Cover

Gordian

Butterflies

Written By: Chris Crittenden

Review Editor: Shanna Wheelock

162 N. Lubec Rd.

Lubec, ME 04652

ccritten@gwi.net

Originally printed by

Quality Copy & Digital Print, Inc.

Hallowell, Maine

Welcome!

With this fifth chapbook I continue my blundering attempts to provide a brief yet adequate

preface, one that renders my passion fresh. In previous tries, I’ve sounded ecstatic, nihilistic, or

doom-stung, naively trumpeting how dear this whole enterprise is. I suspect these florid

excursions brought chuckles and yawns, and most of all a forgetfulness worthy of the River

Lethe.

Still, I refuse to supply a bland boilerplate of an introduction. I suppose my ultimate goal, not

realized yet and perhaps destined to always be ahead, is for my poems to mimic those little

particles that prompt chain reactions. In other words, I want them to spark a kind of mental

fission throughout a community. This doesn’t mean I want my words to make people drop dead,

not unless it is that kind of minor death which leads to rebirth. I think I will leave at that and

take up the gauntlet again next time. However, one thing remains absolutely certain: I am very

indebted to my talented and magical wife Shanna Wheelock for the many ways she has

supported and improved me, poetically and otherwise.

And a very special thanks to Lissa Kiernan, Poetry Editor at Arsenic Lobster, for her technical

assistance and her generous time spent reviewing this chapbook. She is a brilliant poet and I’m

honored to gain a moment under the spotlight of her formidable perspicacity.

I will end with a thought I had the other day: I like to speak as if we lived in a world where the

heart could be free.

Best To Everyone,

Chris

Acknowledgements

Poems in this chapbook originally appeared in:

Thick With Conviction

Ballard Street Poetry Review

Offcourse

Bolts of Silk

Wilderness House Lit Review

Ilya’s Honey

Poetry Friends

Merge Poetry

Rougarou

Edge

Raving Dove

Cerulean Rain

Boston Literary Review

Barnwood Magazine

Pemmican Press

Juice Poetry Magazine

Drunken Boat

Blueline

Temenos

Poetic Diversity

Table of Contents

Ghost Song ...............................................................1

Nude In Wind ...........................................................2

Pharmaceutical .........................................................3

Ranch Trees .............................................................4

Ice Leaves Road .......................................................5

Wind Thought ..........................................................6

Winter Reflection .....................................................7

Collecting Yucca Brushes ........................................8

Proselytizers .............................................................9

Long Term Snow ...................................................10

Fugitives From The Urban .....................................11

Clown Spiel ............................................................12

Weapon Possessed .................................................13

Messages From God ..............................................14

Invisible Man .........................................................15

Gnats In Melee .......................................................16

Soldier Turns Atheist .............................................17

Summary ................................................................18

Pain ........................................................................19

Dark Touch ............................................................20

Boulders At Beach .................................................21

The Gods Reflect On Creation ...............................22

On The Toilet .........................................................23

1

Ghost Song

the dead fly past,

overarching.

to them we are roots

slow to grasp.

they sup our thoughts

like hummingbirds taking syrup,

resplendent of flit,

brief.

we glimpse a quark of flash,

a dash of blush,

maybe some lucent eyes—

love’s aftereffect.

they laugh at us

like wind chiding honey

as we inch full-bodied,

riled by ebbs—

the dead laugh.

they race to our end

and return,

outflanking lazy hops of sun.

they rush past our questions

and back many times,

amused—

the dead laugh,

coveting our worries,

springing off our breaths.

2

Nude In Wind

swirls of lockets

steal pictures from her skin,

tease a museum

across her face,

pasts

soft as membranes,

tangerine from the sun,

pedestal of dragonflies—

are they her muscles,

soaring as she walks?

is her heartbeat a waterfall

spread out into flickers?

she’s drenched and cleansed

by clear stairs that spiral up her body,

lift its song,

dissipating the sparks

of her reason. after a long

unruly game of toss,

earth catches her,

lets her blue look up

at sky so patient,

no hint of the mischief

meandering there—

as if someone else had turned her

into a leaf.

3

Pharmaceutical

granular mixture,

once root, bud and agave teat,

now synthesized, brainwashed

and hoodwinked

into a clean cousin

of LSD, capsule

that settles the suicidal,

alka seltzer for the head,

bathing neurons in fizz

till they’re too numb to think.

such white pure beach sand,

dissolving in the boudoirs

of the intimate mind—

like Jamaica ingested,

complete with Mai Thai,

and a hammock so limp

and spineless you hardly know

the fabric is you.

4

Ranch Trees

frondy ashes

clasp squiggles of sun,

trickle the heat

across whispers

while breeze

tousles their manes,

airy green foams

above centurial brawn.

who touches these tomes,

learns from the roughs

of their grimalkin bark?

their midlife knotholes?

their sapling dreads?

who remembers them

when dreaming under plaster

as they sentinel midnight,

sighing?

5

Ice leaves Road

water neath white,

slow as a quilt

of seeping snakes,

long lungs of liquid

breathing earth

below fading ribs.

rivulets carve combs,

berths wilder

than the rhymes

of Deadalus,

agile

as the metamorphosis

of mist, sculpting

free,

arch and chrysalis,

florid tracery

that fades, swallowed

in gleams—

doomed columns,

pebbles for plinths,

so many brief exotic

parthenons.

6

Wind Thought

its broken career

makes goblins

out of trees,

whistles wounded

in their teething

fissures.

it steals hats,

pulls Medusa

from our heads,

writhing locks

like Marley’s chains,

all of us Scrooge

near this astral waif

who craves our gifts—

this first panhandler

who sups fall leaves

like hors d’oeuvres from mud,

catapulting its thirst,

restless for a bed

but finding only space,

emptier greedier space,

a vortex of racks

stretching all ways—

as if wind were

some protean Atlas,

trapped yet fleeing,

breaking out

in tantrums that lurch,

only to lick god’s

toe.

7

Winter Reflection

tattered elegies

have yielded to the pure—

no questions in snow, only surfeit,

bloat doubling as graves.

all is perfect,

from the cold white hearth

to nudes of willows.

rushes sequined with still drops.

glazed thistle roves.

no hooligans spar—

only owls and wolves

mating in the howling fetch.

ice watches, neither lewd nor chaste,

polished, not splendid

like the eyes of alphas—

the arcane yellow glare

of the rut.

this is god’s time,

when flowers are thoughts

and thorns gutter.

hopes abound

because hearts are mere seeds,

cloistered, prayerful,

slept.

8

Collecting Yucca Brushes

he has been climbing

in barbed straw,

shins parting

a scaffold of grasshoppers,

only coyote trails

as guide—

yet the yucca beckon,

their green staves

young and rawboned,

boasting clusters

of storm-fed pods.

he plucks one off

and zigzags it

like a rattle,

chanting

as he parts

the withered skirt below,

collecting only

last year’s husks.

only these—sharp

and crisp,

will dip into pigment

cupped by nacre,

gleam spirits into life

on the hide of a cave.

afterward, they will join

blue smoke dancing—

incense lifted

to Grandmother.

9

Proselytizers

these black-clad clones

are sexton beetles, my eyes

their mouse and they see

in the apertures

graves—they

want to bury my sight

inside itself, inter

my mind, their

sexton beetle eggs

in my vision,

eating it, rebirthing it

to swarm across

what i denied;

and now i

see the merit

of insect skin, numb

and gleaming little

knights—

their swords tongues

red with infidels, their

scuttles noble as they

seek more mice,

burying them

like slain plums, implanting

their spermy gluttony,

fruitful as their jesus

multiplies.

10

Long Term Snow

no fleeing this drifter

dogged as barnacles,

stark as lichen on bones,

callused and clumped.

we simply endure

the landscape-wide nevus,

a discoloration to Earth,

leprous for the rest of us—

who must flounder

in its tasteless cakes,

sinking through layers

to the hidden frost—

we eat our way out

and still freeze,

victims of plenteous ice,

champions of numbness.

it attacks goldenrods

as if they were vocal chords,

dismaying time, seizing

pendulums of pokeweed—

holding them in stasis

or cracking them off,

like skeleton keys

that unlock nothing

save their own descent.

we all suffer that wintry fate,

buried without wanting to know,

encased by the coffin outside.

11

Fugitives From The Urban

hurt we are,

troublesome,

our guilt like dirty steak knives

that slew sacred cows.

unseen we are,

like a battle on Andromeda,

mischievous in nooks

of faint mausoleums.

no preacher freed us,

no Sappho or Sartre,

no Buddha like a gong

rippling our revival—

no crucifix,

no lysergic diethylamide,

no death or exodus

or creed—

we just saw.

exhumed ourselves,

swept off the roots

of skyscrapers

and cell phones,

washed off the dirt

of What-Must.

we looked at a world

beyond stress-chewed faces

and saw it was good.

12

Clown Spiel

pranks can do loop-de-loops

around a carnival heart,

slaphappy as they slide

through giddy veins,

every romp

trickily tuned,

like a gyroscope on

juggler’s pins.

every freewheeling

obscene toe

or gin-red nose;

every polka-dot-neon

suspender slip to

bawdry lace; every raucous

guffaw

that floors the grandstand,

jiggles the navels

of carneys

and roustabouts,

these

and these alone

spice the ringmaster’s

brew of risks,

so that sword-swallowers

and lion tamers,

high-wire walkers and elephant girls

don’t seem so sad.

13

Weapon Possessed

bitten by his rifle,

the trigger a sting

swelling into his finger,

he can’t retreat, only shoot,

wherever he goes they

tell him to shoot,

and his gun agrees,

poisons his kindness,

owns him like a scorpion

that whips across culture,

between the eyes.

he can’t accept

this werewolf life

of murder and being a scared father,

of serving peace but cradling

a metal demon-baby instead—

knowing it wants

to jump into fights,

to kick angry in his arms,

get hot, snarl, rage.

and when it’s done vomiting death

it goes back to its coffin

in a locker,

below the picture of his wife

and child.

14

Messages From God

they come like meth

in jiggers of holy water,

monstrous spices, dashes

of swords and tyrants,

like Dracula when you

first meet his grin,

or tarantulas without legs,

but somehow still there—

warning signs, forbidden

like the first impulse

to murder.

friends can’t see

and churches don’t forgive them.

think of visions

slipperier than lies,

nettles on a porcupine

whose barbs are debts—

like mildew on your masks,

or flies raining instead of tears,

prophecies that split into hooks,

using you as bait—

you want to defuse and reject them,

to salute and grin—

but they are hot as fangs

pushing through your lips,

making you shriek—

decrees no one will believe

or condone.

15

Invisible Man

the perpetual noneness

is what hurts,

like static eroding

stones by the sea—

except they are my

feelings, desperately

clutched, elbows crossed

like a pharaoh who became

a wasps’ nest.

who’s looking? who sleuths?

was i murdered even though

i still breathe? am i

the postage stamp on unsent hopes,

and why do i break apart

when i run for the cemetery,

my skin fluttering off, mothy,

before i get there?

if only god

would track me down,

aim for my vague

adam’s apple.

many times i’ve been

the mist in his breath.

i wish he would find out.

i wish he would care.

16

Gnats In Melee

rollicking prisms shrunk to dust,

breeze-hounded and sex-stung,

a nebula tethered to fire,

sprouted then dismantled,

vibrating with unseen eggs—

a bazaar of breath

fused to a hoopla of slivers—

crazed phantasmata,

rapt fountain of membranes,

airy nucleus of insectoid hydrogen.

this ganglion of swamps,

puzzles and societies,

jitterbugs with sunlight

in scrambling glints.

frogs fixate on the fast hypnosis,

scanning sparks like those

in their own meat—

the fraught marrow of nerves

where instincts lunge like long tongues

tangled in the brain’s gut.

these heralds, size of corpuscles,

flickering between dark and blaze,

they tattoo my cheek with boisterous death,

prophesying with milliseconds—

and a vigorous apathy that has no hands,

no uterus, no face—

they sculpt like erosion,

whittling stony miasma,

sprinkling the frantic quartz

over a gravestone of years.

17

Soldier Turns Atheist this embolism

blocking his will to pray,

it holds so much blood

that he can see villages of red,

mounds of coagulation.

did God lie to him

or the President who said

this was the will of God?

did Freedom really sanction

this?

all this pooling messy sticky pain,

disgusting shrieking—

not like children on halloween,

not like a movie.

no,

a real child

ripped apart, slaughtered

into chunks by a bomb,

pieces of little girl

raining down everywhere,

splatting and sticking,

a wild crucifixion.

one eyeball mashed,

the other ten feet away, looking

like a pollywog at the sky,

where peace should dwell,

and asking,

“is littered meat allowed in heaven”

18

Summary

he flails in a nurturant sphere,

kicking every vein.

he escapes and waddles,

brays and cockadoodles,

until a sloppy word

slings off his tongue

into an aural bull’s-eye.

he mutates as he speaks,

sobbing then elated,

serene yet monstrous,

injected by pituitaries.

he brags and postures,

guns a chevy, fidgets against

the crux of a girl.

then life’s two parts suburb,

five parts chain.

stress and boredom take turns

grinding him against chores.

worries rush through

his pancreas

until he’s frazzled and grizzled,

a mellowed stump of cocky banana

whose peel once hummed.

he placates his grandchildren,

chortles when they say he’s great—

when death and age are merely stains

on the stretching agenda

of his glory

19

Pain

are you tadpole or anaconda?

bugaboo or truth?

is your tongue pert

like a silver prick,

chic with cruelty?

or are you grubby,

slothful and broke—

glass crown licking

a gutter?

i run from your chase

till vigor laminates

my muscles

but when you catch my heart

i loathe

your horns, which gouge

peace, poise and trust—

like a minotaur

hid yet invincible,

trampling hope, and piety too—

as if to say to god

am i the monster

you intended?

20

Dark Touch

we move across each other

like snakes on a hunt,

silky then thickening

like cement, striking

our caduceus pose,

forked to forked,

gimlet-tight,

screwing each other

down, through lewd

striae, down

through buried memento

mori,

ignoring their fatal glee,

following the roosterfish plumes

of hornfels, erupting

into a ventricle hot

with the scent of lava,

that bright iron blood

hypnotized and magnetized,

binding us in an orbit of crave.

how many times have we circled,

splitting apart into ooze,

fusing again—how many times

this recurring pulse

over a dreadful core?

21

Boulders At Beach shattered crab bones

litter scoured slabs,

smashed by seagulls

that slurped their piths;

but life thrives

in slimy gouges

where larvae jerk,

shimmying S’s

near flies that walk water,

dogfighting in blinks—

then once again

strutting the miracle.

down where drunk ocean

hammers the cliffs,

you have to marvel

at bruised seaweed

parrying like tridents.

barnacles own

the plateau here,

glommed into scabrous mats.

their sharp hatches tear denim,

defend a glut

of small-minded doors—

hungers that sit on each other,

lean against fences of mussels,

blue-black pikemen

knotted into clumps

within cracks.

you have to marvel

at the strength

of the rock-life’s mediocrity—

its all-powerful urges,

its stoic cramming,

the hardbitten, paralyzed

rage.

22

The Gods Reflect On Creation we gibbered and gabbled

in the null onyx,

afraid that heat might seethe.

one of us quacked too loud

and light erupted, birthing awe

alongside violence and waste.

after eons of reptiles

prayer wafted up. it was far better

than mindless solar pageantry.

our new toadies prattled

more efficiently than we,

collapsing truth

into a few apt equations.

soon they had a stash

of nuclear kicks,

enough to freckle plains

with poisonous craters.

it wasn’t enough for them

to gnaw the crust. life itself

made them salivate, the urge

to splice it into freaks,

to distill tints and recombine piths—

like evolution but more wanton,

even slutty; an orgy to harvest ambrosia,

so they could be immortal like us,

sit on pinnacles and shout in release—

to be as great

as the thrill that started it all,

that seminal yoctosecond

among the timeless idiocy

of our babbling.

23

On The Toilet

in my hands National Geographic

decreeing that Neanderthal practiced cannibalism,

based on marks on femurs—

or perhaps, the article twists,

our ancestors enjoyed a few rib eyes

before pushing N.’s dregs

off Iberia.

in the corner, amaryllis

(says tape on pea-green pot)

leers like a gaggle

of embarrassed victrolas,

flirty fuchsia

not too sauced to blush

at spread knees and dropped denim,

my impudent nonchalance.

next page, Utah,

boastful of Mormon and petroglyph.

it turns out, the author bleeds,

that the white man

knows very little about what

he extinguished—

as i flush.

24

Chris Crittenden lives in a remote area of Maine where there are more moose than streetlights.

He has published over three hundred poems, including work in Chelsea, Atlanta Review,

Drunken Boat and DMQ Review. With his Ph.D. in philosophy, he fearlessly teaches applied

ethics and environmental ethics for the University of Maine, and rides the mysterium fascinas of

a calling that combines ecofeminism, shadow medicine, and shamanic journey.