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
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
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 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?
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
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
