Two Poems from Chris Crittenden

Glade Alone

lost snowflakes

walk a graveyard

of marbled spruce.

this kind of death,

unmarked and pure,

never reaches the metros.

when solitude

is your mortician

something has gone right.

when your priest is frost,

and only the moon

grieves.

Approach

white sky electric,

a blank silence

starved of wind,

on hold,

suddenly spurred

by skeletons of sparks:

nude maples

shedding last yellow.

a faithful trust,

not known to waver,

buckles from the onslaught

of the approach--

scratches that flash

in jagged dark,

tormenting towers

and tender rooftops,

until mice of fear

in the underbelly of doubt

ricochet to swell

and plunder.

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