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 I’d 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

                                     else’s 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

 

 

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