June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
cold sunlight down tracy street
on a sunday morning
and i am almost able to believe that
the past can be left behind
i am tired of these abstractions
like america and god
i have moved awkwardly into the
21st century and brought with me only the bleeding horse
and it walks slowly
from room to room
without ever casting a shadow
and there is a child somewhere
who will be the next one to
die horribly
and there are linda’s sister’s moving through this
lush green landscape
ten years after the cancer
devoured her
nothing is more important than motion
nothing is more important than love
these are the words i write with
my wife and son
two hundred miles away
and i know them to be true but
speaking them out loud is a
different thing altogether
i have learned that silence is
not always failure
is sometimes just weight
it can be carried
but only for a short while
by John Sweet
June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
how many years now
since the war to end all wars
and how many more wars?
how many young girl’s bodies
found in the
deserts of southern california?
how many babies left in dumpsters
or in plastic bags?
and there is my wife
who says that no one wants their
face pressed into this much
pain and ugliness and
i agree
i kiss her
as she falls asleep on a
warm september afternoon
then crawl to my desk to
finish this poem
what i never
thought i’d be was
a junkie
June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
in the cold and almost rain of
a tuesday morning
in the aftermath of
two young boys beaten to death
with grim joy by their mother
money in the slot and then
the sound of your voice
what you say is [i]come home[/i]
what matters aren’t the words
but their weight
the fact that
you mean them despite all
of the pain
how much closer
they bring me to being human
June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
cold wind outside a dark room
and she says this isn’t working
the first week of may
the smell of witches burning
every wall holding up another one
and the way houses grow from
this simple idea
the way windows are broken
or gods diminished
the ones who insist that belief
is not an option but
a necessity
that a home is more than
shelter from the rain
and what she says is
[i]i’m not happy[/i]
and what it is is an accusation
what she says is
[i]i love you
but i don’t know why[/i]
this admission too much
like the
sound of breaking bones
May 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
rain
but nothing is
made pure
birds sing and
the refrigerator hums
and the streets take us
from one anonymous town to
the next
three days
then four
and the bleeding horse drinks
what he can
staggers drunkenly through
these fields of
the newly murdered
falls to his knees
even as
the trigger is pulled
a clean shot
but nothing so pure as
an act of mercy
May 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
not language itself
but the need for it
the weight of silence
the child
has been murdered
[i]pause[/i]
i love my wife
[i]pause[/i]
the child has been
murdered
[i]stop[/i]
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