Poetry by john sweet

       Tasha Lutek CC



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in these hours of bitter sunlight,
in the season of crows,
and the biggest mistake we make here
is growing old

we learn the importance of distance,
but not how to close it,
and so we learn nothing

we drift

we crawl

speak to each other softly, but
only in dreams,
and does this make what we say
more or less honest?

is the person i’ve become
a bigger disappointment
than the person i was?

i will only ask you this
once you’ve left me
for the last time




says baby, death is my answer

three figures on a back porch,  a man and
a woman, his wife or not his wife, his mistress or
his lover and a man and his mother, the
three of them and two of them drunk, all of them
angry and one of them suicidal and i am there
too, or i’ve been told that i’m there

can almost remember

the three of them and four brick walls,
four doorways and the afternoon sun, the blinding
light and the absolute heat but
                       not the warmth

                               do you see?

                       not the warmth

sticky yellow air filled with the ghosts of
fathers and husbands, with unspoken grievances, and
the three of them there and the possibility of myself,
the fear in not knowing, of imprecise memory,
a man and a woman and then a man and a woman,
two of them, an imperfect triangle, an overdose
or just another drink and i remember
                                      this or i imagine it

i invent my future ruins
from what the past has to offer

the three of them, who are real, and the sunlight,
the birdsong, subtle scent of days lost forever
and what happens is that i outlive them all,
am myself outlived,
and so prove the story to be a lie

prove all lies to matter, all connections and
endings, all truths, and these were the people i loved
and this will always be them, the story uncertain
and the meaning unclear but this will always
be the moment, the sunlight and heat, 
the pain, and that all i have learned in my
life is all i will ever know

all i can hope to be is
everything i never was




in the kingdom of god, there is always room for despair


snow in the first grey
light of sunday morning

news of dali’s suicide

of his execution by
the king of spain

a war
but no winners

a passing moment

my father in that last suffocating
year before his death

smiles,
asks me were we born fucked or
does it just feel that way? but
then he’s gone before i can answer

forgot how to laugh and then
he forgot how to breathe and i have
stopped answering the phone

i am tired of the age of gold,
never believed in
the age of enlightenment

the machine gun is invented,
is improved and improved again, and
have you noticed that you’re
still not safe?

that the whores in power still grow
fat on the flesh and blood
of your children?

they still grow old in their
palaces of gold
while you fade from memory

they invent a past just to
make you fear the future and
what they want you to
believe is that you
never mattered at all but
will you give them this power?

will you finally understand
what it means to be holy?

there is no true victory
without truth

​

john sweet, b 1968, still numbered among the living.  A believer in writing as catharsis. Opposed to all organized religion and political parties. His latest collections include the limited edition chapbooks  HEATHEN TONGUE (2018 Kendra Steiner Editions) and A BASTARD CHILD IN THE KINGDOM OF NIL (2018 Analog Submission Press). All pertinent facts about his life are buried somewhere in his writing.

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