ON THIS NIGHT I SWEAR EVERYTHING I SAY IS TRUE

 

DEAD MAN IN A DEAD MAN'S TOWN

 

ALL THIS TALK OF SOMEONE ELSE'S PAIN

 

SOMETHING FOR WHEN YOU FEEL NOTHING

 

I HAVE NEVER BEEN THE MAN WHO OFFERS YOU HOPE

 

ALWAYS TAKE TIME OUT FOR BUNNIES

 

excerpts from THE SUM OF BROKEN PARTS

 

 

9.

 

 

tired of bleeding of dreaming of

crawling from room to room

on frostbit mornings

 

tired of remembering and

of being afraid

 

late november sunlight through

dead vines and dirty windows and

i am sitting in this house filled with

dust, filled with blank sheets of

paper, and i am growing old

 

she is tired of hearing about it

 

we are finished but

no one says it

 

no one breathes

 

i keep waiting to wake up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

14.

 

 

the children asleep and

you on yr knees in a house

not quite 2/3 paid for sucking off

this man who hates you and he can’t

stop thinking about his girlfriend and he

can’t find anything good on tv

 

considers giving you answers to all of

the questions you’ve

never had the guts to ask

 

smiles to himself at the

thought of yr tears

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

25.

 

 

not living but

hiding in shades of grey, in

rooms with cracked and peeling walls,

with water-stained ceilings and

not drowning but not

breathing either

 

not looking at the sky but

staring directly into the dying sun

 

falling slowly into the frozen river

from a great height

 

like all good pain,

it only lasts for a second

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

34.

 

 

grew up grew

older had no use for

art for profound ideas or

startling images, had no desire to

be shocked or outraged, didn’t

care didn’t want to care, had bills to

pay had unexplained illnesses,

mysterious pains, the usual bouts

of depression and  art, jesus christ

what a waste of time, what a

fucking useless gift all of those

bystanders butchered in

meaningless wars all of those

children starving beaten raped

and was a pretty picture

really the best you

could do?

 

was a sad little poem

seriously going to be your

                       final word?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

39.

 

 

any number of books i’ve bought but

never read, all of them piled randomly in the

corners of this room where the ceiling

has begun to leak

 

the poem which, like everything else

in this life, is only an act of winding down

 

i stop answering letters,

  stop reading emails,

  stop picking up the phone

 

i sit on the floor with my back pressed

firmly against this bed of broken glass

 

75 degrees and then 85 and then 90

 

sky the color of luminous dust

 

no rain in the forecast, but i watch

the ceiling where it ripples

 

i watch the air where it gathers dust

 

it’s only a matter of time

before the worst that can happen

                                               will

 

ALL OF MY PROPHECIES, HAVING COME TRUE

 

THE COLLECTED SORROW

 

NOBODY BLEEDS LIKE A TYRANT

 

NICE HAIR, FUCKTARD

 

wasteland angel sings with broken voice

 

believe in fear and believe

                  in ignorance

    

believe in the taste of

exhaust and the smell of gasoline

 

the brutal scrape of

december sunlight

 

plant hopeful seeds in the frozen

soil and curse god when

nothing grows

 

move further away from

everything you hold dear

 

you will finally learn to see

beauty in those last precious

seconds before the crows

get your eyes

SAID THE POEM WAS THE IMPORTANT THING; SAID THE GUN WAS JUST A METAPHOR

 

My incessant pessimism, reviewed at

THE BIG WINDOWS REVIEW

 

https://thebigwindowsreview.com/book-reviews/john-sweet-three-works/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the great century

 

it was afterwards, victory

declared and no way to thaw the

frozen ground except by

burning the corpses

 

it was the need to dream

laid gently

against the inability to sleep

 

sat there awake at four in

the afternoon, shivering and

cold in the sunlight

 

lay there at four in the

morning listening to the house

fall apart around me

 

my wife said

we need to be brave

 

our children just laughed

 

sang and played out in the

yard while a gentle rain

of ashes covered everything

YOU WERE THE DRUG I'D ALWAYS WANTED

 

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A LESS CORRUPT FORM OF GOD

 

NOTHING IS EVER BETTER THAN WHATEVER YOU HAVEN'T GOT

 

SONG FOR THIS QUIET MAN WITH A GUN IN HIS HAND

 

...BUT SOME OF US ARE BORN TO ALWAYS DEFY YOU

 

NOW IS THE TIME TO TURN YOUR MIND TO BETTER DAYS

 

HIS BRAINS LEAKING OUT A HOLE IN HIS HEAD, AND NO ONE EVEN NOTICED

 

WE WILL LIVE TO SEE ALL THE BEAUTY WE'VE CREATED REPLACED BY FEAR

ALWAYS

FEARLESS

 

https://archive.org/details/fearless-70/mode/2up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN KINGDOMS OF FEAR, THE COWARDS WILL HOLD ALL POWER

OTHER WORDS FOR FAILURE

YOU ARE THE KINGDOM OF GOD, DESPITE EVERYTHING

WE WERE NEVER SURE, BUT REFUSED TO ASK

GOTTA FUCK WHO YOU HATE THE MOST

WISDOM FROM

THE VOID

 

https://intothevoidmagazine.com/article/one-for-the-profiteer/

 

 

https://intothevoidmagazine.com/article/one-interpretation/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVERYTHING I KNOW, AND ALL THE REST