Monday, February 24, 2020

BUILDING SOMETHING DARKER IN THE RUINS OF THE HUMAN CATHEDRAL




So, its looking like the possibility of 2 new collections in the next few months -

a smaller side-stitched collection of recent stuff and a bigger “selected works” retrospective-type thingie covering published work from the 2005-2016 period (plus an additional selection of

new, unpublished work to lure in all of the

completists).



I wont bore you with the story of THE GREAT FLOOD here but, suffice it to say, I lost all

of my paper archives about 15 years ago,

probably 12-15 years worth of zines, broadsides, fancy journals, postcards and general poetry ephemera.  Probably not a huge  loss for the history of mankind, but it puts a serious

damper on ever having a COMPLETE WORKS

OF JOHN SWEET see the light of day.



So be it.



Ill spread the word when/if these alleged collections ever see the light of day.













sleepless





don't give me the gift
of jesus christ



don't tell me that faith
carries the same weight
as anger



who would you kill
without regret?



silence is one lie
denial another



at some point
every age becomes the
age of gold



we are all worth more
or less
than someone else



we are never enough



and maybe you recognize this as
the root of all wars



maybe you believe in
blind absolutes like good and evil



a young boy left in a
department store
by his mother's boyfriend



the mother dead and
her body hidden
and what happens next is that
the world moves on



the boy pushes beyond the
edge of the poem



grows up
or possibly doesn't
like others i've known



billy drunk and unconscious
in a burning car



linda devoured by cancer



always the phone at two a.m.
and the faint smile in
the voice on the other end



this girl at the door who says
she just needs
a place to spend the night



says she'll fuck you
but that needs a ride to
her cousin's house in the morning



says her prescription ran out
two weeks ago
and she can't afford any more



asks for a beer



a cigarette



says she hasn't slept in
three days and in the
morning she won't look at you



doesn't want to hear about
pollock or picasso and when you
get back home you
notice that the money's gone
from your wallet



you consider all of the lies
your father ever told you



all of the reasons you have
for hating them
and the way that all it makes you
is tired


the way his friends
disappeared after picking
the corpse clean and now
here i am seven years later with
my wife and children



with nothing in the bank
and the mortgage due



with this anger which can
feed me for
another hundred years but which
burns the skin from my
family's bones



which makes me as hateful a
god as any of yours



my hands moving always
without regret










Thursday, February 13, 2020

ARE YOU A MOTHERFUCKER OR ARE YOU AN ASSHOLE?





CHICAGO

RECORD



Another excellent

repository of modern angst and

disgruntlement.



New stuff there,

but one of them seems to be cut off,

so I’ll print the whole thing

here for you.



No extra charge.



Because I’m a  helluva guy.












wounded ship on an ocean of dust



felt like late fall
all winter long

thought i was van gogh then
thought i was the crows

stood in the shadow of a
white stucco church on the west
side of town watching the sun slowly
drop behind february trees

considered where i might be able to get
30 pieces of silver
and listen

none of these wars are going to
be won in your lifetime or mine

none of these assholes in power really
care about you as a person, so
why do you keep voting for them?

is your life so empty you need the
drugs just to help you feel alive?

gotta keep right on the edge
gotta keep the anger from
slipping into desperation

the poets with their brains blown out
or the dead-eyed dauighters
doing internet porn

the kings just begging to be killed

the prophets chained to the
bumpers of pick up trucks then
dragged to pieces down gravel roads

do you choose to be a victim
or is the honor forced on you?

and i was driving to work when i
heard the news about cobain

was saddened
but not surprised

had reasons to live that i
wouldn’t let go of

hated myself
          yes
but hated the rest of you
that much more