Can’t Help You Because They’re
Dead? I’m Boring Like That
we can never over-simplify the
way death occurs making me
friend like a friend in the dark
my plot to cover the place with tenderness
Earth the planet copes with seven billion
human breaths a second no
exit route planned not sure
if what we do to live
will break
us into dust
hawk washing through my veins
mumbling through spider webs
I love the way we are
high together trying to
shout ourselves off the
map this is dangerous you say
I hit the fallen snow with a
banana over and over chanting
THIS TROPICAL FRUIT NOW KNOWS THE ICE CRYSTAL
THIS TROPICAL FRUIT NOW KNOWS THE ICE CRYSTAL
THIS TROPICAL FRUIT NOW KNOWS THE ICE CRYSTAL
THIS TROPICAL FRUIT NOW KNOWS THE ICE CRYSTAL
Back Our Enemies
my integument breech is
substantial not to brag
killing off the coastline
I can’t stop myself from
butchering it all
your smell is nice
keep me under your coat awhile
you are warmer than I have ever been
smell better than I have ever smelled
ask anybody outside this
intermediate station of
the waist-high demon
garlands of dead
children for the pentagon
catharsis is a daughter
a son a caterwaul
soon we fall apart we
were hoping to do so
dream into a new folder
filed with purple tabs
vocabulary after death has a
different present tense one he
says has vowels I could not bear
With One Eye
Like Creeley
hearing all bells at
once instructs the final exhale
Camelot in thimble of the gods
Marilyn Monroe’s ambulance
lost on the way to the palace of temperament
a branch of government for the magical arts
punch wall of forest for
an oaken
desk
another dream we
needed agitating the
sentence as it rows across a
newly destroyed heart folding
following tormenting one another
we were all once young and
beautiful squandering everything
it’s what we came here to do
cut off engines to the child
registering disposition of
cat in the dark as the
size of the darkness
–for Jen Benka & Carol Mirakove
I rode several of my favourite escalators in Philadelphia, taking notes up and down the vantages. At the top and bottom of the ride I would show photographs of myself to strangers and ask, “EXCUSE ME, have you seen this person?” Sometimes there was confusion, “ISN’T THAT YOU?” I would reply, “No, many people think I look like HER, but have you seen HER?” I feel very fortunate to have been born BEFORE the ultrasound machine. My generation was the last generation to have a male and female name waiting at the other end of the birth canal. My generation is the last to have our mothers touch their bellies talking to us as male and female. Pink or blue?
Both pink and blue, “Have you seen this person?” I enjoyed my conversations with strangers and made at least one new friend, a handsome man who knew I was the person in the photograph. That person, I am that person and agreed. The ultrasound machine gives the parents the ability to talk to the unborn by their gender, taking the intersexed nine-month conversation away from the child. The opportunities limit us in our new world. Encourage parents to not know, encourage parents to allow anticipation on either end. Escalators are a nice ride, slowly rising and falling, writing while riding, notes for the poem, meeting new people at either end, “Excuse me, EXCUSE ME….” My escalator notes became a poem.
WHEN I’M DEAD
I have a
mannequin for
a paperweight
it is difficult to
type with such a
large paperweight
I reach around
lovers late into
night typing
from behind it is
impossible to
tell which
is Virgil
poetry
can be
of use
the field of flying
bullets the hand
reaches through
loving the aftertaste
finding a deeper
third taste
many are
haunted by
human cruelty through
the centuries
I am haunted by
our actions since
breakfast
you said too much poetry
I said too much war
the biggest mistake for
love is straining
there was a
door marked
MISTAKE we
entered
you said too much fooling around
I said fuck off and die
© 2013 CA Conrad
