Two Poems by Chris Crittenden

Not There

 

noon found her frozen

in the snakes

of her own veins.

 

she had married her own medusa,

commemorated

the fatal event.

 

to look inside

and turn to shocked stone,

could any pain

 

squeeze worse?

 

to shown in eyes

a wound so bright

that blood relinquished fire?

 

to go down, to seek

a twin in a steep pool,

unaware she is dead

 

until she kisses you.

 

 

 

Heroins

 

in the twilight

people kept shriveling.

kissing wraiths.

 

what was real

began to hide in wounds less

than scum, entire worlds

 

crowded into ether

smaller than invisible,

less tangible than deja vu.

 

no ear saw,

chins couldn’t focus,

image outpaced tongue.

 

holes yawned

for faces soon childish

in the rabbit twists.

 

such ample blurs

of half-pleasant tunnels.

it was easy to

 

succumb and

jab the needle,

drone the ride.

 

 

 

 

Chris Crittenden writes from a spruce forest, fifty miles from the nearest traffic light. His full-length collection, Jugularity, was recently released from Stonesthrow.