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- from FRANK by CAConrad
- with illustrations by Hak Vogrin
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The painting above is the proposed frontispiece.
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- Frank’s sister grew long blue feathers
she said it was worse than cutting teeth
she spent a month screaming in the cave
pushing them out
Frank would lie in bed at night
touching his own back
crying
praying it wouldn’t
come to him
but the day his sister flew to the house
he stood by the window in awe
giant blue spread coming in across the lake
he heard the hunter’s shot before she did
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- Frank remembers
shirts of buried generals
flying in formation
over schoolyards
blowing wasps from sleeves
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- “would you sign
my book Mr. Poe?”
Frank asks the pile of bones
amidst shovels of dirt
“why certainly young
man” answers Frank in a
different voice
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- Frank knows a
butterfly
who wonders
about her old
caterpillar
friends
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- she was exotic company
her mouth
full of mouse
Frank never heard a word
his gaze
steady on the mouse
disappearing to reappear
with every syllable
devoted
he prayed
to God she’d
marry him
but late in the night
she touched his hand
Frank recoiled
and realized
it was really
the mouse
in her mouth
he loved
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- May
flowers
Frank shuts
his legs
but
music
seeps
through
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- “ I’m here for the show” the man said
looking under Frank’s shirt for the door
“I’m no theater” Frank said
a line formed
must he admit them all?
many had umbrellas
a blind woman
waited with
her dog
“it’s gonna be a great show” someone said
“but when’s he gonna let us in?”
Frank’s tears began to fall
someone ripped his doors open
they filled him for an hour
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- “where these sharks
roll their
appetite” Frank
asks “am I
appealing
finally
to someone?”
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- at the doctor’s request
Frank stopped shaving the chair
in a month
it was the most comfortable chair
in the house
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- “is no one else
SICK of this
paralysis of
gravity!?”
Frank asks
“when I was a boy
I stepped into the sky
and I was a boy
not a surrealist!
part of the dream
is that you accept
your waking life as
part of the dream.”
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- Frank wonders
if the approaching
mouth of the
clock is opening
to swallow
or blow him
out of its
way?
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- CAConrad
- http://PhillySound.blogspot.com
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