christine dutton

Christine Dutton was born and raised in Rochester, New York, outside of a short stint in the Deep South. She currently lives with her partner, an artist, in Northampton, MA. She has been active in the poetry "scene" and reads her work at Fire & Water. Her work has appeared in Aileron, KotaPress, Poems for Peace and Deep Cleveland. cgdutton@hotmail.com

Strange Disease

announcement relived
carefully engineered womb exits
new foot crawled
strange disease destiny

fractures fissures
stressors between teeth
ground to moment
halt of new heights
fear of floating
rising to, the edge,
a scream

words to be spared
quiet choir and
the dinner table

The tease

take me to the end
with all of you pent up inside
you are everywhere, it's like moving
you are 100 years old

you are still
and I ache like the death of me
i have been, scrubbed clean and raw
just beyond wanting

allow me to sin
shedding the moment you're dangling
like a, dried up old river bed
between your fingertips

far more than fear
you can sense my hairs standing on end
playing upright, sensing beneath me
and only for show

Unnatural State

your fate has been decided
discount upon discount
your value
less than the price of salt

your place has been created
by examining your skull
your shape
slotting you into your location

your thoughts long been derided
sunk beneath the earth
your self
a distant rumble

your cause abruptly ended
turning what is lost into
your fear
devoid of the truth

"Dis"-function of topia

upon the repeal of
"moral" law
I commenced a grand
celebration
with my left hand
upon my lips
and caressing with
legs wide
on the subway car,
on my way to you,
as a close to
any meeting
or just because I
was bored as I
waited on line

in what is now common
decency
i would scream
as anything I desired
caught my eye
as anything I dreamed
excited me,
when I was angry
at those
in the way of what I wanted
and when I came
oh God
how I loved
that
you could hear me

in this new world
i opened up and swallowed whole
everyone I hated,
who betrayed me
or displayed the body
of the whole you, them
you haunted me
and I have returned
the favor
to those who
caused me to fear
and sob and rip
me to shreds
to Justice!
becoming

the way now is
to allow me
to say I love
without an image
of all man, woman
and the wild
in the descent on
the bloody heartstone
smashed with iron
smashed with diamond
see me
smell me
smash
blood and stone

Peace

I. On Hatred

Face of iron, steel
Strong in resolve to end
All of the evil that is
Against us

Opposite of our ways
Extraordinary in difference
With the pencil point
In their direction

Place of our meeting
See the sound of each
Having our children,
The same

II. On Liberties

Mouth where we need
It to shout the rant
Of OUR single suffering
OUR pain

Direction to his home
We hang and shoot him
Destroy his only sense
Of American

Country where
Original freedom
Was blessed from the start
And our original purpose,
Remember?

III. On Race

Eyes "who" for the reward,
Must be the white man wins
Must be for me
To be

Walk to who is black
Weak in his darkness
And death for many
By me

City of who will dread
Our spite in their direction
Stop the suffering
For "WE"

IV. On War

Her body when separated
By a calculated attack
Was just a crash and burn
For all

Their search when needing
A core of being of god
Of truth of meaning of voice
Of sacred of glory
Was death

But our land when taken
Need not = retaliation
With bombs with bombs with bombs
Our spirit, forsaken