Friday, November 27, 2015

John Sweet- Two Poems


we are nothing and nothing can save us
 
and despite everything we’ve
created we are still surrounded by emptiness
we have the promise of the lottery
we have ipods for
starving children everywhere
and it feels good to rest out here
to just drop to your knees on the edge of
burnt hill road and let the blood flow,
and it feels good to close yr eyes
left him lying there because the baby was
crying, buzz of flies was a soft blanket,
a wall, a gentle ocean
 
shadows of birds in flight
could taste it, like music or the
sound of running feet
no one asleep, but one of us turned away
autumn maybe or the end of summer
and the heat like a dull blue shroud
silver sun in a sky the color of dust and
despite all of the wars we’d won
we were lost
found the mother in a shallow grave with her
hands cut off but we never found the father
had 400 channels to choose from
and it wasn’t enough
had some good fucking medicine
still hated myself, but not as much
 
not as fiercely
missed the heat that came with
all of that glorious empty anger
 

 
bird imagery 2
 
like a body found hanging
from the
underside of a bridge
like dirty white skies or the
rusted metal towers that
grow from the ridges
of anonymous hills
wherever you are
it’s always 20 years too late
 
whoever you wanted to be
we always end up nothing more
than hungry ghosts in the
age of crows
saints nailed to crosses
in upstate fields and
the man said sing
and so we did
said jump because it was
only the 98th floor
because it almost
felt like flying
 
 

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