John Sweet writes

heart of clay, sins of blood

in these murdered

days of silent grace

beneath the blind light of

some beggar’s sun

gotta find jobs for the

children with their

hands cut off

gotta dig graves

for their parents

do you see how it is?

you stop the war

before it can begin by

killing your enemies in

their sleep

you laugh at

disraeli’s ghost and

at nehru’s

make FUCK THE PAST

your motto for the future

because bravery is easy

when the gun is pointed

at someone else

the sound of god is

louder than you’d imagine

but is still drowned out

by the screams of all

the ones he refuses to save

and laughter is laughter

i guess

no matter whose

expense it comes at

and the junkie nurse

smiles at this of course

but she smiles at

anything

she says sunflowers will

grow from the corpses

just like

dorothea promised

says the name is less

important than

the living flesh its

written on and then the

roof collapses beneath

the weight of the sky

all of us crushed by

the iridescent weight of

such bittersweet joy

John Sweet writes

an answer

 

life wasted crawling towards water beneath the

sky blue sky and these

last days of winter and this taste of dirty frost

this 10 below zero this neverending wind and all of

the furniture from

the burned house spread out on the lawn

jesus in his unmarked grave

dreaming lightning bolts

understands the kingdom of god is a

fairy tale for suckers and fools

knows in his endlessly dying heart that a man who

wants for nothing is a man who can never be trusted

John Sweet writes

can and can’t exist

i am tired of being

de chirico’s bastard son

i am tired of being some

complete stranger’s

vague idea of salvation

and i’m an asshole, sure,

but i’m not an idiot

i know to fear death

i know to deny both the

truth of christ

and the gospel of judas

not the middle lane,

but the farthest

barren field

not the endless desert,

but the one

that lies beyond it

a burning house in the

kingdom of nil, and

always the question

of who to save

always the weight of

who to remember

with guilt and regret

and we will all

get our chance

soon enough

Le chant d'amour -- Giorgio de Chirico

John Sweet writes

the ashes, scattered

all your fucked-up lovers and

their suicide poems,

but i was never into bleeding for the sake of art

i was never into bukowski or

any of those bullshit philosophers

the shame is not in cowardice,

but in disguising it as empty aggression

the fear is not of sorrow, but of

staining it with addiction

the truth is that a drowning man will

always pull you under with him,

if only for the company

John Sweet writes

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

John Sweet writes

the weary mind

late spring or middle of summer,

getting high in the underbrush down by the river,

other side of the highway from the plastics factory,

smell of death everywhere and there is no

chance of winning the war

there is no hope of escaping the past

your wife,

your sons, your father’s ghost and

when was the last time you were

loved without limit?

what was the last promise you made

that had no loopholes?

look

there need to be more choices

something between VULTURE and CARRION

or something beyond

something above

aniline blue or cerulean and

with mediterranean sunlight

with a luminous heart

and who are you to believe in

the endings of poems?

what name do you give the joy that

you take in your lover’s pain?

it’s simple

to deny the birth of christ is

to deny his death

to pull the trigger when you’re told

isn’t the same thing as bravery

there is no end to the number of

children waiting to

butchered in the quest for power

there is no end to the lies passed off as

absolute truths that fall from

the cancerous mouths of fictitious gods

early autumn

let’s say

with the past always in the

ever-receding distance

your memories of sharp edges and broken glass,

metal blades,

dangers that refuse to be dulled by time

a family filled with victim who

refuse to fade gracefully

refuse to live long enough

to die of old age but

who am i to scream about justice?

who are you to preach the need

of AN EYE FOR AN EYE?

gouge out your own

just to get the ball rolling

stare into the crippled sun

and tell me what you see