this is the ghost

October 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

this is the hand that
cuts the moon
in two

this is the ghost

do you
remember these myths
or are you someone who
believes in the soft
sweet purity of
childhood?

you can only be one
or the other

you can only be living
or dead

for fifteen years
i had the dream of the
burning house
and then i married
the woman who
grew up in it

i give you this as
final proof
of the lack of god and
you turn away

one of us sees
the ghost
the other a shadow

in between the two is
the desert of our pasts
and the scattered ashes
of old lovers

this is the land
where
the myths were planted

these are
the bones of lost
sailors

there are better things
to be built here
than religion

poem written, then left untitled

September 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

sunlight in
an empty room
changes nothing

the mirrors are all blind
the windows slowly melting
and i believe
in the burning girl

i believe in the boy
buried among the redwoods
by his father

these are the myths
my son will inherit
and this is the country
and the politics of fear are not
politics at all

what i call silence
in this house
is actually the sound of
clocks running backwards

what i call sorrow is
actually guilt
despite the fact that i have always
maintained my innocence

and on the day i give up
the last of my teenage heroes
my oldest friend writes
to tell me he won’t be
writing again

a minister’s wife from the
town i grew up in
is found naked and dead on
a stretch of railroad tracks
eighty-five miles to
the north

we are always spending
too much time
measuring distances that
can never be crossed

first thoughts from a season of drought

September 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

sufocatingly hot again without
warning
and i spend
too much time in my car
at the edge of this parking lot
reading names from the book of
overdoses

i wake up always in the
memory of a burning house

look around you

the land here has risen up
only to fall back on itself

the roads are lies and i have been
believing them for too long

i can’t explain it any better than
this

i was never promised anything
but still feel cheated when the
blood i taste
is my own
and so i turn against my wife and
son

i walk from room to room in
an empty house

and there is a sound the phone
makes
when it doesn’t ring
and there is no way to measure
silence

there is no way
to lash out against it

it’s a simple mistake equating
nothingness with god

one

September 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

the poem is
just beneath the
skin

the skin is pale and
easily opened

what happens though
is this

i find myself
out of words

out of breath on
the front steps with
the roses i bought
already fading

with apologies falling
dead
from my lips

and if i’m not a
person you could ever
love and if
you don’t have the strength
to hate me
then what?

we are all afraid in
the thin air
of passing days

held to the ground by
the sheer grey enormity
of the sky

by the lack of
possibility

one among us just
waiting for the
perfect moment to step
forward and be
crucified

this is the sound of crows

September 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

and she is there
at the edge of the field

she is gathering flowers
and the sky
surrounds her

we are not lost

we are not forgotten

we are hopeful
and the book of days is empty
and in the town we left behind
the poets have all
been hung

this is the truth
everywhere

this is the sound of crows
after three months with
no rain and she
is there

she is gathering flowers
and they turn to dust in her
delicate hands and
the poem inside her heart was
never meant to be read

was never
meant to be written
and the dust falls through
her fingers with the slow
grace of angels

and we are far from home
but hopeful