Saturday, November 24, 2018

Poems By John Sweet

john sweet, b 1968, still numbered among the living. A believer in writing as catharsis. Opposed to all organized religion and political parties. His latest collections include HEATHEN TONGUE (2018 Kendra Steiner Editions) and A BASTARD CHILD IN THE KINGDOM OF NIL (2018 Analog Submission Press). All pertinent facts about his life are buried somewhere in his writing.


chasing the prophet


ghost of a january moon
in a pale blue sky

age of failed visionaries,
of beaten dogs

leaves the car
at the freeway’s edge,
walks to the river

sound of angels is
the sound of crows

sound of hope is more subtle

wife, three kids, and no
one gets fat on a diet
self-pity and road salt

no one declares their love
with a bouquet of
broken glass

i always thought
you knew this


landscape w/ fist


on the floor in the back of the car, has his
winding sheet drawn tight, covered in shit,
covered in blood, air thick with the smell of dried
sweat, smell of vomit

          smell of fear and desperation

says he needs his wife and
you tell him he’s not married

asks how much longer?
but doesn’t hear your answer

says he never asked to be a prophet

never asked to be an artist

paints a blue christ crucified beneath a
dull green sky, won’t tell you if
it’s faith or heresy

won’t take his medicine unless you
give him back his needle

believes in power but not in strength and
when you ask what the difference is
he shows you the gun

shoots the kid behind the power to
help explain the importance of freedom

to make a point about inevitability

says the truth will never matter as much as a
lie that makes you lover want to crawl
naked over broken glass just to kiss your feet



fable for the fucked and the forsaken


end of an age and
each day filled with empty grace

had to stand in the late november
sunlight for a minute
just to feel human again

uncertain parking lot of an
abandoned school, and i had to be
made to understand that my
words weren’t poems

was given a flag

was given a shovel

told to start digging at the
pavement’s edge but no one
would explain why

no one would acknowledge
any of the bones i found

the kingdoms
i built from them


bathed in the everlasting glow


this is the one who
calls you faggot

this is the
taste of your own blood

the foot on your throat

thirteen years old, and
have you given any
thought to the future?

have you weighed the
pros and
cons of suicide?

gotta be taught each one,
every second of
every day


explaining fear


afternoon heavy with pale sunlight and
deep shadows,  with longs hours
spent forgetting how to breathe

do it slowly, by faint degrees,
until all sound is reduced to silence

empty house after empty house

ex-lover in one of them with
her bouquet of broken glass

with a book of names for all the
children she’ll never have and
distance is king here

learn the art of receding

understand that well die alone
and never just once

what more could you want when

all i’ve  ever given you is the truth?

No comments:

Post a Comment