Friday, August 7, 2009

Three by John Sweet

after the age of giants

And this is not nothing, this sky, these
clouds, these hills, and it’s not the
whole story because nothing ever is,
but listen. Distance is an important thing.
Forty feet from the bridge to the tracks
below. 100 miles between the woman’s
body and her husband’s faith. And have
you ever tried defining yourself by
something other than sorrow or fear?
Will you crawl from lover to lover with
nothing to offer but fading bruises
and the promise of more?

It’s okay to pause before you answer,
to consider, to weight your options.
It’s okay to accept the fact that we’ve
never really meant anything to each other.
This is why the sunlight casts shadows.
Why time only moves in one direction.
The moment arrives one hundred
million times a day, and then it passes.
The song is forgotten. I wanted to
sing it to you, but you were married.
You were crying. It was a sound
just like any other.

#

bird trapped in a wall

flutter of wings like
god’s fading heartbeat,
like the shadows of
disappeared lovers, and
there is all the time you
waste while yr still alive
and then there is the
moment you die

there is the shape yr
bones will make when
laid out in the
desert sand

there is joy, even in
the face of sorrow

#

the din

trees in the haze, shimmer
of leaves, fist of the sun in a
bottomless white sky

don’t ask for forgiveness

don’t offer it

all of these houses will fall
down, given enough time,
and all of the poets you
hate will grow old and die

all of their mediocre poems
will be forgotten

they will be just like you

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