Connor Stratman


Untitled

mornings spent
waltzing across nails

I couldn’t stoop
lower to a lower

version of self
nor yet lose

the other self
no self, yourself

no one’s coming
back for it



After A Line Someone Showed Me

In every jam jar hoarded on the edge,
collapse will always be
the order of the day

by what right or justification
have I come here—
what was that question

that’s designed to ring
off the hallway walls
when we’re all gone

years before today



Dream From The Other Week

In again on the road to somewheresville,
the aching village of someone’s sometime
dreams, we pass by these foggy scenes:
a pilloried ghost body chained to a pine,
bones of mustangs foregoing freedom,
piles of shoelaces collected by young mothers,
and the jaundiced eyes of autumn moths.
These are collections of apparitions, you say,
that can only be found in dusty southern outskirts.
Further, you continue, that border between dreams
is light as robin feathers and crushing as iron.
(A nude nightmare of an old man bicycles past.)
At last, you start to whisper as we pass along,
we can admit that it’s okay to despise things.




Connor Stratman lives in Dallas, TX. His books and chapbooks include Some Were Awake (plumberries, 2011), Volcano (2011/2017, Writing Knights), and An Early Scratch (Erbacce, 2010). His work has appeared in journals such as Ditch, Counterexample Poetics, Earl of Plaid, Etcetera, Backlash, Moss Trill, Polari, Moria, Dead Snakes, and Thimble. He currently teaches English at a high school in Dallas.
 
 
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