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the truth for those who refuse to fear it
song of fists and
song of flesh
savior w/ his yellow teeth filed
down to points and
who is it that offers you god and for
what exactly are you told to give thanks?
dead man chained to your ankle isn’t
the same thing as salvation,
you understand,
but i can’t be the only person
to have told you this
not every priest has his hand
down your son’s pants
but how many does it take
before you say enough?
how many years does your father
have to be dead before you
admit he ever really lived at all?
sounds like a question just
begging to be
answered with violence
premonition/afterimage
or a movie with too many deaths,
or a life
a song cut off
before you can name it
a dream where you
wake up too late
open your mouth to say
good morning
but all that comes out is blood
picabia’s dada years
or the end of september and
the slow heat of late afternoon sunlight
white sky and the shadows of houses,
shadows of birds stuttering across overgrown lawns and
what if charlotte st exists and what if the myths we
never believed in are the ones that destroy
us in the end?
you grow up and then
you grow old
maybe you die young
thought about mandy at 23 because that’s
where her story ended and then
thought about myself on the morning of my 26th birthday
tried to remember who was next to me in bed
then decided it was better just to leave
kid asleep on the living room couch,
cartoons on the tv with no volume and
then i was gone
was 35 and then 40 and i was always fading
from the edges of blurred pictures
arrived here at the end of september with
de chirico’s shadows stretching down
tracy st to the cemetery and i believed in
whatever lies sounded better than my own
felt the days getting shorter and always
spinning just beyond my control
on starling ave
but everywhere is somewhere, and
all gods are just the ghosts
of abandoned dreams
put no faith in the fools who would
tell you that failure is not an option
learn to keep warm wrapped in
winding sheets of loss and fear
january first,
and then february
burst pipes and then house fires
this idea of a nation built on the bones
of young women dead from
botched abortions
blood on the walls of any
house we’ve ever called home
the tower lights flashing red above
the hills while my children sleep
let them keep their innocence
for just a little while longer
bluest sky
snow on the first day of spring and
then the next and
how fat will you get eating
nothing but dirt and sorrow?
or maybe it’s the space between love
and broken bones I’m talking about here
colleen laughing as she’s
pushed down the stairs or maybe this is
just the way she wanted it to be
do you remember her telling you that
everything was fine?
do you remember the cuts on one arm
and the bruises up the other?
regret is a tiring thing
stand there with your hands on fire,
the children in tears,
and consider all the reasons a man
might have for drinking himself to death
consider the absolute failure of
pollock’s last paintings
believe in the age of famine
lesser gods crawling through
the filth of lesser minds
side streets and abandoned factories and
the futility of building palaces
on graveyards
DONE is DONE
christ has no use for your suffering
phone rings and it’s your father saying
so long motherfucker just the
way it happens in your dreams and
hatred is easy so why not embrace it?
look at all the politicians
all the holy men
who want you to understand that killing
the enemy is your only option
look at all the enemies they offer
it’s only inevitable to find yourself on
someone else’s list because
no matter who you are
you’re the wrong person
you grow fat on apathy and fear
because they taste so goddamn good
nineteen year old kid with a gun
kills a mother of four
and what we need now is a tv movie
what we need are arguments from
both sides that accomplish nothing
that sound good in campaign speeches
and spilling from the assholes of
media personalities and
then on the second day of spring i
wake up to bitter sunlight and
children’s toys stuck in the frozen mud
i wake up to dried blood and
empty apologies
every day of my life wasted thinking
the next one will be better
John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in the continuous search for an unattainable and constantly evolving absolute truth. His latest poetry collections include A Flag on Fire is a Song of Hope (2019 Scars Publications) and A Dead Man, Either Way (2020 Kung Fu Treachery Press).