{"id":2460,"date":"2014-04-21T20:45:44","date_gmt":"2014-04-21T20:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/?page_id=2460"},"modified":"2014-04-21T21:02:16","modified_gmt":"2014-04-21T21:02:16","slug":"chris-crittenden-april-2014","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/chris-crittenden-april-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Crittenden, April 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barstow Junction<\/strong><\/p>\n

dry nettlesome air,
\nit had the heat of a femur-long railroad spike,
\nnailing him to the motel bed,
\nor pinioning his knees to pray.<\/p>\n

crows added more cast iron,
\nhundreds listless
\non the weapon held by the telephone poles:
\nthat long, vein-sized garrote
\nconstricting the pulse of the town.<\/p>\n

Barstow wasn\u2019t round or flat or social or open,
\nit was a sluice of squares,
\nan ooze of commodities, chains
\nof hellbound freight.<\/p>\n

its DNA was a snarl of
\nbusiness molecules loaded on
\nsqueals of metal that whined across
\nmiles of sluggish boxcars.<\/p>\n

many victims plodded by–
\nore and bitumen, cattle and timber,
\nsuffering the great desert,
\nenslaved to soulless deposits of cash,<\/p>\n

so very small.<\/p>\n

Sink<\/strong><\/p>\n

flies over the sink.
\nhe had more patience for them now,
\ndidn\u2019t care to note
\nthe swerves of their Doppler whines.<\/p>\n

some might accuse him
\nof lax affect.
\nor anhedonia.<\/p>\n

but it was mystical, if only by default.
\na new kind of (lack of) etiquette.
\na brand new take on death.<\/p>\n

it had never made sense,
\nthe wholesomeness of enamel.
\nbleach-and-scrub
\ncould be a killer\u2019s shine:<\/p>\n

thinking of knives and forks
\nas bones.<\/p>\n

the crud
\nglued to misstacked plates
\nhad been bitten once:
\na chomp on the flank of a pig.
\na gobble of turkey.
\ndentures probing the chest of a cow.<\/p>\n

it didn\u2019t matter much how you interpreted it.
\nbut then again
\nnot all of the objectified beast
\nwould go down.<\/p>\n

Brunch<\/strong><\/p>\n

when black ties acted nice
\nthey were forming teams,
\neager to resemble the same old
\nrich mannequins.<\/p>\n

but the plastic jungle
\nwas breaking apart, headed toward
\naggression, falling off
\na kindness cliff.<\/p>\n

in fact, violence brought sales:<\/p>\n

attacks on other countries.
\nassaults on the poor.
\nprofitable ways to harm a planet.<\/p>\n

to play this game
\nyou had to hold a lot of oil-rigged cards,
\nshaped like yachts
\nor development zones.<\/p>\n

it was all very good, as innocent as red lambs,
\nbecause none of the players
\never saw the knives,
\nor had a desire to slash.<\/p>\n

Detective<\/strong><\/p>\n

so much shirking
\nwas a collective scream afraid to speak out.
\nit could only protest in that way that had no voice,
\none that worsened the inner pain
\nby sharpening the little teeth of painful jobs.
\nthe workers of course would never say
\ntheir job was a leech on the heart.
\nyou had to read it in the lines of facial stress.
\nyou had to observe the sounds
\nwithin the jails of their fake words.
\nthe little winces under the eyes.
\nthe brief squirms along the outskirts
\nof the lips.<\/p>\n

the truth languished there
\nin such confined moments, bashing against
\nrestraints that were so polite,
\nit was hard to believe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chris Crittenden writes from a struggling fishing village in Maine, fifty miles from the nearest traffic light. \u00a0He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Vine Leaves Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barstow Junction dry nettlesome air, it had the heat of a femur-long railroad spike, nailing him to the motel bed, or pinioning his knees to pray. crows added more cast iron, hundreds listless on the weapon held by the telephone poles: that long, vein-sized garrote constricting the pulse of the town. Barstow wasn\u2019t round or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":934,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2460","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nChris Crittenden, April 2014 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fullofcrow.com\/poetry\/archives\/chris-crittenden-april-2014\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chris Crittenden, April 2014 - Full Of Crow: Poetry (Archives)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barstow Junction dry nettlesome air, it had the heat of a femur-long railroad spike, nailing him to the motel bed, or pinioning his knees to pray. crows added more cast iron, hundreds listless on the weapon held by the telephone poles: that long, vein-sized garrote constricting the pulse of the town. 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