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Best Poems Written by Maurice Rigoler

Below are the all-time best Maurice Rigoler poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

A Few Words About Vanity

Sooner or later, aging betrays us
and vanity, supposedly, saves us.
Men included but women especially
fall prey to its superficiality
with measures used no better than
the least skilled mortician,
and the end results are about
as good as any corpse laid out.
It’s all but impossible to restore
what we once looked like before
no matter the “magic” improvements
or promised “miracle” enhancements.
If in doubt these are in error,
believe what you see in a mirror.
My advice to men and women is this:
Avoid a surgeon who was a taxidermist.
Look your age, not like hell,
accept aging as inevitable.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

Old New England Cemeteries

If hard evidence is wanted that we New Englanders 
		have roots running deep in our rock strewn 
soil, look no further than our old cemeteries, for we
	have them in plenty, and whose headstones 

still bear the bloodless and blind names of our people. 
		Names that harken back long before
they stained Boston Harbor with English tea, long before
	a king’s army of Red Coats marched upon our

peaceful shores – names like Joshua Pitts, Ezekiel Clark, 
		Micah Bradford, Noah Crumbe, Esther Cole, 
and countless similar. Names that carried conviction, hope, 
	and faith strong and resilient as any sturdy oak.

The Book, you see, was never far from these God-fearing
		people, and always an easy reach 
for a troubled heart. It brought them solace in the darkest
	 nights when life 

seemed less than certain, less than the faintest flicker 
		of a taper’s flame. The land was new, hard.
It needed tilling and care, willing hands to make it their own. 
	Hands now forever idle, forever stilled.

They saw work, not as a hardship to wasteful pleasure, but as 
		a mandate, a divine blessing to benefit themselves 
and others, to be worked out. Laziness for its own sake found
	 no supporters. Life had purpose, a reach.

They walked with a sure footing, even when the heavens
 		shook with fury and made them cower 
with fear and prayer, or when the ground trembled.
 	They learned to wait with patience; it always settled.
				
Now, in their decayed cradles of death, they sleep that 
		mighty sleep we all must lie down to. 
Yet they still speak to us with strength, hope, and conviction. 
	We are their legacy.These rough slate stones are proof of it.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

A Few Consoling Words To My Vacuum Cleaner

Yes, I know, it’s not Saturday, 
the day I usually take you from your
dark closet to clean the rugs. 

I thought I’d have a friendly chat
with you and reminisce, ask how you’re doing, 
your health, and let you know

how much your services are appreciated, 
and how you’ve lived up to everything 
said about you the dayI bought you, 

placed you in the car trunk and sped 
you to my home for domestic work
where you’ve lived up to all my expectations,

always with an obliging ready compliance.
Nothing pricks my conscience more 
than, after a morning of diligent work, 

I have to return you to the darkness of 
a claustrophobic utiliy closet 
crowded with so many household helpers

with unpleasant and toxic fumes, and not 
once have you ever complained, and to my shame
and negligence never once did I apologize

or offer you even a perfunctory thank you,
leaving you to yourself and your thoughts, 
holding only a bag of sucked up dirt 

filled with dog hair, food crumbs, and who knows
what else you found lurking in my rugs,
until your services were needed again.

Solitude, of course, can be a blessing
and has advantages when it has purpose. 
It’s indispensable to poets and writers

who need an atmosphere of quiet to think
and meditate. Even medieval monks,
confined to small stone cells, required 

solitude. How else could they have 
produced such magnificent illuminated 
manuscripts? Or, as one monk did, 

combine his Christian theology with 
Aristotle’s philosophy, though less cerebral monks, 
and others, overwhelmed with 

the monotony of repetitious prayers, 
penance, and nightly flagelations
to combat the lustful flesh, as an alternative, 

spent hours without distraction 
calculating how many angels could fit 
or dance on the head of a pin.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

Doggie Talk

Of late I find myself talking at length 
to my dog – just “puppy talk” at first.
Then with a familiar grown-up vocabulary
 
most doting dog-owners use – and nothing 
beyond a dog’s mental grasp, depending 
on the dog’s age, experience, and IQ,

so that it quickly gets the dog’s attention, 
perking his ears like a bat to catch my words 
every nuance with an approving wagging tail.

And he knows when I’m distressed or even 
mildly annoyed, especialy when watching 
the nightly news, which he watches

with me relaxed on my lap. 
And when I disagree with a politician’s 
remarks and shout expletives at him, 

the dog looks up at me as if to say, 
“I agree, that was a dumb remark the
politician made,” or something like that.

Or, if a particularly inane commercial 
makes me laugh so hard I spill my beer 
on his head and he joins in with 

a few soft barks – his way of laughing, 
I suppose, and lets me know he shares my 
peculiar sense of humor.

Of course, there are moments (more and more 
it seems) when I pour out my heart to him. 
How could I not? He’s twelve years old, 

and in human years he’s almost my age, 
and, like me, showing undisguised signs 
even a dog is heir to, to quote a famous saying. 

And then there are days when, like me, 
he appears overly pensive, listless, stretched out 
on the sofa, rug, or more often, my bed, 

staring blankly at the ceiling or nothing in 
particular. A gentle reassuring pat on 
the head brings him out of it, his brown eyes 

turning upwards at me, as if to say: 
Don’t be concerned, it’s just a dog thing, 
I have them now and then. I’ll be fine.

It’s hard to know what a dog thinks at 
moments like that, and I don’t pretend to. 
Still it worries me and I do wonder: 

Does he, like me – and other humans – 
ponder about his life, his end, that condition 
no longer informed by the flesh? 

Does he look back on his life, regretting 
this or that course action or decision, 
or call to mind some youthful indiscreet
 
behavior – who hasn’t? – that affected 
another dog’s life, especially a female,
for the worse, and which still haunts him?

That’s when he needs consoling and I 
open up like a father to a son.  On my lap, 
I gently stroke his small head and in 

a loving soft voice, never harsh, tell him 
I understand. (How unlike my father 
when I was growing up!)

Instead I bare myself open and tell him
I, too, did foolish things when young, and, yes, 
they do surface from time to time to prick

my conscience with shame and self-deprecation.
With his sad eyes he seems to say, What, 
you too? That’s when he gives his tail
 
an empathetic wag which I interpret to be
his way of telling me that dogs and humans
are not so really different after all.

And then – so touching – he lifts his head
with those small brown eyes and licks 
my face, and I become emotional, pressing 

his small frame against my beating heart 
with a warm hug, burying my face in his fur, 
with its usual but mild doggie odor,

and strugglingly not to release a torrent  
of tears lest my weakness create a lack of 
confidence in him for me, and from the time

I brought him home from the kennel, he’s 
looked up to me as if I was his father and, geez, 
why let him down now at this late date?

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

Approaching Storm

Edgy, I occupy myself with a book pretending
the storm will veer away. But the rumbles get louder
and the first blitz of lightning etches the black sky.

New England summer storms sometimes blow in
like a pack of snarling wolves – teeth exposed, 
mouth dripping saliva, eyes glazed, backs arched.

If like me, you squirm in an ambivalence of dread 
and fascination. Nature in turmoil and fury is 
always a great show – if you’re brave enough 

to sit it out at a window seat (with the option 
of drawing the drapes if the action gets too 
graphic or menacing).

Finally, the growling pack scatters and the show fades out, 
drifting off like an off-key high school brass band.
Breathing is easier now, though after-effects linger like

like a sticky residue on the body. I then convince
myself a drink is in order – to loosen the tenseness. 
What will it be? After all, it was no feeble storm.
 
And shouldn’t a drink be equal to the occasion? 
Champagne, then! And who better to share the experience 
with than the widow herself, Madame Clicquot!*



*née Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, Widow Clicquot or Veuve Clicquot, known as the "Grande Dame of Champagne", was a French Champagne producer. She took on her husband's wine business when widowed at 27. Born in 1777, was widowed at age 27. Of tough character she establish a name that went on to achieve celebrity among French champagnes.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

The Bag Lady

She sat outside the coffee shop elbows 
propped up on a small circular blue metal table 
with a frosted glass top, starring intently 
at morning traffic and passersby. 
A partially eaten pastry on a paper napkin 
like an island in a sea of blue.

I had seen her face before, in the park the winter last. 
It was her, the bag lady. She had emerged like 
an insect from dead leaves into the new light 
of spring, except the wheeled cart that 
held the big black plastic bag of packed-down clothes 
that always followed her like a big black dog, 
had been replaced by a smaller plastic bag 
no bigger than a well-fed cat. It was spring, 
she was  traveling light.

Her streaked gray hair radiated wildly
about her head for who knows how long. 
Two wrinkled jowls sagged on either side of her face. 
Her small, fiercely blue eyes had lost nothing 
of their feral brightness or penetration 
as she sipped coffee and blew cigarette smoke into
the air, mixing with car exhaust fumes. 

There was this one exception about her
and markedly so. Her countenance: it had been freed, 
perhaps only temporarily, of the remoteness 
it had worn that winter day when I had first seen her.

It now expressed a sense of well-being,
newly acquired, as though her life had changed, 
and its weight had lightened, perhaps by
the kindness or generosity of a friend 
or a softhearted stranger. It didn’t matter. 
She seemed almost to be experiencing a rare windfall 
of happiness, summed up in coffee, pastry, and cigarettes.

All this went through my mind as I walked by her 
and entered the coffee shop for my usual regular, extra lite, no sugar.

As I left, coffee in hand, I turned briefly 
for a final look.  An elderly man had joined her. 
I held back from speculating, yet in a strangely 
remote way I was happy for her. She would have 
wanted it that way, I wanted to believe.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

Rain Puddles

They have no place to stay, no permanence, 
these casualties of warring clouds,
but gather where they fall and collect,
reflecting patches of the passing day,
blue, gray, and at night distant stars.

Their stay is but a day or two
then shrink and disappear, taking 
with them piecemeal memories
of what they could not hold on to.

It will not be that way with us.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

Still-Life Water Lilies

On placid waters of the reflecting pool, 
petals fully open as in a gesture of silent 
imploring, surrounded by a world 
of shimmering reflections.

Small red carp feed on tiny insects
then disappear below, leaving ever 
widening circles that skim
and intersect each other.

Steeped in prayful trance, seemingly 
undisturbed by abrasive sounds
of nearby traffic or the vulgar language
of boys on noisy skateboards,

the afternoon slants towards evening, 
and each lily begins to close like a clenched fist 
holding some moment of the day

as the pool slowly drinks in the afternoon,
each lily adrift in the silence of its meditation.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

The Fox Is A Winter Sleeper



There is an eventuality as respects mankind 
and the beast...as the one dies, so the other...
so that the one [has] no superiority over the other, 
both are destined to the same end.
			– Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20

	I
A fox in the snow, frozen. 
At most a few days. Still beautiful 
as when he felt his small body falling
 
under his gait, his world of winter fields, 
walls and woods pulling away, a gray mist
turning dark rushing to fill his eyes.

The pelt still held its sheen and vibrancy,
the small eyes still open in a dead stare,
the pointed snout in snow on impact, 

as if searching for a scent to satisfy 
a constant hunger, suggesting his fall
was natural, sudden, not expected.
 
The mouth slightly opened, revealing
long lips pulled away from black gums, 
rows of small, sharp teeth exposed
 
framed in a strange snarling smile; 
the tongue slack, dry, curled at the edges,
the forelegs bent under the chest 

where his heart once beat. The tail 
still holding its bush with a dusting
of wind-blown snow.

I looked in vain for foul play – teeth 
or claw marks, torn skin, a bullet hole.
Only a beautiful fox dead in snow.

Yet something vital in him let go,
broke his stride, brought him down. 
Whatever it was, he could not outrun 

his own mortality, could no more escape 
his shadow than the inner law that rules
every breathing thing without pity or mercy.

	II
And then the words came to me: 
“And God breathed into the man the breath of life...” 
How easy that must have been for Him.

I had the will and desire but not the power. 
I was helpless to bring the fox back to life, 
a second chance, to see him leap and run 

across snow-covered fields again, and seek 
the shelter of familiar woods again, 
as though released from a cage.

I took comfort in the fact that Death,
at its worse, is a wakeless sleep, no more; 
a door that opens to no interior. 

A tedious story told and retold, 
always with the same ending,
the same hopeless disappointment.

	III
The snow would keep him a little longer, 
then, in that slow descent into decay, 
the earth would reclaim him for her own. 

I walked away, the hard snow cracking 
under my boots, breaking the silence 
that had settled over the morning.

Somewhere in the distance impatient
cawing crows waiting with hunger, 
they had picked up the fox’s scent.

Details | Maurice Rigoler Poem

The Slaughter of the Hens

The dry, frayed ends of autumn, the garden 
charred by successive waves of night frosts, 
the scent of wild grapes in the air.

Outside the kitchen’s back door, a small 
metal barrell stood over a fire waiting on 
a slow boil, set up by my grandfather early on.

Nearby a makeshift table – old planks placed
across two carpenter horses – covered with 
yellowed newspapers; large bluish canning jars

at one end of the table, each sterilized 
in a bath of scalding water and later each 
snuggly fitted with a hen’s cleaned out carcass 

to be cooked, then placed on shelves in the dirt 
floor cellar, making their first appearance on 
the Sunday dinner table during winter months.

My grandmother, rotund and lacking any
sentimentality for most animals, least of all pigs
and chickens, waited in a rough cloth apron 

with years of use, a small sharp knife in hand 
easily cut into a dozen dead hen’s bodies
like a knife through soft butter.

The chopping block, a weathered piece of old
black oak, its surface marked with grooves 
where many an ax head fell and left its mark.

With a wave of her hand she signaled grandfather
to begin the slaughter. A few feet away, within 
a temporary wired enclosure, unknowing hens

milled about pecking the grassy area for what
would be their last meal. Grabbing each hen by 
its feet, he laid her body on one side, her head 

almost on the edge of the block and with the speed
of a sudden lightening bolt, brought down the axe,
the hen’s head dropping to the ground, it’s neck

squirting blood like a garden hose, then 
tossed as the first of many that would grow 
into a pile of her dead sisters. 

Yet there was always a hen that sensed her fate
and managed to get back on her feet and dash off 
headless, as if defying death itself while her 

eyes were spared the gruesome sight of her
headless running body and not so much as 
giving a cheering cackle to so heroic a try.