Three Poems

By Chris Crittenden

Writer’s Block

  

letters

fidget like grubs

on the corpse of an idea

lost to their feast.  

 

i can’t net

the lightning bugs

flickery as photons

in their tempest.

 

i need mental police

to collar the burglar

who stole my sparkle’s

gist—

 

for passion to slap me,

or luxuriate,

bold as an odalisque

on the sateen of my heart.

 

i need a pen so pointed

it tattoos paper flesh,

etching to inspire

decades.

 

i need thrills that flip-flop

and tangle in roses,

torn so badly they see petals

as patches on truth.

 

 

 

November Leaves

for sale,

retching scupltures

no one made.

unique statements

of the unheard fall.

 

crushed rapidly under heel,

like derelict lockets,

or fossils from the teardrops

of lost nymphs.

 

up they go, blustered,

kicked into an obedient

circus-dog routine,

flipping about,

but earning no bones.

 

their slavers conjuring

aches that slouch

in inflamed glands,

but no one sees

 

them for individuals,

or savors the sense

that wings could be massed

from their shuffle and loft.

 

the lowest of them

spread wide, calling

in a last ditch jut,

torn of seam and soiled lip.

 

but no one wants

such sexless brothels,

or the pander and cajole

of worms.

 

 

 

Othello’s Ghost

fury tinkers with valves

in the medulla of my grief,

twisting weird tubes

with hands oiled in tears,

and chattering like a monkey.

 

it’s hard to see what it’s up to,

frantic on its perch on my back.

some might mistake it

for the cosmic flails

of a lassoed butterfly.

 

at some juncture, in a crossroads,

perhaps it did sprout wings,

escape a nest of doubts

by jumping off a ledge

of self-castigations.

 

those were vibrant times.

youth possessed of buoyancy.

the inevitable poison

had not found a way

to breach a perfect face.

 

but that dram gnaws

on the seams in all minds,

has a preference

for the delicacy of flight.

it gets into joys and loves,

 

makes them fussy, mechanical,

mad.

Published April 2010