December 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
sitting at a red light
twenty-one years after lennon’s murder
with the radio on and
the rain falling like a memory of itself
and i am not lost but in exile
i am the father
my own father never was and
my hands are cold
i want power but have
only words
and my list of grievances grows
and the war drags on
and i’ve been told that not every
slaughter is a crime
i’ve been lectured on the evils
of money
but never by those who have it
have slept on drunken floors
with nameless women while
the raped wrote their own versions
of history and i have never been a
believer in stories with morals
i am sorry for the weak
and the starving
for whatever good it does but
i am not a brave man
i will drive home and
kiss my wife
will read to my son then
put him to bed
with the knowledge that he is loved
not every failure i fear
is my own
December 2001 | back-issues, Bill Wunder, poetry
Distant thunder rides Asian wind,
rumbles across oceans,
echoes down years.
Who sent this awful noise of war?
Deafening roar of pain, of death,
made whores of village girls,
made us climb, veins on fire,
a stairway to smack heaven.
Can I buy you for this pack of cigarettes?
Unmoved by crying almond eyes.
Burning mountain, ignite the sky
with death’s hot desire.
Acrid napalm smoke billows
higher, higher,
over a raped country’s dying sigh.
Alien, tortured forms
locked in final embrace,
shining wet in monsoon rain,
washed clean of blood.
What will cleanse us
of our guilt and shame?
Vietnam Revisited first appeared in [i]Coil Magazine[/i].
November 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
i give you a dress
a stone
a handful of broken glass
nothing that’s ever
enough
and i catch angels
with my bare hands
i pull their wings off
and leave them to bleed
and the days pass slowly
and forcibly
like poured concrete
like rust
two years now
since my father died
and i give you bones
and white light
and a dozen reasons to cry
i drive down
deserted country roads in
the last fading minutes
of the day
i put knives through
the throats
of crippled children
i wait for a sign from
any god
November 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
and if i say [i]november[/i]
maybe you picture a grey sky
hung low over darker hills
and maybe this time you’re right
and what if all i have to offer
are these carefully chosen words in
a world full of the sick and
the butchered?
there are worse things than
hearing you are no longer loved
there are reasons men give
for raping their daughters but
none of them matter
and i am tired of being damned
by the fools who want to
force god’s cancerous weight
between my ribs
i’m sorry for tyranny and for
the ignorance that leads to hatred
but i am not the cause or
the cure
this is what i
want my son to understand when
we no longer speak to
each other
it’s what i never understood
about my own father
a coward
is not necessarily a
villain
a starving dog in the right hands
is a weapon
left alone it will only die
or devour the world
November 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
we are not old
or dying
but afraid
we are the voice
of the burning girl
after she has dissolved
into nothing but
faded cloth wrapped
tight around old bones
and as the wind finds
all of the holes
in this house
we turn to each other
for warmth
we compare faces
and names
and whether or not
your sister will come live
with us when she finally
pulls herself from
the tar her life
has become
and the killer is free
the trunk of his car
empty
and waiting
and the baby asleep
upstairs
one of us will have to
be the first
to break his heart
November 2001 | back-issues, poetry
[b]A Soft Whisper[/b]
Leaves listless in the grayed snow
Gravel peeking from snow clouds
Brown brittle stalks steel themselves
against the October onslaught.
Something green and growing
Huddles beneath the shifting snow
Curling into itself braced
Bent and bowed but resilient.
Cold winds worry the withered ones
Who fold fallen to shelter the unseen green
Curve in against it
Like a mother protecting a child.
Layer upon layer it lusts
For fine and fragile things
Tucked against the terror
The trauma and the tremble.
Winter winnows out
The weak and wraithlike
Misses the potent possibilities
Of rage balled like a fist.
It survives the shattering
In spite of the night
That caves in on the white
Thinking it has won.
On a still and silent night
A soft whisper can be heard,
“I shall rise and roust
come Spring and soft sun.
“I shall unfurl,
new and necessary
green and growing
no matter the season’s sins.”
[b]Towers have a history[/b]
Towers have a history
Of falling down
Their ragged rumble
Epitomizes my vulnerability.
Slumped and draped
Spiked into a macabre pose
Lines across the moonlit night
Dog’s feed upon the bare bones
Of our peaceful fantasy.
The steely breath
Breathed through the streets
found it’s way here
smothered my calm interlude
froze me to the bones.
The big lie exploded
Shattered limbs and values
A twin set of carcasses
Gave truth to my mother’s fears.
A notion in a moment
That we are nothing
But shifting sands of history
No monuments can replace.
Towers have a history
Of falling down
Their ragged rumble
Epitomizes my vulnerability.
[b]The Teacher[/b]
“My girl,” she rumbled
Pushed the hide scraper
Against the meat,
Cut me to the bone.
“Get rid of extra stuff,”
she flicked at sand flies
pelting like moths to a flame.
“Holah, the army gathers,”
like men at the bar
after last call and you
send off your scent.”
“My girl,” she said, sideways,
set aside her filleting knife
after carving out the choice pieces.
“These you keep,” she smiled
patted the thin pink meat.
“Throw
the guts and gore away.”
The bucket slapped
When receiving the bounty.
“My girl,” she said, huffing,
“At the top of this hill
berries bunch in clusters,
hidden from the hunt
and hunters.” I stalked
her shadow as we climbed.
“Aiyee,” she exclaimed,
eying the bannock on the griddle.
“This is women’s work,
worrying this place for stuff.”
“They hang together, them.
No need for hanging there
Alone and aggrieved.
Go find someone to teach.”
by Carol Desjarlais
([email]ibntv [at] telusplanet [dot] ca[/email])
