it is pretty fun

there will be people who yell at you, but you should think of the people who don’t

i will take a sip out of a jug of beer and someone yells at me

but i don’t complain because i like to PARTY real hard

i remember my friend at school used fosters as his first beer

my first beer was export light, in the kiddie section of the supermarket

XXXX was my first beer i got ****** on and i enjoyed that a lot

and if your hypocritical parents force you to stop partying

say to them, get a life, we are the future of this world

i like partying every single day

i used to buy beer out of every ounce of my pay

bills were being paid, but i was to young and cool to care

but you change but there is one thing for sure

i will never stop being a party dude

i am not a hypocrit, never a hypocrite, but i am not a parent either

and i party while i say, PARTY ON DUDES, and never give in to what conservative parents think

PARTY ON, and say ROCK AND ROLL PARTIES TO THE RESCUE, dudes

He’d been close to the big time,
If not a god of the fight game, perhaps a demigod;
He’d been possessed of considerable brute strength
And the ability to shut out concern for the well-being of others,
But there had been the odd ***** in his armor:
An overhand right which announced itself too early,
And arrived just a smidgen too late,
Plus an unhappy tendency to lose focus,
To stray from those plans his corner had set up chapter and verse,
Choosing the forbidden fruit of the quick knockout.

He had, after losing a bout to a top-ranked fighter
(He was eighth in the world, he would chuckle ruefully,
And I fought him like I was eight years old.)
Decided to chuck it all in,
Enrolling in a scruffy little bible college
Sitting just off an interstate on-ramp,
Cheek-to-jowl with a Wendy’s and 7-11,
In order to facilitate the transition from mayhem to ministry.
He’d soured on the process in fairly short order;
He understood instinctually that he, like all men,
Was a sinner, and likely unworthy of salvation,
And the faculty accentuated the notion daily, if not hourly,
Like so many jabs to the midsection.
He’d inquired, gently, as to the approach one should take
To addressing the worrisome paradox
That all men were imperfect beings
Marooned on an imperfect world,
Yet their fallibility was all they had to build on,
(A rickety ladder to scramble upwards, for sure,
But the only way to reach that golden fruit
Held out for him, though just beyond his grasp.)
The responses varied, from sputtering and vague parries
To the suggestion that such notions were heresy,
And so he’d returned to the club-and-casino circuit
Makin’ the best use of the gifts I have, he would sigh,
Before heading out once more,
Hoping there was one more short right at least one more time.

The airport
bar in Boston,
I'm sway
drunk
& holding
my glass as
if it's liquid
gravity.

She sits
next to me,
technically.
But she's
drifting away
like Orion into
unreachable
courts of evening.

Its a hard thing
to live with
someone who
loves you
less and less.
Rooms are
always empty
& loneliness
settles like
ash on the soul.

The heart
passes sentence
against itself.
Guilt's rapier
parries any
kindness.

Sometimes
I was desperate
and clawed
my way through
acres of gin.
It never
ended well.

But at that
airport bar
I first heard
a voice calling
from under the
scattered waves of
the alcohol sea
inside me.

It told me
the truth:
her love was
guttering
like a candle
whose wax
is fleeing
across the table.

Painted practice forgives the forward hand
Another man stands between the broken battalions
Caution slips underneath the tattered worn rug
And the apples and oranges rest naked and smug

The horizon stands poised neath a towering shrine
Wishing for salvation in an appetite of rhyme
And because there's no forgiveness for the weak or the rubbed
The one's left over have no need for the above

A cradle crosses the abstinent dream
Forgetting the difference between falseness and what's real
Pull apart your own fears, erupt sacred insecurities
Attack the dark with lighted candle and a roaring spark

Light across the window, cloud covers the moon
Reappeared faces make me strike another tune
Between the tide and the wave, sits a cap sized ship to heavy to move
The streets today are empty and how about you?

She moved like a serpent and spoke like a child
When the store owner's saw her, they all went wild
Two pair down wide and I've driven too many miles to cry
Why on this Earth is there rule you gotta' die -

Mountains peter past the fortunate blue
Of oceans to cross to peddle or bloom
Dead flowers rest on the graves of the dead
Birds lift their wings as they search for a bed

In a home where the mother grips every mention of moan
Parries a father to weak to address his crumbling tomb
See the spiraling trapeze spin and clap in tights
Even in dreams are we as forgetful as the vanishing night

My mind is confusing
Opposite of wallflower 
It skirts though loudly obviously
It observes with eyes too blinking
It takes you in and mulls you like cinnamon and ***
It screams I will look at you I will not see you
It listens does not hear but what you have to state
Until near too gone
When it puzzles a million things simultaneously
That means at the same time
It lunges and parries and strikes at the words
Until it cannot contain to hold them
And it must combust
And it writes them down
Speaks them up
And I 
Understand.

in the middle of the night,
at the dullest hour of the day
when i am restless,
and lazy,
and ambling out
my mind cast away,
in the middle of the ride
on my bus in eventide,
when my rage falters
and parries
with the wisdom
of my sage,
until the sky changes color
and shadows change shape,
when caught in the cold
of the lost and the unknown,
when watching birds twitter
and fly to back love home,
in the middle of a book,
after a sweet song,
when dancing to a tune
or making my face frown,
I only need to think of you
to keep going my way,
hoping against hope,
I will meet you,
someday.

Love is many different things.

It is a finely crafted point;
Used to swiftly place that point to the vulnerable place deep inside us, sharp and critical.
Like a rapier it dances around and parries through the denial of it's direction, to where we believe it to strike piercingly true.

Love is also a dangerously sharp edge;
It can be wildly wielded, but dangerously double edged when carelessly applied broadly in many directions.
Like a battle axe, it is swung with all it's might and purpose in order to display the strength and passion of it's meaning.

Regardless of how you demonstrate the prowess of how you Love;
Make sure it's edge is never dulled,
And make sure it's point never falters.

I often find my posits dreadful,
Happiness flies merely fleet,
So much compounds, accosts a headful
Angry, gnawing, awful heat!
In joyful sorrow I must live
For truest joy is not to be
And frightened by, as laws decree,
A final debt, a life to give.
(Then summons me, my last repose,
To Heavens Gate, that some suppose.)

I cannot shed this melanchol’,
So Viper-like time’s turbulence,
Nor sally forth ‘pon brevet fall,
Conning self in feckless hence
When plaintiff Hell wraths from my lips,
“O’ Fie! Ye craven Viper! Fie!
Why should it be that I must die?”,
By fevered brain’s convulsive flips.
(As if a Viper’s state be blamed
For thus which gives me abject pain.)

And in these throes of torrid temper
Comes a hummingbird in flight,
Engaged in moments: basic, simpler,
Perfect-formed wee aero-sprite!
So happily he flits about
When seeking nectar, bloom-by-bloom,
In flowers bright as peacock plumes
And worries not of Earthly doubts.
(For hummingbirds have innate sense
Of urbane thoughts and true pretense.)

His playful flight in mayful flutter
Sagely parries ‘**** the trees
Through ev’ry leaf he flies a’scutter
Daring, as his heart will please!
My dearth, it seems, I now forget;
A tiny smile claims my face
And grows to full by levied grace
To pause my Earthly-borne regret!
(This newly forged respite from woe
Has cast away my pitied trow!)

What revelation rids my sadness
(All those worries disappear)
And what was anguish turns to gladness
Gone, the nagging mortal fears.
O’ they’ll return, I have no doubt,
To wrest my contemplative mind
But now assured that I can find
A joyful thought to fight such bout
I will forever carry near.
And to the hummingbird in flight
I’ll cherish how you drew my sight
To rid a foolish mortal’s tears.
(As hummingbirds will understand
The foibles taken by our hand.)

Like the deep, slow, hum of many voices, I hear it.
Softly crying in the darkness I have encased it in.
A sliver of my true soul, I cannot help but fear it,
It whispers to me a ballad sweet, on my forehead written…
“This was never the real you, your decay is not complete.”

For you, the one who cares, I have a confession.
I, a man of fear and sorrow, my heart drips black.
My sight bleeds gray, as I witness my reflection.
A gaunt sentinel of hopelessness, it stares back…
Smiling all the time.

Underneath the grim and slimy casing, my heart beats a song.
One slow note in rhythm, its message is clear.
To my knees I slide in the silence, no longer strong.
Exhaustion, chills ripple through the atmosphere…
As I fall through the floor, into another world.

My angel before me stands, his glowing saber drawn.
His radiant figure defending against the shadow,
Against the black animal that prowls beyond,
Its milky eyes fixated on where it wants to go…
Staring deep into my chest, at the cage it used to call home.

The shady hellcat lunges, as I sit staring.
My defender parries mightily, but in vain.
The lion turns to face me, ****** fangs barring.
As the sword fades next to the slain…
As my vision recedes to black.

Lucid again, I sit introspectively in the dim space.
My Father beside me sits, laying a hand on my knee.
“I showed you this for a reason, do not lose face.
You alone can choose, my child, and so hear my plea:
Your actions have consequences in this war for your soul.
Please weigh your actions carefully, salvation is the goal."

Perhaps, dearest daughter, your continued absence
From these shores is very much a blessing
For even though your corporeal self
Resides an all but incomprehensible
Number of leagues away,
The occasional missive you deign to send
Serve as sufficient understudies for your particular role;
Indeed, one can almost feel the spittle
Rising as blunt instruments from the very pages themselves,


But then again, perhaps it is not so;
Not the odd angry recrimination
Sundry maddening, shrieking tales of woe
Blows which may not reach their destination
Though intended to mar the tend'rest spot
For even if perchance they reach their mark
These scattershot parries are all for naught,
For no matter what pains the barbed tongue bring,
The most **** pointed speech will fade in time;
Though slaps or scratches may utterly sting,
Such violence is not the ultimate crime.
'Tis the lack of your voice, or your foot-fall
Which is the unkindest cut of them all.

cut off from god as heavens
guard parries the eastern sky
and the nearest star rouses
like a seraphs sword inflaming
the insurrection of men
even to death, the day overwhelming
such divine law and its transgression
against trespass; enlightening sin.





ELEETE J MUIR