memory
this town that
de chirico would recognize
these empty streets and blank windows
and the sense that something
has been lost
the shadows of houses and
abandoned factories falling like faith
the ghosts of old lovers
walking from room to room
and i never meant to end up here
and i never wanted the days to grow shorter
never wanted this
four year-old boy to die in the fire
his brother in tears and
his mother screaming to be let back in
even as the roof collapses
even as the idea of god is raped
at gunpoint by laughing soldiers in
some slowly starving country on
the other side of the world
and i am a believer in silence
but also in the noises needed to define it
i refuse to vote if my choices
are limited to dogs and whores
think about the
number of indians that had to be
slaughtered just to bring us
to where we are today
consider the fact that
nothing you say really matters
find whoever you love most
and beg for forgiveness
the face of god, burned
what i am is an asshole
a father and a son
and a man standing at a window
watching September rain pool
in the driveway
a ghost with teeth and
what i hate is poetry
poets
politicians
the way we all become whores
at some point
and maybe i'm
moving too fast here
maybe cobain was concerned with
more than his own pain and misery
i've heard this
kind of talk before
have listened to a junkie father
explain why he was a victim
and when he was asked if he knew where
his children were
he said that wasn't the point
said the past has nothing to do
with the present
and in the morning
i walk jonathan to the bus stop
and feel the last good heat of summer
wash over me
in the evening
i drive past the apartment where
a woman i never knew was
murdered by her lover
i consider how far faith
can take any of us
i consider the idea of fear
as a weapon
the idea of hope
as a bottomless pit
the way that nothing we say is
ever exactly the truth
saviour
what you do for money
or for love
or out of necessity
this idea of god's face torn away
to reveal the bones of the
tortured and the bodies of the raped
this idea of sex as power
of your fourteen year-old daughter
crawling naked across the floor
of her lover's house
the flies that swarm
the mouths of starving babies
the sounds their skulls make
when rifle butts are driven through them
or boot heels or shovel blades
and who exactly do you think
cares about these minor atrocities?
what exactly do you think is
being done to stop them?
dig anywhere and
what you'll find is blood and
if you're thirsty enough
you'll drink it
if you're hungry enough
you'll eat the shit of politicians
you'll sell your children to
men who want only to fuck them
to men who want only to
devour them
and when they wave goodbye
you'll smile
John Sweet
is 35, married, a father, "overeducated, underpaid, living in the toxically polluted hole known
as endicott, New York." John has been writing for 20+ years now, publishing for about 3/4 of them. His new
work is online at Tin Lustre Mobile and a few other places, and some free e-chaps. His latest and first full offering is
Human Cathedrals.