May 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
back to this
again
cold and grey
and the eye of god
closed tight against the
raw sound of animals
dying terribly
you were hoping for
something better
a child of your own
a small white house
in a quiet town
but here we are on
beecher street where white
is not a color
is instead
a waiting for rust or
maybe just bleach spilled
across a favorite
shirt
a minor shade of despair
and even if the
sun shines it casts
only shadows
and even if
the windows break
we’ve forgotten how
to bleed
and there is never a
shortage of angry fists
trying to help us to
remember
May 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
you dream of
being anorexic
of glamor and
speed
and the bitter taste
of bleach
and i want a
shotgun
and a house in
the country
the promise of
immortality
and i laugh when
you put the knife to
your wrist
when you put your
hands through
the bedroom window
i either bruise you
or ignore you
and you always beg
for more
in love like a
bad top forty song
and i’ll let you be
an addict
if you let me be
a failure
just show me
that smile
May 2001 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry
another
thirteen year-old
suicide in
the first tentative days
of spring
the sun big and beautiful
and without heat
the noose tight at
both ends
it’s a small price to pay for
electricity
or the atomic bomb
nothing crazy horse
could’ve seen coming
nothing reagan
ever pretended to care about
and on good days
the highways still take
the rest of us
where we have to go
