CAConrad Poems

journeyman who
denies everything
even the journey
lost in a pile of
needles and spools
the only trees in this
desert are books
a bottle made of
ideas hits
the throat of the system
tell us about that gold watch you dropped into hot coals
shame's a balance beam
better off crashing to
the ground
stay there
stopping
the blood
a lot of blown-up
mountains to
keep the
lights on
...

the pearl starts over
a new grain of sand
we are going to find
in the planet of blue
a freshly written eviction note
a sash hanging off the horse
told the story without you
the kind of children we deserve who rob us in our sleep
we never need to believe in anything again
they take our car and money and head for the beach
...

another poet
apologizes at a microphone
weakening the hull of our ship
if you can't believe in your poems
leave them at home until you
learn to deserve them
this poem this poet
will not apologize
I'm tired of smelling my dead boyfriend
his swimming arms lost to my bed
it hurts to admit I love being alive
I broke and those pieces broke
and those pieces crushed to powder
things to avoid saying around me:
take it like a trooper
stiff upper lip
keep it together
don't let your mouth say these things
don't let your comfort be selfish cruelty
let them shriek
let them sob
don't be
a coward
about love
...

no one knows where I am in the morning and I like that
set my periscope on breath of dreaming tyrants
heir to a forest
do you mean fortune
no I mean forest caressing wound of earth surrounding it
twelve trees is a forest these days
clinging to dirt between
shopping malls and banks
everything gets caught clinging between
shopping malls and banks
ask your children
what the new
moon requires
...

everyone asks for the you they remember
I wish for no new way to feel alone again
America is
the wrong angel
a classic wristwatch
on the arm of a man who
thinks he owns himself
back to the borrowed
amount of living
here is a rough sketch of what
we look like inside when mortality
distracts us from how we destroy the world
I draw Odin's ravens
under the shelf of
teapots in the
department
store
may the tea bring us strength
may wings lift us to revolution
...

in the backseat a
portion of our music is
mucus flying into stillness
at what point do we submit
to the authority of flowers
at what point after it enters
the mouth is it no longer in the
mouth but the throat the colon
making sumptuous death of the world
this is what crossing the line gains
no need to pretend we
are the people we
want to be in
the next life
bone under
tongue drives
taste of snow to metal
sorry I threw up at your wedding
it wasn't from drinking it was from
thinking on mountain all night waking
tangled in spirits of morning light
our planet floats on emptiness
the undisclosed mirror
held to flame
pushed it into
a pile of ash
a trail of ash
leading us
toe to toe
with wild sides
what's emerging is
a grip we've been
reaching for please
grab hold with us
...

butterfly on a tissue box
not a real one
a painting
...

I'm going in for
a CAT scan i
mean an audition
...

what was it you
wanted us to
say after you died
...

by choking in
11 years
...