curves of grey water
near pink archipelago.
the cheek-warmth stiff,
fragile as siltstone.
the surface creasy,
frissons that ripple wax.
moods that blur over tuned
yet speechless lips.
wrinkles stalled in the purple drama.
a flotsam of hope
lounging like uranium,
dribbling away.
all senseless. a scam
of vector and double-cross.
the two mocking each other
with the aplomb of vague hobos:
stunts who commingle
in their amble,
resolve and deteriorate,
reform to break apart.
crude gusset of bat
high on wind, dislocating
every bone it doesn’t have
to creep once more
in the company of dirt.
a paroxysm fawning,
fated to delve and sniff,
to bootlick with an amble
in a muddle of slithers.
alert then slothful,
part yoga and lounge chair,
chasing some ort
invisible to the scrawl
of its unhinged grasps.
limp moods sidle
as the choreography shifts.
breasts flail
and odd teeth gnash,
born of their own writhes.
we freeze as one into scarecrows,
enduring a brisk woolen day.
a char of juncos
in an orange copse taunts us.
soon we are blurry again,
cautious within Van Gogh fields,
hunkering like sandhill cranes
over snaky ground.
our clothes strive
to unleash themselves
in a muddle of fibrous fits;
but we slog with gusto, ankles
sucked by muddy mouths,
our binoculars leading us on
with the flair of rumors.
Dunson glasses an owl
scrunched in a crook like a forest gnome.
whatever it dreams,
our rude surprise will not cater.
we chatter at the jpeg moment
as it glares back at us with feline gall,
contemplating our apish ruckus
and the threat of crows.
later, through a swale
of gusty hisses, dead grass
shunts around our flappy gait.
wind seems to have scooped up all the birds,
cast them from our meander.
we watch precious wings
disperse with the aplomb of peppercorns
into a sunset roan.
fate toiled on its damning tattoos,
while clocks told puppets to rush.
sins bred in the competitive fever,
that same old gimmick
which had birthed t-rexes and cats,
only more morbid and faster—crazed:
horoscopes of sacrifice on altars built deeper
to please hungrier and more erectile gods.
taxidermic angels, blithe on a cornice,
lorded over the savage pace,
while herds of headstrong briefcases
butted in the fracas-throes of stress.
it was a place where kindness couldn’t sing,
had no syringe or pill, couldn’t trump the peril
of losing one’s cute, prostituted guile.
stickfigures
on circled stairwells shouldered fat debts,
their neck muscles cinched by quiet pain.
they climbed a pyramid of pomp,
worried as a hassled Icarus.
Galatea at a festival of vipers,
stalked by the Medusa of her own crimes.
it was an aftermath of graveyards,
one that squestered its answers and swilled fate.
boredom plagued its docile relievos,
combed through skitterish wishless stars.
it was a place that knew
the slope of every woman’s breast,
obscured in succulent heat waves.
hips reared out of the dunes for hours,
their trysts undulating into guitars.
she could almost lose herself here, in the lust,
surrounded by convulsing haloes.
every animal lay down beside her,
from salamanders to twined manes
to the visceral glee of caducean swans.
between and around her prayerful hands,
sand formed fences, only to break
into schools of doors; and always, everywhere,
soft in the clefts of fresh karma,
so many brash and fleeting keys.
Chris Crittenden recently won the Medulla competition for his chapbook "Rebellion" and just published a full-length collection “Jugularity” with Stonesthrow. He is a teaching artist at the Poetry Coop and writes from a spruce forest, fifty miles from the nearest traffic light. His blog is Owl Who Laughs and he teaches applied ethics for the University of Maine. Over seven hundred of his poems have been published.
ISSUE:
S P R I N G
2013
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