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John Sweet
Summer 2009
spark
and we were out there in
america and we were lost
end of summer in a third
floor apartment, fucking like
animals, bleeding like
minor gods
all of those towns
were the same
all of our lies felt
like revelations
woke up that last morning
said my mother is dead
and i was so used to laughing
that i laughed
reached out for your naked
body, for your warm flesh
and milkwhite breasts, but
you were getting dressed
you were screaming at me
i couldn’t remember where
i’d left any of the maps
malice
a lack of pain, maybe,
or at least a diminishing of it
warmth, but not peace
tension, yes, fear, yes, on and
on both of them until they feel like
all you’ve ever known, and when
you tell the kid to cut himself,
he does
when you tell the woman to
get undressed, to get on
her knees, she does
sorrow is its own
form of blindness
hatred is the driving
wheel of western thought
if you close your eyes, you
can already hear the next
war approaching
2005-2006
from shadow to shadow
a fight about money
which is nothing new
the silence of sunlight on ice
or of rooms filled with unpleasant truths
the child dead
halfway through the operation
a small sound beneath the
bright blue scream of the sky and
that i am telling you i'm sorry
that i am standing on the
wrong side of a locked door
am digging in the broken glass
at the edge of the highway
for something i've lost
for someone who's been taken
and i am working on
a theory that there is a
missing person for every stretch of
empty space between us and
i'm waiting for the phone to ring
i'm waiting for
the sound of your voice or the feel
of your heat
the taste of your skin
something to
make everything else seem
hopeful
mountains (falling)
and we had found god in the ashes of
someone else's century
and the freeways went nowhere
we drove for sixteen hours
then fucked at the edge of the ocean
and the animals there were
all dead
the sky was a
bottomless iridescent blue and
the water thick with tar and
the plane never had a chance
hit the water less than
two miles from shore and
none of your prayers mattered
not all of the bodies were found
i asked you your name but
didn't hear your answer
without hope, without anger
or a sky filled with light but
no color and
these houses pressed flatly against it
these ghosts with their gods
these streets with their bitter waves of silence
and what i remember is
a chalk white room and the idea of
beauty being destroyed
what i remember is
how young i was
the excuses i made
running away from the pain i caused
until my world was reduced to
dead ends and pale-blue corners
and i believe in july like i
believe in august and then i
wake up on a sunday morning in september
to the sound of buildings collapsing
i wake up hungover and alone
and waiting for
the news of cobain's death
waiting for faith in any form
my hands always open like the
mouths of starving dogs
~John Sweet
John sweet, b. 1968, single father of 2, believer in writing as catharsis.
Read more at Bleeding Horse John has two books available - "give a poor man god and watch him starve" and "world without sound" at lulu.com
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