like sunlight, like chrome

 

mouths always hungry, always

open and dirty hands shoveling

in shit, got to keep the

fuckers alive if you want to

keep selling them whatever it

is that’s made you rich, got

to bleed the fuckers just so much,

just so far, got to give them a

line of credit then take it away

then give it back again, those

fat little grabbing hands, those

brittle cancerous bones, got

to invent disease to invent the

cure, got to film the sexiest

girls on their hands & knees,

got to keep them in line, keep

them addicted, keep them

skinny or fat and always

hungry, mouths always open,

holes where the shit goes in

and where the shit comes out

and when you have finally

bought it all, when you have

finally bought everything

that will ever make you happy,

then there is nothing to do

but start counting backwards

                         to your death

 

 

 

 

 

butcher

 

In the telling,

nothing is made clear

 

Sunlight, yes, but the lawns

still damp from the rain, the trees

shimmering.  Halos around the

heads of the youngest children.

 

Voice of a man, slightly bored,

uncomfortable in the heat, says into

the face of the void The killer was

not found among the dead.

 

Dog barks somewhere out of sight

and you notice that all of

the windows have been broken.

 

You notice that the buzzing of

flies is unnaturally loud.

 

Smell of despair is

overwhelming.

 

 

 

 

western world

 

and you will hate everyone who has

more than you, and you will look

down upon anyone with less

 

and you will be adamant

and you will be outraged

 

you will be frightened

                     of course

 

you will be crucified

 

nothing more or

less than what you deserve

 

 

 

 

the brilliance of moving targets

  

thin skin of heat at the end

of august

 

sky no longer solid

 

man moves through the empty spaces

of broken marriage, of

distant children, of subtle depression

 

pills don’t work

and so he takes more

 

feels the weight of sunlight

                           on chrome

 

tastes dust in his lover’s kisses

 

has this house that

refuses to become a home

 

 

  

 

joy

  

find a woman whose skin tastes of

rust and call her your own

 

this is the way

 

these are the hands

 

press near the shoulderblades where

wings have failed to grow and

blame society, blame the modern age,

cable tv, internet porn

 

kiss her breasts lightly

 

run your tongue down her belly

 

let the priests dig

their own fucking graves

 

 

 

 

hollow star

 

caught there on a deserted street in

a dying town, beneath the awning of an

abandoned store, rain without end and

no cars in any direction and in the

moment of prayer there is only the memory

                                  of sunlight on chrome

 

there is only waiting

 

days spent touching the grey

flesh of christ

 

hours spent burning up

in the fever of addiction

 

all of the humor found in the pain of others,

and the child has hands until the

soldiers arrive

and then he has nothing

 

smile when you

tell him there are worse things

 

when you tell him about

your leaking gas tank about

your flooded basement or

your pregnant teenage daughter

 

offer him a drink

 

ask him why he’s crying on

such a perfect summer afternoon

 

 

 

 

John Sweet, born 1968, is married, father of two, and opposed to all that is evil. He has been living in the vast wasteland that is upstate New York for the majority of his life; is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in the idea that true democracy is a myth. A full length collection of his work, Human Cathedrals, is available from Ravenna Press.

 

Listed at Duotrope
Listed with Poets & Writers
CLMP Member
List with Art Deadline
Follow us on MagCloud