final psalm in the book of rusted chrome

July 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

in the crush of
early morning fog
in this country of
missing fathers i am
waiting for myself

the dead have
all been born as
birdsong here and the
god of starving dogs
paces my street with a
young girl’s blood
staining his
smile

i let the curtain
fall back quietly

let the light
of the poem flicker
and gutter out
but always a half-beat
too late

the house is on fire
without warning

the baby is awake and
screaming
and all the doors are
locked from the
other side

this is the story i
remember
you telling

the final psalm in the
book of rusted chrome
and i never asked

psalm for the stray dogs in a town i no longer visit

June 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

not love
but fucking in a
domesticated room
where the pictures have
all been turned to
the walls

you call it religion
maybe
or maybe you’ve learned
to say nothing at all

maybe the
illusion of escape is
all that’s needed

i have bought this lie
myself

a town too close to my own

June 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

my wife
dreams of blood and
what can i do?

one a.m.
and then two
and we sit together in
the baby’s room

listen to his
tiny breathing while
insomniac poets
pray to
an indifferent god

while the newly dead
wash ashore in
california

and what is the
end result of history
but this?

five children in a
town too close to my own
who find a stray dog
in a park and decide to
torture it

decide to hang it from a
basketball hoop with
a dirty length of rope and
beat it with sticks

and at some point we
drift back to sleep
with the hope of
waking up clean

and at some point

in the rape camps

June 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

imagine the men
forgotten and dead in
fresh pits

imagine their
wives and daughters
at gunpoint
in the rape camps
no one will ever admit

or no

don’t imagine it

it’s already happening
in a country that has
nothing to do with
your own life

it’s over and done with
in the time it takes
a boot to crush a
newborn’s skull

this one small sound
alone
should be enough to
bring us all to
our knees

proving dali’s existence with words and the spaces between them

June 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

not quite silence in the
gentle hum of early afternoon
but maybe something softer than
the screams of crows

something more human than the
room of hanged men

and how many years now since
my last escape?

how many hours wasted staring into
dirty mirrors or
through warped panes of glass?

what i see is that at
some point in the future i will be
asking my son for forgiveness

at some point
i will speak of my own father
for the last time

will spit out his ashes while
faceless men in the towns i’ve escaped from
beat their wives and girlfriends with
the brutal fists of love

violence: an exercise in holy breathing

May 2002 | back-issues, John Sweet, poetry

and he hits you
then brings you flowers
or he just hits you

it’s not a story anymore
it’s a religion
and i choose not to believe

the earth will be consumed
yes
but not in my lifetime

the days will pass too quickly
and the reasons for leaving
will fade
and it’s always someone

a friend
an old lover
or a sister-in-law
and just beyond the brutality
are the sounds of children
playing in the street

the approaching scream of sirens
after a man i’ve never met
finds the brakes too late

and we call this autumn
and the sky is a brilliant blue
and without warmth

the sun is old beyond years