Five Poems
by John Sweet
time, in all directions
or the minor acts of dead men
of forgotten lovers
you live in the past
present
or future
and make no apologies
am i inventing you
correctly here?
fifteen wasted years and
then five good ones
and then the cancer
the phone call from his sister on a
weekend i was out of town and
what if i tell her the joke but
forget the punchline?
there are other lives at stake here,
you understand
gods taking bullets and
newborn babies set on fire and
all of the pits being dug by
anonymous soldiers on the
edges of factory towns
all of the wars that are started
while we sleep
all of the letters from home
that get lost along the way
never knew you were loved
until it was
too late to matter
Universe A
Was and is raining. Cold. Slow
decay of houses, of cars, and the
poison spreading underground.
Twenty years now, and all of those
teenage girls dead of cancer.
Twenty five since I last saw you.
I wrote the novel, then burned
every page. I worked third shift
washing dishes. Slept without ever
hearing the phone ring. Slept
while the future moved off in a
different direction.
Woke up four hours later, and
all of the possibilities Id come
to believe in were gone.
Glorified
any fool can show you a map
any house can be the
one you die in
told her this like it
actually meant something and
she laughed, walked out the door and
got married, had children,
grew old
you see?
the days bleed into each other
without end
no matter how loudly you scream
no matter how tightly you close your eyes
all of our victories lined
end to end
add up to nothing
the man handing out handfuls of
candy is the one who will give the
order to butcher the children,
and then what?
art becomes such a monumental
waste of time when placed beneath
the suffocating weight of our
accumulated atrocities
this is the fire
like some dark blue christ nailed
to a cross of human sorrow
like a dull orange sky
over hardscrabble fields
i have seen your
version of the past
i have been pinned beneath the
weight of so much hatred i
could no longer breathe
we are all dogs, yes, of course,
i see this now, but it feels
so goddamned good to fuck the
wives of anonymous men
feels better just to be alone
to enjoy the danger of
keeping absolutely still
that target painted across my
heart in such beautiful
breathing colors
looks up, shoots at the sky
where the clouds broke apart for just a
frightened moment
and the sun suddenly and without warning
where every dream was of christ
but none of them were of salvation and
when she spoke it was in someone
elses voice
when she asked if there was any
reason to keep on going it
was too cold to answer
leaves torn from poisoned trees in
bitter november wind and
all of our doors locked against it
the illusion of safety
the children growing older
a weapon hidden in every room and
then a body found buried
beneath some suburban back porch
a woman naked and
chained in the basement
smaller wars with only victims and
you said this was better
because it cost you nothing
a river run black with blood
and you said it tasted fine
said there was nothing left for me
to do but close my eyes and jump
Copyright reserved. Please do not reproduce without consent.