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Poems
by John Sweet

 

 

 

the obvious fear

 

and i am living in this fading

house in this obsolete town near the

end of the world and this is

the sound of the earth spinning

 

this is the voice of the sun

 

says we are all dying

 

says truths are neither

kind nor unkind

 

shines on this town and on

this house but not in this room

 

not at this late hour

 

all of those lifetimes wasted

believing we still

had time to say good-bye

 

 

 

a line, (a short blue one)

 

 

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

 

 

 

a line, (a short blue one)

 

 

uncrowned king

 

a man with hands of clay

dreaming birds in flight across a silver sky

 

a christ-junkie nailed to the

future by his balls

 

says it only hurts if he lets it

 

says the pain is a more

compassionate god than god

 

doesn’t expect you to get the joke and

he won’t stop

bleeding all over the carpet

 

he won’t stop trying to explain the

significance of his bent and broken wings

 

has faith that a lifetime of

sincere lies will

eventually outshine the truth

 

 

 

a line, (a short blue one)

 

 

the burning gift

 

serpent charmer with his

fists of clay,

tells you his poems need to be painted in blood,

tells you suicide is only an

option on rainy days,

and he laughs when he says it but

                   he always looks away

 

always tells you why

democracy will fail

 

why the stones were better than the beatles,

and he wants to know what kind of

god lets children die of cancer

 

he wants to know the truth about d.b. cooper

or maybe he just wants the

missing money

 

maybe just needs to be reassured

 

he has been a dead man

for far too long

 

 

 

a line, (a short blue one)

 

 

poem like a dream held up to a mirror

 

had a vision of yr death

that meant nothing to me

 

got yr letter from patmos and

then another from golgotha

 

may and then june then

                        july and

the bodies began to stink

 

the priests had their machine guns

                        their bulldozers

                        their faith in a monstrous god

 

bone white sun in a silver sky and the

idea of distance measured in pain

 

the idea of

silence as a weight

 

man steps towards the future only

to watch it recede, looks back over his

shoulder sees nothing but the ghosts

of better days

 

give him a name

 

give him a purpose

 

make a list of all the people who

ever hated him

back before he was even born

 

 

 

a line, (a short blue one)

 

 

other thoughts in the age of ruin

 

in grey january twilight, taste of

ice on metal, of rust,

                        of fear, says nothing

                        just to be safe

 

                        just to be sure there

                        won’t be an answer

 

                        won’t be a body found in the

                        river thirty miles downstream

                        with the first spring thaw,

 

another jumper with a pregnant

girlfriend, another baby with a name

that sounds like a lie every time

it spills out of your bruised mouth

 

ritual, yes, and

born of despair

 

born of salt and of ashes,

                             of cold fires in

                             vacant lots

 

sunlight in february, which is

a joke without a punchline

 

the car is dead and the roof collapsed

and if i were to ask for a pretty

girl to tie the noose i know

it would be you

 

if we were to invent a better god,

there would still be a neverending

parade of beaten and butchered

                                     children

 

better on days like this to

save no one but yourself and

still be able to call it

a victory

 

 

a line, (a blue one)

 

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