Chris Crittenden
Crow In A Gale
splotch
of disheveled tufts
on a catapult
about to throw,
the projectile
quilled yet frozen,
cinched by wind,
a talon
from hurtling
through a sky of cement
and oatmeal.
hood ornament
onyx
of a streamlined grove,
pitted against
a sharpened speed
of drooling gray.
a plight nearly fumes.
almost a serif
marauding.
Ghost Trance
fire ants lick
but he won't burn, not after
decaying off day by year.
he's a scaffold
where issues were hung
and the executioner
forgot to take them down.
dew for a weep,
a clutch of nettle for skin.
once a puff adder
became an arm, another time
a heron.
he judges all
from his bench of finished life,
sparing only
an ichneumon's wing.
green and rot
kiss like horny teens
while he ages with the swamp—
decades
of skull-backed moths
and smitten loons.
Chris Crittenden writes in a Maine spruce forest, fifty miles from the nearest traffic light. He is widely published, and blogs as Owl Who Laughs. contact
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