April 2003 | John Sweet, poetry
the moment when
you find out how useless
you really are
when you realize that
you will never save anyone
a sunday afternoon
possibly
with your wife and children asleep
and late winter snow falling from
a tarnished silver sky
a war somewhere
which is nothing new
dead babies and suicide bombers
and all of the reasons
you should support the killing
all of the poets who
want you to join their causes
to sign their petitions and
praise their hollow words and
christ
it’ll take more than a river
full of corpses to stop the bills
from arriving
listen
nothing you own has
any value
nothing you touch will
retain any warmth
even faith in these
small bitter truths is better
than no faith at all
April 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
snow again
without warning
the idea of tombs
of trailers along
the side of the highway and
the lives trapped
inside them
the distance between
[i]home[/i] and [i]lost[/i]
do you remember
how far we drove?
200 miles only to find
the front door open and
the bathroom floor smeared
with blood
200 miles only to
leave again
only to come back to these
few simple rooms
without light or warmth
all of that time spent
going nowhere
April 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
asleep maybe
or awake and crying
with the dream still
bright and bleeding in
your mind
my words at 2 a.m.
which are cold
and without comfort
this woman gone missing
for three months now
with her unborn child
the fact that
neither of them will be
seen alive again
we believe
in monsters for
obvious reasons
