"scrounged" poems
My eyes
Have seen in these fifteen years of mine
More horrors than many in a hundred see.
I have seen grief, and bitterness, and pain.
You have given that to me.
That has been your gift.
My heart
Beats at ten thousand times its normal pace
For fear when I see you walk into the room
I know what’s coming next-
Onto the streets,
And into a stranger’s unforgiving arms.
My skin,
Littered with bruises you left,
Is a canvas for the horrifying picture
You wish to paint me into-
One where you are the puppet master
And I your marionette.
But I am only a child,
Not a vehicle for your twisted pleasure.
My body
Will not pay your bills.
Not after you left me with a child.
I wear loose clothes to hide her- it’s a girl, I think.
And I won’t let you take her away.
My feet
Will carry me far away from here,
As soon as I’ve scrounged up
Enough spare quarters, caught on the ***** concrete
You force me into walking every night,
I'll catch a bus or two away from here.
My dreams
Will not be broken.
I am strong.
On Thursday night, I’ll fly away from here.
And you’ll forget me
I mean nothing to you.
My captor,
Puppet master,
Force of evil,
You’ll find another.
I wish her fast escape.
I will be free.
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 11:58 AM UTC
There's a tree over there
that waits for its dreamer.
*I have survived many.
And lost much
but to tell all would encumber several human spans
because
I have lived and longed.
I have learned and yearned.
I have waited.
At the train station, where existence can only be fulfilled
via a spiritual connection.
Bounded by roots that twist and secure
Soon to be bonded with thoughts
Floating through the sky, riding the air waves, see-through till caught
in a spider's web, or something like it.
And imaginary gets real.
Take in the matter
Scrub the void with scrounged emotions and colors
Pour in materials of lint and string.
Mediums with no particular conductance,
but taught it tight
and strum till the vibrations reverberate
and bring your idea to life in my wings
Because you are my dreamer.
And I am your catcher.
Hung on a wooden peg,
in your study.
Waiting for the day you
pick me up
and all your dreams tumble out and
materialize
and you realize* who you are.
Feb 7, 2013
Feb 7, 2013 at 12:08 AM UTC
Unpacking an old box I scrounged and found
a card for Mother's Day from my ex-wife,
professing love for mom that will abound
through time and space until the end of life.
Four years have passed--since first she filed divorce--
no card or letter, nor a seldom call.
A once abundant love could not be forced
to crease a smile, for it would now appall.
Why do I flinch once more and wonder how,
the love departs, which oaths swore never would?
Why they all say, "but things are different now,"
though hearts were sold as things that never could?
Amazing, how such endless loves quick end,
as flimsy tattered fabrics quickly rend.
(C)2014, Christos Rigakos
Nov 27, 2014
Nov 27, 2014 at 12:16 AM UTC
I awoke one morning
To light beating through the window,
The steady hum of the city
In my bones. I was in a manic mood
Before noon, half-dressed with my hair
Standing straight from a nervous hand.
My chest throbbed with a warm weight,
A smoldering ember that expression could extinguish only.
I wrote and cried and bled
To get the vibration I was feeling
Down on paper. In vain I spewed
Collections of letters, contorted and foreign
My mind was
Shooting up skyscrapers and
Strolling down streets of shine;
I could but lust at a copy of Gatsby through a puddle of cheap wine.
I suddenly found I couldn't take my walls,
Any longer.
I forced open the window
And the city flooded my room,
Sending papers sailing. I resonated
With the silver river
And all of me cried for release.
I scrounged together clothes and wet my hair,
Then bolted out the building.
I was embraced by the world and twirled along,
Hull to hull with the lonely lot.
We, the builders of this landscape,
The elemental moving force
That hollowed these ashen canyons.
Day by day we toil along our track,
Carving deeper and wider, shifting specks,
Seamlessly, we are one-
Crisp dress shirt and an expensive smell, cracked black work boots and a ponytail.
I raised my eyes to the brilliant glare
Of the segmented sky and considered the beauty of being
A drop within a trickle.
Rushing, rushing, I flowed around corners
And broke against departmental shores.
I sought my gaze in a fifth avenue reflection but found only lips.
If people are the sea then I am the mist.
Understand me-- I felt not love for others,
But a crushing connectivity.
Drifting, drifting, I was swallowed whole by anonymity, crew and ship.
Critiques are very much appreciated.
Dec 4, 2012
Dec 4, 2012 at 11:14 PM UTC
Chorus×4
(×2..You better be warrin a vest.)
Cuz when I come shootin I come aimin for your head and your chest.
(Verse 1)
Bullets cost money an I'm stingy wit my bread.
Never catch me sparayin prayin that I hit a shot...
I'm scopin
postin in the ally way.
Interuptin a ***** tryina catch a lift off a spliff
an take a second for him
but this 9 has thing for killing fake *** tricks. . . An I got a thing with head shots when I'm huntin a *****
(Chorus ×2)
I make triggers flinch with my intent.
Born and bread at full throttle,
living in the second. Survivin off the grams,
counting change that cowards scrounged up for back pay.
Roll up an take you and your homies bus money... better run quick yo momma says you late to take a ****
I try and stay cool headed, dealin wit selfish *******
Yall gotta understand that if I'm in yo whip ,handin you a zip... wether you my best homie or a the biggest punk ***** I'll look ya in the eyes an tell ya the same ****
( beat droops off into tempo snare)
(Hook)
I got whatever you want,
If ya need a real souljah ima killa for pay..
Movin weight is how I was raised.
I'ma bad *** till I'm in my grave.
Making paper, poppin Champaign.
Naked women help pass time by hopping in the long ride
This is my life- haters keep outta my sight.
24/7 I'm living 1 he'll if a life
Aug 20, 2018
Aug 20, 2018 at 6:27 AM UTC
Brought up by the stain of my surnames identity
I wiped away my face to see the mask of my vulnerability
I scrounged up the pieces to make this body whole
So, does this body still seem deficient like its told?
Repetition of mistakes, my benevolence believes
Brought up by love but then left to just leave
like the horizons where too distant for me to reach
thus, I pose pondering whats easy to achieve
Not because ambitions were little and in between
but because the sea bed was given the name beauty queen
Something no one else sees is known to be prettier then me
So, I'm left to subjection, my minds yearning to plead
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 5:26 PM UTC
step right up to this broken machine
she'll take anyone
look at this queen
she's shiny and new with smiles so bright
every step she takes is light
her colours are more than a rainbow can boast
she has more than any
she has the most
they drift in the wind and fall from her fingers
her joy is infectious
she's contentment's dead ringer
this machine never stops
that's why its so popular
people will travel far
there is no other
none so dedicated to her job as this
she's a volunteer so surely she loves it
but a crisis strikes every once in a while
the machine won't admit it, she's in denial
but her colour store is personally supplied
if she told you it's abundant, surely she lied
this machine has colours she enjoys sparing
but to spend her whole life as this machine is daring
machines must be turned off
must be unplugged
this machine never does because help is her drug
she goes and she goes until she overheats
her colours start melting
they run through the streets
these runaway colours are scooped up and scrounged
meanwhile the machine is left on the ground
she rusts while it rains, there on the ground
no regard for the girl whose rainbow
seems to be gone
look how she lays so
curled up and crying but not from her loss
crying because her aid is the cost
with no regard for herself she whispers
"if I take a break, look at who suffers"
but the rainbow too must be regrown
it can only take time and care and sweet tones
encouraging words to let her know
she's not alone, she will never be thrown
from this world with contempt
because love exists
but love may not always come to you free
sometimes there is just one fee
it isn't much... just to ask
Jan 19, 2017
Jan 19, 2017 at 9:40 PM UTC
While he held her near
He told her he loved her
He made it all clear
When it was just a blur
He erased her fear
And kept her life astir
She knew he was the one
He was something unique
When her life was undone
And her existence bleak
He gave her one reason to live
When no one was there
Though she had nothing to give
And her pockets were bare
The love they shared
Was extremely rare
But that doesn’t matter
Because life is unfair
He scrounged and fought
For days, months and years
Then went out and bought
A ring with two frozen tears
Before he asked her
He told all of his peers
He had no car
So he walked to her house
The idea was bizarre
Of her as his spouse
He would never reach that point
Unknown to him
Their lives would disjoint
His future was grim
The driver was drunk
He didn’t see her coming
His life was sunk
He just kept walking and humming
He crossed the street
The driver slams the brakes
He’s picked up off his feet
He’s alive in the air
Until he hits the concrete
Seeing what she’s done
The driver keeps going
The girl slumbes through her door
Never even knowing
After she gets the call
The tears don’t stop flowing
She wanted to be with her one
So she grabbed a gun
Whispered ‘I love you, and only you’
And ended her life too
Jun 13, 2010
Jun 13, 2010 at 7:11 PM UTC
There once was a man with a life very kind
Until he was taken away
Now he's alone with the thoughts in his mind
And he never does like what they say
His memories hurt and his dreams are so good
That it's difficult just to wake up
Because life isn't kind anymore to the man
It's easier just to give up
His days are a hole so his brain fills the time
By telling him tales of the past
It showed him the things he had done to survive
The journey to failure was fast
He'd be here forever, alone in this place
A prisoner in his own mind
He'd run far away, change his name and his face
But his captors would chase him in kind
All he had was a mind now tormented with grief
That it gave him depression and tears
He needed an out, to turn a new leaf
In order to live out the years
He scrounged up a pencil and paper as well
And then he began to write
Things of no consequence, letters and poems
In an effort to emulate flight
When the words started coming, he first couldn't tell
That he no longer felt so alone
His thoughts were too focused on what to write next
That the writing itself was his home
He wrote on the page for a day and a night
Then he folded and put it aside
In a package of paper, stuffed tight in a box
That was red with a slot in the side
A man came to get them, the pages he wrote
To see what the people would say
But nobody knew what to do with the words
So they laughed and they threw them away
He never escaped, there isn't a smile
And the end of this woe riddled tale
Just a message to leave in the hopes you'll receive
A discarded man's thoughts in the mail.
Nov 30, 2012
Nov 30, 2012 at 4:45 AM UTC
… On a bustling street,
she shuffles her feet,
her eyes hold a desperate heat,
eyes darting, discretely charting
a line through the crowds that are parting for her.
In a world of abundancy,
she sees redundancy.
Where waste is rife,
her life breathes new life into the rubble
from a fickle society’s burst bubble.
Her world otherwise grey,
she colours her day,
collecting, affecting
what the world has thrown away.
Single-mindedly transfixed, her target mixed; decayed, disused, no longer affixed.
Refused, unused,
discarded, unguarded;
all detected, all collected, all recycled, all respected.
Debris she chases, through a sea of down-turned faces she paces.
Those faces think she disgraces their spaces
but she shows no emotional traces.
She just fills her cases.
She kneels on a cold floor, search no more, search no more. Through a broken window comes dim light, from an oncoming night, passers-by dare not look in from disgust or from fright or sorrow for her plight. Her face covered in feeling but not for the walls peeling nor the ceiling that leaks, nor the floor that squeaks under a carpet that reeks and is torn and frayed in pieces arrayed in front of her.
She kneels on a cold floor, surrounded by more of the same she collected before. Old cushions: tattered. Plates and platters: shattered. Curtains in shreds, ripped clothes, parts of beds. A massacred lounge, wallpaper scrounged. A casual glance at the floor shows a junk-yard and no more. To her it’s ethereal, much more than material.
Her eyes focussed, near to lust as she begins to adjust her treasure, saved from the dust. Within it she trusts.
In her eyes pieces glow to her, in her eyes pieces show to her, a beauty known just to her.
She kneels on a cold floor with a purpose like none before. Within her scrapheap dominion she needs no opinion she fears no ones minion. She knows the beauty she seeks, the beauty that peeks through the grime as she tweaks, the beauty that speaks to her. As she sews it grows and shows and she knows what was once dispose is becoming her rose.
She loses no pace as the last piece of lace delicately takes its place; a tear of pride slides down her face. Her complexion ashen, knowing her passion has brought fashion from a discarded ration she lays down on a cold floor, search no more, work no more.
Daylight breaks, sunlight that shakes and awakes her. Her eyes fill with elation as she clothes herself in last night’s creation. What she wore before goes on the floor where lay more creations from nights before. She heads out toward the sunlight.
On a bustling street, she shuffles her feet, her eyes hold a desperate heat, eyes darting, discretely charting a line through the crowds that are parting for her …
Jul 30, 2011
Jul 30, 2011 at 2:26 AM UTC
******** sixteen and lost in Syracuse
I scrounged a quarter
To call home
For an eighty-five mile ride
And Dad answered and said
"God gave you two thumbs, boy.
One to get there, and one to get back."
Jan 30, 2011
Jan 30, 2011 at 10:26 PM UTC
and suddenly time stops
after weeks and weeks of moving too fast
the stillness makes my head spin
or maybe you make my head spin
because there you are
a friend of a friend
standing in the living room
had it been my living room
i'd have asked you to leave
our history was crashing around
inside of my skull
a ricocheting bullet i didn't know how to stop
as it were
all i could do was stand there
statue still in the doorway
frozen in time
your silhouette blurred against
the afternoon sunlight streaming in
through the window
and i stared for moment after long moment
wanting
wishing
needing you to be someone else
and just like in all my bad dreams
when i scrounged up the courage to greet you
your face fell into an expressionless mask
our eyes barely met
your irises the same shade
as the coffee that holds my eyes open every morning
and nothing fell from your mouth
i tried hard not to feel anything
i know you were as terrified as me
Dec 8, 2017
Dec 8, 2017 at 12:37 PM UTC
A pocket full of wishes scrounged,
From that jar hidden glistens,
Moss quilted over the with tight patterns
The way those words befallen like a tragic accident
Ridden of ecstasy, mirroring mirage scrubbed
Of the seedlings I planted in place of you,
And now the sun has weathered and water
Flooded the void crestfallen in my rib cage,
I see how ******* wrong I was,
The tree which have bloomed stands
Alien and distant, unlike the way I supposed to happen
These crisscrossing bones around my heart
Are not meant to be torn apart,
**** no, don’t you dare come in with a hammer
A key rests whisked away into oblivion
Maybe in that jar, a tiny glass jar
Hidden in rocks and soil,
Kisses of spring water and haze
Of pearly whispering fog,
Someplace far away
With the lid barely clutched to the lip
Roots have devoured the pretty lies
The glass slipped deep into the green earth,
So if you dare entire my life, dare step into this void
A void rattling, singing, cursing and barking of laughter
A void of paints and cold leftovers
A void of running feet and fleeting glances
A void bedridden of danger and ringing
Of the purest love and affection
To simply be, to breathe beyond the stitch of your sleeve,
I dare you, gather gander, smitten courageous one
Mar 2, 2016
Mar 2, 2016 at 11:30 PM UTC
You don't really know addiction
until you have scrounged
down the back of all of your sofas
only to find one dollar
You don't really know addiction
until you have stolen from your younger brother
you don't really know addiction
until you have stolen from your own mother
you don't really know addiction
until there's nothing left to lose
Apr 18, 2013
Apr 18, 2013 at 10:30 PM UTC
I’ll be the first to admit
I didn’t have much almost a year ago,
but I had you and you had me.
We had dug ourselves a hole so ******* deep,
even with a telescope scrounged from the garbage we could not catch any glimpses of the natural life above us.
But I held your hand in the darkness
and gave it reassuring squeezes to let you know we’d climb out eventually,
and if we failed, we’d have eachother in the darkness.
At some point I stopped feeling your hand squeeze back,
and within the darkness I could only conclude you had died.
That I was within a hole, I suppose a grave now,
refusing to abandon a decomposing corpse.
When your lips peeled back it revealed your teeth clenched together,
and I convinced myself it was a final smile, but really, I see it was gritted teeth of discontent and disgust.
You blamed me solely for the grave,
but we dug it together, and it only became a grave because you decided to give up instead of fighting for each day and the possibility it would bring.
Everytime we talk now, you leave me for the night to stew in the sadness
and loneliness, you initially left me to drown in.
But there’s a drought from the skies,
so I fill the hole with my tears,
and the blood gushing out from the wounds you gifted me.
I failed to realize those tender kisses where compressed, jaw locking bites into my flesh,
tearing open whatever jugular you had left with me after going after it.
You tell me about your current predicament since your soul
departed the grave and rejoined the land of the living.
It isn’t as great as you believed it would be, is it?
So why do I still feel obligation and sadness hearing about it?
You left me to fend for myself,
to pick up the pieces of the life
we had together that you shattered in a matter of an hour.
You didn’t feel remorse or responsibility for where and how you desserted me.
I’m just not that type of person.
You set what little I had left on fire.
Whether it was my structure,
my financial security,
my confidence,
and the pieces of myself I wished to give to someone more deserving.
Someone who could be there for me in a way you never wanted to be.
Someone who actually loves me and wants to climb out of holes with me.
And I just can’t now.
I don’t love you anymore.
Atleast, not the way I believed I did.
But why do I still feel protective and responsible
for the one who poured the gasoline
and lit the match,
and didn’t even bother to stay to warm their soul at my pyre?
I must be the biggest ******* idiot on the planet.
Oct 21, 2019
Oct 21, 2019 at 10:17 PM UTC
I often wonder,
with a feeling of great tragedy
and listlessness,
of what would have happened
should I have scrounged up the money
to pursue my dream.
Overcome by woe,
I can't help but fear
how different things might be
had I flown off
where no one I know has been before,
cringing at the thought
that I might have sacrificed triumph
for comfort,
happiness
for safety,
that I let the mere matter of money
pour cement over everything I've ever wanted.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 6:06 PM UTC
frazzled, unexpected, scrounged in a ball in the corner, with the different lullabies flying overhead, the masked patient is ready for his medication, won't be easy, and it won't last very long
he claws for a bit of rope, a bit of escape, a bit of cloud, the room is full of them now, and on he wails, on he dreams, waiting for something better to come, the lifeline is weak
what is this masked, dazed man to do, when his nails are down to the nub and he no longer has anything to reach out for? the images on the television seem frightening, violent, ****** threatening, or sad, what is he to do? throws the blanket over his eyes, counts, 1, 2, 3, and wishes it all to disappear
and disappear it does, he is away, he is blank, it is white, more like eggshell, there are bumpy edges, but smooth to the touch, sensual, and his little citadel is all he needs to know, all he needs to remember, and the worries of reaching the lifeline slowly begin to fade, like a sign in the rearview mirror on the highway, go along, go along, go along, and in his squatted position he rolls around, the sensual feeling is all there is, all that needs to be, cloaking his skin like a hot shower, like a nicotine buzz, like a drunken stupor, yes, nothingness
no conflict, no nothing, no insights, no roots to uproot, no, just the eggshell room, his citadel, his life
May 8, 2015
May 8, 2015 at 12:33 AM UTC
I've read a love story
A billion times in my life
Every page the same
Every dustjacket adorned with the same
Cover design of two sultry lovers wrapped
In each others' arms, lips pressed together in
A kiss
He was a man and
She was a woman;
They were destined to
Be together
Your story is nothing unique
Nothing different
Your words are the same as those
Scrounged together decade after decade
Centuries cascading to produce the same
Love story under a thousand names
It's your straight romance
Your promise that everything will be okay and
That you might have kids one day
And a nice house without fear of
Being killed for your identity
And out of my hatred for you is
A deep envy and a desire to have
What you were born with
You do not have to fight for
What I have earned
Nov 17, 2015
Nov 17, 2015 at 12:38 AM UTC