Fri Jul 30, 2010


His Ancestor

Michael Gushue

In Conrad’s tribe they lean palm fronds
against sticks lashed together.
The hot sky overturns
on Conrad’s head
like a bathtub of spit.

Frogs are plentiful, better than fish-eating
spiders. No hair to be scraped off.
Conrad misses the time they caught
an agouti. Those were good times.

When strangers enter the clearing,
it’s Conrad’s job to chase them away
with stones and howls and dried dung.
It’s a custom, like cowering at night.

The spring floods trigger an economic
downturn. Every god in the world
is pissed at Conrad. He didn’t scar
himself as much as he should have.

They bury him in a rib cage
woven out of willow branches.


Thu Jul 29, 2010


His Fractals

Michael Gushue

Conrad’s edges are rough around
the edges. He feels fragmented,

but Conrad is no monad. Each part
of Conrad is Conrad. Conrad
is Conradial, Conradgruent.

But also irregular.
Traditional language
has a hard time saying
what shape Conrad is.

Natural objects that approximate
Conrad include clouds, sea
foam, leaves, snow flakes.


Wed Jul 28, 2010


His Affair

Michael Gushue

Conrad pines for an I Saw You shout out:

Farouche, shining-eyed Briseis sights
Conradish-looking Conrad. Shared moment
in Books-A-Million self-help arroyo.
“Up for smashing atoms? Love’s immolation?”

Conrad longs to be Carmenized, but googles
the night away with many, with none.


Tue Jul 27, 2010


In a Station of the Metro

Michael Gushue

Conrad tangles his commute, hardens
his heart contra eye contact, gets pulled
maelstromward, peels out towards open

water, barnacles himself to the perfect
platform spot, sledges through closing
train doors, gets anchovied into place.

Released upstream, Conrad hurdles
rapids turnstiling outflow. Turbulence
boils up to the air, Conrad in tow.

Out on the pavement, in the bite of the air,
the winter light syrups the streets.
Conrad’s gulag slog slows. He stalls.

Along the empty boulevard, the sun
butters windows apricot, glazed
streets a wash of copper, gold leaf.

For just this moment, Conrad is an axe
with a broken haft, a bent nail, a lost
word migrating to its hall of shadows.

These are the days of abandonment.
These are the days we believe in,
because these are the days we have.


Mon Jul 26, 2010


His Day

Michael Gushue

Conrad sits at his desk, fluoresced
by routine, the arthritis
of organization. His annual
evaluation is a pineapple bomb,
ticking.

At lunch, Conrad is a bundle
of celery boiled soft.

Conrad takes one for the home team,
the long halls and the bustling
arsenals of the work place.
He consumeth the wonderbread
of anxious toil, networks
the small vexations of the heart.

Dead from the ankles up, Conrad
zombies the aisles of Kwik-E-Mart.

Conrad returns to his lair. Immersed
in the jacuzzi light of his flatscreen,
he relaxes into homogeneity,
diffidence, the small beer
of american idolatry.