it took her nine months
to crave
being lifted
by baby-

his strength
worried us

and our rage
would not
blind-

I was the first
to remove my belt
the first
to become
dizzy
the only

not laughing
like a *******
girl

Your love, with anguish, shows me passageways,
To exit doors and places of escape,
That I may flee impending sorrow's scrape,
Against my heart-skin in the coming days.

But love's advice begins my own malaise,
I'm smothered as under a weighty drape.
My heart compressed then loses its true shape,
While trampled under words of your own phrase.

I'd live serenely separate from this pair,
You often warn so bluntly yet so coy.
The thought of this is more than I could bear.

I'd rather live in service to your care,
Caressing you through duty or through joy,
Than live on loveless in such deep despair.

(C)2014, Christos Rigakos

you will know
the hoof
of satan’s
chosen
deer
by the way
it glows
when any
female
announces
from the seat
of a stilled
tractor
that she
is pregnant-

you will be the age
of your mother’s
baby bump

older than your father’s
knife

and lit
by the grape
in god’s
mouth

a rolling
baseball
is stopped
by a shoeless
father.

clap
if you hate
your handwriting.

the players
are on their knees.

it’s not your nose
it’s not mine
that is broken.

eat ice cream
like an orphan.

I may have lied about being pregnant but I know my ******* kid.

her father quells *******.

ants are quiet.

-

his teeth make sense.

our yell is I’m gonna shoot you in the blood.

-

elsewhere
is a light dusting
of downfall.  sleepily

legal

are the sunbathing sad.

the crying

it so
happens

is also
the frayed

mom
who stole

a vacuum
that broke

inside…

-

the crying

the ****
in your ******
stories

I have always loved you.

I imagine us 30 years down the road.
I am massaging your shoulders,
relieving knots.
Life gets me in knots too.

I've put the kettle on
I have my own key now so I come and go as I please
like the old friend I've become.
I feed your cat when you go away at weekends.

Smelling your pillow
Remembering you at 40.
Your dressing table
as I pictured it.

I have my own family now
but I met you 10 years before I met my wife.
I rode the wave of your smile,
came crashing down
the day you announced you'd met someone,
holding out for the real thing.

For; I was just a boy,
what could I deliver apart from newspapers
and the odd dodgy innuendos? you laughed at
tossing your hair.
Humouring me
but,
Never letting on that you cared.

I slip away every second night
when the second hand rests between the 8 and the 9
and it is quarter to 10.
I am on my way to see you.
We play cards and toast a drink into midnight.
Sometimes I reach for your delicately aged hand
twiddling with your rings,
knowing mine would have been the sparkly one.
But not a patch on you.

We lock eyes for around a minute,
My throat is dry.
Telepathically I tell you
I have always loved you.
Whether you are 45 or 75
I will always love you.

step this side..
no, you.. that side!
in a line, in a line.. quiet now – get ready for fire.. no miss!
please line up the children in neat rows, get them ready…………………..


1.
eyes are misted over – something happened in the gap
hooking-up strangely with estranged sons lost in custodial-wrangles
alienated values;
family-core defunct like a super-shiny apple with putrescent-flesh
long-beard wants a son after so many daughters, sits unwashed in the smoke
gender-penalty –  sorry, sister.. you chose the wrong straw
you remain in that cage till we say come out


2.
bread-basket filled with stealth-grenades
rights and benefits squirm in slick-oil of rules
peasant skirting the limits of the city; even rats fare better
cloak of goat-skin, the shield hides serpents beneath
the hunter will aim for the head, land in the centre..
                           yet an inch or two too high
sentry, close the gates and bar the window-frames!


3.
inadvertent greed and control; aggressive power
news-man dies for feed that’s untrue, anyway
picture-man twists an image to suit the viewer
all kinds of lines disappear so quick – ******, jokes, theatre, life, even poems
and if you’ve never had the sad combo of sick and homeless,
                                                                ­           famished and cold,
                                                                ­           tired with sores
oh, war will be courteous enough to bring you all these, *on a platter
and more..



there is no border when we all roam in hunger and in fear
like the orphans in crowded-camps
high-rankers sit far away.. ominously "well-off"
                                               chew on hard-cheese
                                               gulp down red wine
but the throat still feels parched, and that bayonet is too short
its fear will kick in.. on a day least anticipated
would you be shocked if it is a child who will drive that wedge-stick home?






st – 14 march 2014

if none notice, pretend you are waging a campaign of unawareness.  this goes for suicide.  hold the scarecrow like a protest sign.  look kid, your eyes have to eat.  what is low hanging fruit to the man on his back?  you can lose someone to illness even if that someone survives.