Rose & Thorn Journal - Fall 2011
Chris Crittenden does much of his writing in a hut in a spruce forest, fifty miles from the nearest traffic light. He teaches environmental ethics for the University of Maine. Some recent acceptances are from Stickman Review, WHL Review, 2River View and Viral Cat. His recent interview on Jane Crown Poetry Radio is on file at janecrown. He blogs as Owl Who Laughs.
Chris Crittenden
In the Philosopher's Condo
truck sounds
thrum stucco walls,
prompting lemmings of dust
to hop off shelves
where books spoon
in tandems of cracked spines,
huddled and geriatric,
bent down over saggy slopes.
a Wyeth on the wall:
crippled young girl in a field,
prostrate with backside forward,
longing in a twilight of fescue.
no other female
to ease the elderly bachelorhood.
decades of life
without a vacuum cleaner
or toilet-bowl brush.
faux feng shui
unbothered by crud,
or cemeteries of flies on sills.
butter expired years ago,
or chocolate stashed and forgotten,
now rust.
Cat Among Curios
tabby against paisley,
brindled paws
kin of a wolf spider.
the Tiffany lonely,
a long darkness to hoe—
gibbous serf of light bulb
seeding a hodgepodge
of nightshades:
amphoras and owl jugs,
Rabelaisian sneers,
a marble philosopher
hounding a bronze lion.
a wolf cane slumps,
gibbeted by scarves;
ants in amber
eternally wretch;
and Judas's denarii
ride Ixion's wheel.
near speculum
and elflock, a god
suffers cracks in his varnish,
while eagles of pigment
dig his liver from the gloom.
In the Philosopher's Condo
truck sounds
thrum stucco walls,
prompting lemmings of dust
to hop off shelves
where books spoon
in tandems of cracked spines,
huddled and geriatric,
bent down over saggy slopes.
a Wyeth on the wall:
crippled young girl in a field,
prostrate with backside forward,
longing in a twilight of fescue.
no other female
to ease the elderly bachelorhood.
decades of life
without a vacuum cleaner
or toilet-bowl brush.
faux feng shui
unbothered by crud,
or cemeteries of flies on sills.
butter expired years ago,
or chocolate stashed and forgotten,
now rust.
Cat Among Curios
tabby against paisley,
brindled paws
kin of a wolf spider.
the Tiffany lonely,
a long darkness to hoe—
gibbous serf of light bulb
seeding a hodgepodge
of nightshades:
amphoras and owl jugs,
Rabelaisian sneers,
a marble philosopher
hounding a bronze lion.
a wolf cane slumps,
gibbeted by scarves;
ants in amber
eternally wretch;
and Judas's denarii
ride Ixion's wheel.
near speculum
and elflock, a god
suffers cracks in his varnish,
while eagles of pigment
dig his liver from the gloom.
