Christina Conrad

elephants teeth


on your birthday
i wipe
tears from your eyes


on your birthday
i wipe
dust from the leaves
of a young umbrella tree


i hold
2 teeth in my hand
you say
these teeth might be
elephants teeth
no cow could have teeth
this big


i keep my mouth
tightly
shut


on your birthday
i wipe
tears from your eyes
i wipe dust
from the leaves
of a young umbrella tree


you read me a rilke poem
life is death
death is life
angels are terrible


on your birthday
i wipe
tears from your eyes

Female Christ

female christ

Lovers

lovers

poem for two voices


if money doesnt come soon well have to leave new
york
i hate it anyway


but you hated australia


not the desert... i loved the desert
i love florence... i love paris...


you hated tuscany.


the shops were too far away.
i walked miles in the sun.
there was no bathroom, no water.
i tell you, there was no water.


you never invited me there.


you didnt have any money.
there were too many serpents.
i went to florence
i stayed in a hotel


whilst i was dying of love for you
you went to paris.


i stayed at shakespeare and co.
i gave readings there.
it once belonged to sylvia beach.


you never asked me there.

i went to santa cruz.
i stayed in a caravan park
with my professor from college.
you never asked me there.
there was no room.
there was just enough room
for eds computer
and my computer.
i hated it
i nearly died there.
i was invited to mexico.
i lived in a rooftop apartment.
i couldnt work.
the humming birds hummed all day.
they thrust their beaks
into flowers.
i hate mexico.

you bathed in the sea at mazatlan.


the shore was lined with palm trees


you never invited me there.


the sea was a bitter yellow.
i read my poems to the indians
when you finally came to mexico
i was finished
finished.


the streets were full of ghosts
i smelt blood, death.


you had no bosoms left.


i prayed over my teeth
so they would not fall out.


you looked like a skeleton.


the mexicans loved me.


i hated mexico.

Born in New Zealand, Christina Conrad is an internationally acclaimed poet, playwright and "outsider" artist. She is the author of three books, and her poems have been featured in numerous journals and magazines in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and the U.K. They have also been anthologized in The Oxford Book of Modern New Zealand Poetry, Kiwi and Emu, and The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Verse. Conrad's first book, this fig tree has thorns, is considered a modern-day classic. A French translation, published by Infrablu Press in Paris in 1996, sold out within two weeks. Conrad is represented in the Bloomsbury Book of Women Writers (U.K.) and has been the subject of several documentary films. Her paintings, sculptures and clay icons have been exhibited in major galleries in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe.