erode + / putrid /: 2 Poems by Kryst Le Grif

 erode

[poem reads straight down until the word "swallow" staggered line by line to the right. It is overlaid on a translucent picture of a wild plant that is drying out and has fluffy seeds on top. erode: Take the cracker, Scrape the mayo fish glob on, Inhale the shore and let your incisors sink in...Feel the grit rumble around, Small shards slip into your front gap, Slick saliva across the enamel to wipe away...Sludge the mixture around. Swallow......I feel my jaw muscles pull with extra burden, Head dense with the fog that rolled in. It did not want to exist today, Too busy, Weighted by heavy thoughts...But my insides were hollow, And my mind incapable of direction, And I of decision, And my mouth only of mastication, And my knuckles drag like cavemen, And my soul its cavity.....Shove whatever you can muster through your cracked vestibule.]

/ putrid /

[poem is stacked line by line vertically with staggered indentation. The poem is overlaid on a translucent picture that has the impression of thick fog, ringlets of a person's red hair, and some Christmas tinsel. / putrid / : Vinegar fills the air, acid coats your nose hairs, It feels like each strand is being tugged at like a swinging rope...Several small plastic cups are strewn in every room, Rose Gold solution in each one is speckled with dead fruit flies who went for a swim….Two heaping mountains of dishes, clog the porcelain sink, Once white now coated in sludge, Varying degrees of leftover bits from food consumed mold their own new forms of life, Fruit flies breed and swarm...Accompanying the sink are slick black bags overwhelmed with waste, Rotted vegetable cores pulsate from within, odorous filth, Laundry overflows on the linoleum floor, Cloth that has been peeled off dirt oiled skin collects and seeps...The toilet unflushed under the open window, A mesh veil to the concrete slab of...collected dog excrement that has baked all summer...Tumbleweeds of dirt and hair, Layers of dust that could wool a blanket, And a woman cocooned in an unmade bed.]

Kryst Le Grif is an aquarian alien queen assimilating amongst homo sapiens.  A lover of poetry with torrid affairs in short story and script writing.  She studied English and creative writing at the University of Louisville and has been published twice in Numinous magazine.  She has been critically acclaimed from her mom as ‘a beautiful writer who has Peter Pan syndrome and needs to get a real job.’ You can find more of Kryst's work at her website.