In someone's mind there is a place of graves,
And farther still a darkened potter's field,
Where loved ones in memoriam are saved,
And those whose names should never be revealed.

I blow through iron bars and paths 'tween stones,
To find the carvings of my former name,
Which mark the resting place of my dear bones,
And date the finite years of my life's fame.

More anxiously I blow into the field,
Instinctively the farthest place most dark,
Where frost and ice have most securely sealed
A single mound without a numbered mark.

I reach for bones I can no more disturb,
Discarded far enough to not perturb.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

The normal way of life is such:
          the old give way to young.
To understand does not take much,
          explained in simple tongue:
Adults that love do procreate.
Their selves they form and replicate,
          continuing the song which they have sung.

The first into the world are first
          to leave the world behind.
They dry and shrivel in their thirst,
          are ground to dust and rind.
They find their solace in their spawn,
inside whose flesh they carry on
          their signatures, in place of their old mind.

The next await their counted turn,
          with shovel at the hand;
enjoy the lives which must adjourn
          into the unseen land.
Then find a mate to spawn their own,
before their own flesh from the bone
          departs into the dryness of the sand.

Yet once upon a blood red moon,
          the normalcy defers.
The next in line depart too soon,
          in snares of life's dark lures.
The first must intern on the shelves
of crypts the flesh that holds their selves,
          and taste what to the next this life confers.


(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

If I were ever
to damage
myself
it would only be
so that I
could bleed
poetry.

Pointy shoulder blade
- yours - digging into my cheek
Comfortable pain.

Now you hold my hand
Fingers threaded between mine
Hold it forever.

Interlocking limbs
You draw me in closer still:
Don't ever let go.

Fingertips tracing
(Please excuse my sweaty back)
Painting words on skin.

Your lips against mine
Tongues searching for an answer
How it came to this.

Though we won't complain
Laugh it off in the morning -
Just please don't forget.

Poetry
stops
the brain
and starts
the heart.

All I ever got
out of loving you
was a snog and a
fuckload
of poetry.