Poems
by John Sweet

 

 

still

 

and the killer is caught,

and his girlfriend weeps

 

the baby has no chance,

of course,

and the apartment is cold,

the windows loose in their casings,

the grey light of january filling

the rooms like sleeping gas

 

smell of gasoline,

approach of trains and

               then the fade

 

an abandoned factory in the

center of town

 

a wreath of dead flowers

hanging on

the fence that surrounds it

 

something small for the

world to revolve around

 

 

 

 

 

[you didn’t have to let us go]

 

or maybe sunday morning in

a nation of random suicides

 

grey snow on grey silence and

the drugs that help you feel alive

 

the uncertain kiss of ghosts

 

the uneasy ghosts of ex-lovers

 

find a room with not enough air in a

house with too few walls and

know that you’re home

 

believe yourself

to be safe

 

pretend there are

worse mistakes you

will make in your life

 

 

 

 

 

1973, season of starving artists

 

waits for the kids to fall asleep then

sets fire to the house and

beyond this

there’s no plan

 

beyond god

there’s no window

 

no door

 

just a mirror on a blood-smeared wall

 

just a mouth filled with

broken teeth and vomit

 

dran-o

 

looks like maybe it wants to scream

but who in this age of

instant gratification has

any time to care?

 

and who you gonna believe

if not hieronymus?

 

it’s a world of monsters

 

a world of suffering

 

not pain as a metaphor

but just pain

 

just the inhuman sound of

screaming babies

ground beneath jackboots

 

the human laughter of carrion birds

 

 

 

and how the hell are you going to

get the joke if you won’t stop

crying long enough

to listen to the punchline?

 

 

 

 

 

everybody loves a starving artist once they’re dead

 

kid just wants to breathe, right?

 

just wants to live, wants to gobble down

a handful of molly before his

father’s funeral,

but what if he’s 38?

 

what if he’s 52?

 

always someone telling you

you need to grow up,

but we all spend

most of our lives being wrong

 

we all have our orders

 

man at the front desk gives you

a hammer and a shovel

 

a bag of nails

 

tells you you gotta vote if

you want a better future

 

says this whore or that one

and maybe there isn’t a punchline

 

maybe the blood of your enemies

tastes just like the blood of of your lovers

 

maybe we still have enough

time to finally get our shit together

 

and it’s always been such a

small goddamn space

between suicide and joy

 

 

 

 

 

a shovel, a grave, a slow dance on the night before the diagnosis

 

can’t spend the rest of yr life

being too old to fuck in the back seat

 

can’t breathe if

the house is on fire

 

can’t talk about love

because johnston is dead

 

because everyone’s gonna

leave you in the end

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