unproven theories in the age of despair

June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

cold sunlight down tracy street
on a sunday morning
and i am almost able to believe that
the past can be left behind

i am tired of these abstractions
like america and god

i have moved awkwardly into the
21st century and brought with me only the bleeding horse
and it walks slowly
from room to room
without ever casting a shadow

and there is a child somewhere
who will be the next one to
die horribly
and there are linda’s sister’s moving through this
lush green landscape
ten years after the cancer
devoured her

nothing is more important than love

poem where the skin peels away from the bone

June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

how many years now
since the war to end all wars
and how many more wars?

how many young girl’s bodies
found in the
deserts of southern california?

how many babies left in dumpsters
or in plastic bags?

and there is my wife
who says that no one wants their
face pressed into this much
pain and ugliness and
i agree

i kiss her
as she falls asleep on a
warm september afternoon
then crawl to my desk to
finish this poem

what i never
thought i’d be was
a junkie

if what i am is what you hate

June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

in the cold and almost rain of
a tuesday morning

in the aftermath of
two young boys beaten to death
with grim joy by their mother

money in the slot and then
the sound of your voice

what you say is come home

what matters aren’t the words
but their weight

the fact that
you mean them despite all
of the pain

how much closer
they bring me to being human

the human cathedral, always

June 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

cold wind outside a dark room
and she says this isn’t working

the first week of may

the smell of witches burning

every wall holding up another one
and the way houses grow from
this simple idea

the way windows are broken
or gods diminished

the ones who insist that belief
is not an option but
a necessity

that a home is more than
shelter from the rain

and what she says is
i’m not happy
and what it is is an accusation

what she says is
i love you
but i don’t know why

this admission too much
like the
sound of breaking bones

and the bleeding horse drinks

May 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

rain
but nothing is
made pure

birds sing and
the refrigerator hums
and the streets take us
from one anonymous town to
the next

three days
then four
and the bleeding horse drinks
what he can

staggers drunkenly through
these fields of
the newly murdered

falls to his knees
even as
the trigger is pulled

a clean shot
but nothing so pure as
an act of mercy

memo to creeley

May 2003 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

not language itself
but the need for it

the weight of silence

the child
has been murdered

i love my wife

the child has been
murdered