From Winamop.com

Poems
by John Sweet

 

 

the philosophy of negative light

 

you in yr

funeral crown,

in yr brother’s best suit, end of

winter and the weight of the

upstate desert

 

distance from the

bridge to the river

 

from the muzzle to

the temple, and she’s fifteen,

                                    okay?

 

she’s found on her bed

by her father

 

note says no more worries, and

everything you need to know about the

mechanics of suicide is

right there on the internet,

because freedom is the key

 

the destruction of everything

beautiful is a given

 

i refuse to accept the blame

for any of this

 

 

 

a black line

 

 

grey lies the kingdom

 

 

a slow collapse

in an upstate landscape

 

an apology

 

not sincere and devoid of all meaning

but why would you ever think

you deserved more?

 

why would the dogs ever bother to do

anything but fuck you in your sleep?

 

look

 

it’s not the boredom that

kills you in the end

but the pain

 

death with the head of a crow

riding a silver horse and

it’s the past you’re afraid of

                                       yes

                and it’s the future

 

it’s all those bright blue

sunfilled days in between

 

the sound of your name spilling

out of an ex-lover’s mouth

 

went back to his wife after he

got bored hitting you,

but still wanted to be friends

 

still wanted to taste your tears

 

laughed when he told you

it was better than nothing

 

 

 

a black line

 

 

poem for symbolic crows

 

 

all blue sky & clouds like

some minor victory

 

rooftops

 

powerlines

 

a map for a life you can’t

remember choosing but

here you are

 

gotta hold onto

those addictions

with care

 

gotta really listen to the words of

all those songs

that were supposed to matter

 

take a handful of pain

and give it your lover

 

open fields where i write this

and then the river and

then the mountains

 

coyote up on baker hill

 

man with wings but no

memory of how to use them

 

child on fire in an empty room

but why lay blame?

 

you can’t be sad for every victim or

you’d never be anything but sad

 

every house here is

the same as every other and all

roads circle back on themselves

 

 

 

dog with his eyes gouged out

tied to a tree

just up past the interstate

 

do you speak the language?

 

do you sing the blues?

 

and yr sister with her lover’s guitar

and her dreams of joni mitchell

and the reasons we all have

for running away

 

the movies made about the tragic

lives of overdosed porn stars

 

a book full of gods

who have always hated you

 

funny that yr life seems

as worthless as mine

 

 

 

a black line

 

 

a crusade, obliquely

 

i am not lacking in belief but,

beyond myself,

what?

 

no mysticism

 

no other or higher

 

my generation a

generation of one, not

victims or traitors, not a mass of

bodies surrendering but

turning away

 

fuck this is one thing, you see,

and fuck you another

 

and laughter at self or in

the face of annihilation

 

at the moment of impact

 

pull the trigger

or push the plunger

 

set fire to the past

 

i am not lacking in compassion

but, beyond the here and

now, what?

 

 

 

a black line

 

 

erie st.

 

says she’s in love w/

the poet

 

says she’s lost in the forest

 

tell her one or the other

and she laughs at

all the wasted years

 

tell her the poet’s been dead

since ‘71

and she calls you a liar

 

says the baby looks

just like him

 

 

 

a black line

 

 

dreamhorse

 

in luminous hands held

the leash and one of us there

on the floor, on the other end,

trapped in pools of sunlight

                                 singing

and had no use for hope and

       had no sorrow

and strange to be saying that but

               any dog that bleeds can

                 learn to be healed and

what i wanted was for you to

                   be the girl on fire

 

what i wanted was to be

the ghost who saved you

 

 

a black line

 

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