Storm over London & Sahara, poems by Chris Crittenden

gales spew sinews of rain,
strings of a mangled sitar
riffed by thunder—

doomed toy whose cloudy wood
fractures while it plays,
the music spurring
a morbid dance—

as if gutters were veins
swelling to embody
some brief necropolis.

there are no prayers
on the streets, baptismal
though they are with
shushing water.

cars plod like prisoners
with obese glares;
people tilt like Kokopelli,
charcoal dancers
praising drum beats—

but really they’re puppets
tied to the storm,
tugged by its fierce chords,
running away.

docile mounds
like women’s breasts,
yet the dunes shuffle as if
older than femininity—
seeds of chaos, not milk.

in wind, the sand boils
like shrunken gnats—
any flesh they find
gets sucked by stone fleas.

collectively they’re a whisper,
quiet as centigrade shimmering.
listen and you can hear them
hiss as they creep—

a dirge heard often
by the dehydrated
and the starving.