Poetry by John Sweet

              Dane CC




the bleeding horse sings one last song over the graves of 500,000,000 nameless victims


and if all you are is a ghost or
even if i find only one small place that
isn’t enemy territory

if the dogs have all eaten
their fill of corpses

call it a victory without
naming the war

let me rediscover hope

let me drown in the
ocean of your beauty

it’s enough that what we have will
still matter
even when nothing else does





​amanzinita

and even in the cold april rain,
nothing grows
from the dead man’s bones

even in the act of hope
there is a moment of collapse

                 a house on fire

all of these small animals
dying frightened in the underbrush and
who is it that sings the
                  song of joy?

who is it that loves you with
words instead of actions?

not all empty moments
are wasted​
​

John Sweet sends greetings from the rural wastelands of upstate NY. He is a firm believer in writing as catharsis, and in the continuous search for an unattainable and constantly evolving absolute truth. His latest poetry collections include A FLAG ON FIRE IS A SONG OF HOPE (2019 Scars Publications) and NO ONE STARVES IN A NATION OF CORPSES (2020 Analog Submission Press).

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