CAConrad
Two Poems
Signal and Sway
everything
vibrates
and we
get to
feelcon
cen
tration has
the Love even
saying Magic with
embarrassmenti fail the
end of
suffering
with youboots
bought 10 years
ago by
younger man
same nameevery
vibrating
thingbared
teeth ahead
visible
for
some
timean invitation
to the fistso adorable
trembling
for
predatorsexcuse me
i meant to
say fuck youknives coming
down
trying
to eat itis it the
emotional distance
of the waitress
you come for?aria of snail
ticking smaller
in the sound
breathing louder
in the lighthow long
can we believe
this world
belongs to us?is it a
toilet or
grave being
made?he answers
by asking
is it a cartoon
or fiction?
Amber Zoom Lens
There Is (There
Is Not) Confusion
if i
die old
they can’t
say God
punished meor is Hell
the punishment?
hard to keep
the threats straighttomorrow i’ll
climb into
the cellar of the
burned down house
there’s always one
more thing
shiny
buried
deep
insidetoday being angry
my tax dollars
purchased bullets
not bookswe
reach the trains
pushing and
running
to find
plenty of seats
plenty of timewhen my friends
are in pain
i cry with them
but not
with strangersare there not
enough tears?it’s
exhausting
imagining
tears refusing
the jobwhat was the
song my father
hummed to save
his mind in the
cardboard
box factory?no
let’s not rememberso much to forget
to relax
to sleep betteryou want to forget
what you did
to me
go ahead i understand
i will want to forget
what i will do
to you one dayafter a
little while
nothing’s as clean
as newcrying with friends
is clean
ignoring strangers is
nothing but
layers of
staindid your hamburger
have feelings?does my question
annoy you?well here’s another
do you always
embrace torture
and murder with
pickles and sauce?“it”s better
than nothing” is
no comfort with
nothing
close
at handthe house is
emptied by
fire one
nightthe train still
takes you there
dinner
cocktails
hungry and
thirsty it’s
strange what
we expect
from no
one homeevery morning
is not like
every morningthis morning
as much
light as
possible
sitting
right
in
it