Aaron Crippen
Two Poems
Bottled Stars
Pink,
lilac,blood brown.
Every flower, on every stem,
is wilted.
But you, Violet, blaze.Wilt nips your tips of violet fear-fire.
Why fear go?
Your friends, for their deaths,
are no less beautiful.See? Iris is a cloud of moth,
and tranquil Orchid,
the wing of a bird that’s flown.
Second Nature
From the soil of Shanghai
a forest is rising,
rising to meet the sky
of smog, thick
smog.It blots the skyline.
Blunted pagodas,
blocked,
cornered,
rise.