john sweet

January 2019 | John Sweet, poetry

in a room, blindly

Not lies, really,

but truths that can’t be proven.

The ghosts of Aztecs,

of Incas.

Parking lots.

Palaces.

Man rolls the dice to see which of

the children will starve,

and then the bomb goes off.

Seventeen dead, blood everywhere,

the pews of the church on fire.

The runoff from the mill

dumped into the river.

Close your eyes and picture it.

The first time we met and then,

two years later,

the first time we made love.

Oceans on every side of us,

wars to the south,

to the east,

and I told you you were beautiful.

Had no words beyond that,

only abstractions.

Only need.

Thirty seven years old and

suddenly no longer blind and,

in the mountains,

the killers were making new plans.

In town,

the streetlights were coming on.

It seemed almost possible

we would find our way home.

aesop’s blues

in the cold white light of

febuary mornings

in the shadows of obsolete monuments

where we no longer touch

this is the world defined by

indifference and rust

this is a handful of salt held out

to christ while he dies on the cross

a gift without meaning

or offered with nothing but malice

a man walking slowly across

the frozen river and

then gone

sends his love

which is worth nothing at all

by john sweet

john sweet, b 1968, still numbered among the living. A believer in writing as catharsis. Opposed to all organized religion and political parties. His latest collections include APPROXIMATE WILDERNESS (2016 Flutter Press) and the limited edition chapbooks HEATHEN TONGUE (2018 Kendra Steiner Editions) and A BASTARD CHILD IN THE KINGDOM OF NIL (2018 Analog Submission Press). All pertinent facts about his life are buried somewhere in his writing.

John Sweet, Featured Author

January 2016 | John Sweet, poetry

church on fire

says i’m sick of

this shit

says tell me a story with a

happy ending for a change, and so i

paint her one of tanguy’s skies

instead

i paint her one of

kahlo’s visions

i drive over to the north side

to find her father, but

no one’s seen him in

twenty years

no one gives a fuck about

the sixties, no one gives a shit about

lennon’s murder, about reagan’s

death, about anything other

than money or power

the past is empty nostalgia, the

future a fever dream of possibility

and i sleep on the couch

all week

i consider apologizing for

things i haven’t done

in the end i keep quiet

and the infection spreads

the sun barely clears the hills to the

south on the coldest days of the year and

the air is thick with the smell of

gasoline, of metal grinding against

metal, and she says

             slow down

says that was the exit but the

trick is to get further away, out to

where the hills no longer have names,

out to where the trees rise up forever

dead from lakes of black water,

and the trick is to forget the children,

and the trick is to drive out past

even this, out past memory and

pain, but the truth is that the

trick always fails

the truth is that sex always

ends up feeling better

than love

isn’t this what you’ve been

waiting to hear me say?

upstate landscape w/ minor premonition

or all of those days spent

waiting for something to happen

all of those wasted hours caught

beneath a pale white sun, beneath a colorless sky,

and it was always early afternoon and it

was always the middle of november

powerlines stretched from dying

house to dying house and

empty trees never quite casting shadows

across barren lawns

the highway and the back roads

endless empty spaces packed tight w/

the ghosts of the past

nothing subtracted from

nothing

again and again

: :

the car out of gas on

fire at the edge of the highway the

swimmer alone late autumn or

early his wife missing

or sleeping

the children not yet imagined

and this car this wasteland this

all barren fields and powerlines all

empty stretches of interstate

mountains in the distance

and a man you might have

been always swimming

towards them

imaginary poem while waiting for rain

but this is only the day of

angels and we are only cities on fire

we are in the car for eight hours straight,

up and down side streets,

scoring and then using and then looking to score again and

what we smell like, i’d guess, is

slow meaningless death

what we believe in are better gods

or no gods at all

and the radio is tuned in to neverending static on the

morning your husband walks out the door

still gone four days later,

fucking someone’s sister in a leaky trailer and

together they are only a monotonous story with a

predictable ending

a suicide that drags on for seven years

and her children sit and wait outside the

bedroom door, and this boy no one knows is found

alongside the interstate, raped and beaten and dead,

eyes gouged out, coat hanger wrapped

tight around his throat

fourth of july in this

age of casual oblivion

religion forced down your throat and

deep up into your ass and whoever tells you that

voting will bring about change is a liar

power will always be power and poverty a crime and

we have been walking lost through this forest

for days now or for a month or maybe for

half our wasted lives

i have told you i love you and i have

told you i hate you and

neither one is anywhere near the truth

i have tasted your sweat and i have

drunk your blood and i have

offered you mine and

we are dying stars in broad daylight

we are dirty needles on piss-stained floors

the truth sounds better as a metaphor and then

better still as a lie and the windows here

are all broken, the walls filled with

dead and dying bees

end of july

walk out the door and drive through

100 miles of nothing and then

100 more and then start to see a pattern

believe only in what you can hold

fall asleep at the highway’s edge beneath

a relentless sun and

what the fuck were you thinking,

growing up, starting a family?

what the fuck were you

thinking, giving yourself away?

bought a house with no roof, no walls,

water in the basement

pulled the plug on your father

spoke quietly about your grandmother’s suicide

in a roomful of strangers and none of them

listened and why would they?

this is the 21^st century

age of emotional famine

age of indifference

wake up in the middle of frozen lake in

early february with a head full of

broken glass and think about summer

try to remember how you

ended up here

open your eyes for once in your life

by John Sweet

john sweet, b. 1968.opposed to organized religion and to political parties.  ideologies in general, altho he DOES have a soft spot for the concepts of surrealism and post-punk.  30 years spent wrestling w/ the idea of writing as catharsis.  most recent collections are THE CENTURY OF DREAMING MONSTERS (2014 Lummox Press) and A NATION OF ASSHOLES W/ GUNS 2015 Scars Publications, e-chap).