EXISTENTIAL NIHILISM AT AFFORDABLE PRICES

 

john sweet - Books and Publications Spotlight | Lulu

With matte covers these days.  

Quite freaktacular.

spent the summer stoned, or lost among false saviors

 

king of kings no. 1

 

like fucking on shattered glass,

like you and i in the bleakest days of december

where i hide beneath a blanket of ash,

where you sing only words that have crawled through

the blood of castrated fratboy rapists

 

like the ocean

 

can’t swim the length of it and

so we drown

 

end up alone in some terminal room

with 500,000 others just like us

 

sound of broken bells

beneath a faded blue sky

 

sound of babies crying

 

let them grow up to be more than the

joyless wreckage we’ve amounted to

IF THERE IS A GOD, SHE WILL SHIT ON YOUR GRAVE

 

BECAUSE YOUR KING IS A WHORE, BECAUSE YOUR GOD IS A LIE

 

THE GOOD TIMES ARE

HERE TO STAY

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qa7coWxIqgIWWSTqL1litqyLmg_AG_Bq/view?usp=sharing

 

the sum of broken parts (excerpt)

 

comes up for air at the end of september comes out

into the pure blue sunlight into the almost-warmth of

wildflowers and scorched back yards the indecision

of frightened children stolen bicycles news of a

thousand pointless deaths strangers and minor saints

this man who was his friend this poet these streets

moving from the cemetery to the river these sidewalks

marked with colored chalk with spray paint littered

with needles these needles filled with poison and the

poison tastes like sugar like sex like magic and he is

here in the last wide open field before the desert he

is alive and he is dying he is infinite is swimming

through the veins of someone else’s god is coming

up for into pure bliss into pure bliss into absolute

                                              joy and neverending

                                         sorrow and he is

                                             silent and he is

                                         singing and he is

               nowhere and so he is home

your careless face

 

blue smoke hills and grey

glass skies on the day i was waiting

to be buried next to my father, but the

fucker wasn’t ready to die yet

 

was the season of dreamlike resonance in

the age of silent monsters

 

was a lifetime of burnt and splintered

memories until the future was

nothing but bone and ash

 

a lot of blood spilled for a

lot of gods that never really existed

 

can’t make the punchline

any more obvious

 

can’t help but laugh at the illusion

we’ve been sold of power resting in

the hands of the wise and the just

 

give a man the power to kill and he

will only

make you his enemy in the end

WHEN I DREAM I'M AWAKE

 

we mistake confession for apology

 

 NEW AT

TWENTY TWO

TWENTY EIGHT

 https://www.twentytwotwentyeight.com/single-post/selected-poetry-by-john-sweet

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NO WORDS FOR THE PEOPLE YOU'VE MURDERED; NO REASON TO TELL YOU YOU'RE WORTHY OF LIVING

 

RIDING HIGH IN THE AGE OF SHAME: A TRIPTYCH

 

SOME OTHER DEAD MAN'S SONG

 

the oblique

 

sunlight in the

spaces between houses

 

map of loss

 

geography of both

memory and sorrow and

then what?

 

find the man with the

crosses carved into his palms

 

find the one with the head of

a crow,

with the mind of a jackal

 

the junkie hymns are

what matter here,

and the prayers

of murdered dreamers

 

gold and myrrh and that

all gifts are weapons

 

that all lovers

believe in resurrection

 

the heart betrays the body

                                yes

but then the

body betrays the soul

 

ecstasy precedes despair

 

the desert spreads without

mercy in every direction

the needle in deep enough to touch bone

 

THE PAPER

REVOLUTION

CONTINUES

 

https://www.amazon.com/Subterranean-Blue-Poetry-Rebecca-Banks/dp/B0B14283VY/

 

THE PAPER

REVOLUTION

CONTINUES

 

https://www.amazon.com/Subterranean-Blue-Poetry-Rebecca-Banks/dp/B0B14283VY/

 

A HOLY ACT IN A NATION OF DESPAIR

 

shot w/ yr father’s rifle and no

assholes here,

only punchlines

 

only charred gifts from

lesser gods

or maybe sunday morning in a nation of random suicides

 

https://english.fullerton.edu/publications/dash.aspx

 

https://www.facebook.com/dashliteraryjournal/

 

https://twitter.com/dashjournal

 

https://www.instagram.com/dashliteraryjournal/

 

this is the heart burned beyond recognition

 

HELIX

MAGAZINE

https://helixmagazine.org/2022/03/16/simone-john-sweet/

 

 

 

 

backwards to zero

 

VERSIFICATION

 

https://www.versificationzine.com/august21

 

 

 

 

the piles of anonymous bones have all been picked through

 

THE SOUTH SHORE

REVIEW

 

https://southshorereview.ca/poetry/when-all-ive-ever-offered-you-is-the-truth/

 

subtle humor in the kingdom of certain death

 

THE UNIVERSE JOURNAL

 

https://www.theuniversejournal.com/docs/current_issue/4105UNI_09_09.pdf