we have placed our final bets
we have come out to play


Joyce Pensato, A Different Homer, 2006

Old Photograph of Me
-- by CAConrad

I remember his smile
behind the camera

From Celebrities I've Seen Offstage
-- by CAConrad

Pete Rose signing autographs at the 1980 World Series in Vet Stadium I was wishing he was my father then I saw Tug McGraw and wished he was instead.

Debbie Harry entering the Kennel Club I got high in an alley with my friends not old enough to get inside we imagined dancing and laughing doing lines of coke with Debbie singing "Heart of Glass" the higher we got

Gregory Corso pacing back and forth in the North Star Bar office ranting at me, Janet, Jim and Dee about how we only wanted to open for him so we could ride his famous coattails which was crazy because we were invited to open for him he calmed down later and we all had a great night

Courteney Love and Billy Corrigan at J.C. Dobbs while I was on stage reading poems with Regie Cabico for the Lollapalooza show everyone lathered themselves in Courteney's drunken blond drama later she crossed the street to Zipperhead to set fire to t-shirts with Kurt's death certificate on them

Patti Smith outside the Trocadero a year later on South Street years later in HMV Records when she yelled at my friend Jeffrey for taking her picture

Sold smiley Cameron Diaz a copy of Philosophy for Dummies and I thought to myself "THIS is going in my goddamned poem!"

Leaving the Only Bed America
That Keeps Me Satisfied
-- by CAConrad

on the bus
i'm still in love with you
getting out of town
like you said
fast as i can
a flea
from your cat
works my ankle
chewing as much
as he can chew of me
and i'm wishing
he was
so
much
bigger