among the dead and dying

October 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

there are rooms
in this house filled with
nothing but the black weight
of your past

there are windows pushed
to the point of breaking

and being in love is
being on the wrong side of
a locked door and i
find myself too often forgetting
where i’ve left the sun

i find myself
numbered among the dead
and dying species while
further down some long unused hallway
you cry for the person i’ve
made you become

and we will find each other in
the last fragile seconds
before the sky splits open
and we will stop

our hands will
explore living flesh beneath the
first low mutters of thunder and
our tongues will follow

that we believe this much in
the force of desire
should never be forgotten

we have built this silence

October 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

we have built
this silence
ourselves

both of us clutching
talismans
in an unfamiliar country

the dogs with a language
the children smiling
but riddled with hatred

some of us pointing guns
others bleeding
and the question is god

the question is
the emptiness of the sky
on any given january
afternoon

there is room enough
beneath it
for all of us to be
wrong

************

prev published in Stickman Review

a sleeping child

October 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

in this year
of dragged bodies
there is always a silence
where apologies
refuse to fall

where a man is
nailed to the sky’s canvas
for turning away from
the sun

is found below the
rippled ceiling of the river
with empty dreams filling his
pockets and how can you
define violence when
there is nothing
else?

how do you explain fear
to a sleeping child
and why would you
ever want to?

and somewhere
of course
there is someone who
knows the answer

one poem

September 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

one poem
in a quiet room
beneath an indifferent sky

the empty fields that define
the season of loss

these are only words
diane
and you are only a stranger i
pretend to know

it’s the lack of sound
that frightens me

the wind maybe
or a distant siren
or the kitten curled up and purring gently
on the edge of the desk

my son’s toys
without his tiny perfect hands
to move them

and it’s been four days now since
the planes stopped flying

since my fingers felt the need
to crawl across
a blank sheet of paper
and do you notice that the
clocks haven’t stopped?

do you believe
in selfless acts?

not anymore

we have moved beyond the
age of famous poets
diane
and into the era
of glorified killers

my wife wants love
and all i give her
is despair

the neighbors scream at
their children

the children run
blindly into traffic

even these small deaths are
important
when they are all we have
to call our own

the same story

September 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

she is talking
about her thirteenth year

about her mother’s lover

the sound of his footsteps
as she lay in bed

the press of his weight
just outside her door

^

it’s the same story
told
a thousand different ways

it’s the boyfriend who
passed her on to his buddies
for beer or pot or a
new set of tires

it’s everything
she was forced to do

^

and she is talking
about love

she is saying
she believes

is saying she doesn’t
want to be alone

tells me she doesn’t
expect me
to understand

the age of saints

September 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

the truth of
the bleeding horse is this

there is no bleeding horse

there is your sister with her
boyfriend’s hands tight around her throat

there are the children

^

what she tells you is
[i]i love him[/i]

this and that he has
disappeared again

that a woman calls at least
three times a day asking for him

what she tells you is familiar
and it tastes of pain

^

and this is not the age of saints

the addicts won’t be saved
or even remembered
and she tells you [i]i love him[/i]

tells you she has seen the bleeding horse
in the first light of day
stumbling blind towards the interstate

tells you nothing but asks for money

^

the same story repeated until
the windows shatter

the hand of god
clenched into an arthritic fist
the room cold where the moon
spills across the floor and
she is saying some thing that
is being swallowed by the wind

she is home and
she is bleeding and there
are the children

they are saying your name
but you are gone