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 98^th floor

because it almost

felt like flying