Featured Writer: John Sweet Day 3
Sunday, July 5th, 2009letter to the west coast, late winter
or the obvious failure of
poems about dreams
codeine sleep, friday afternoon,
and i am buried beneath
the sound of rain
i am naked in warm sunlight
with a woman i don’t
think i ever loved
there is a memory of war,
but there is no war,
and this is how you know i
am writing a dream
there are walls that
collapse like wet cardboard
there are fears disguised
as other fears
my father is never mentioned,
but his death is always present
no names are spoken, and so
faces are allowed to blur
i don’t say these words, i
don’t say i love you
but i consider it
i consider what i’ll lose
i dream about drowning
all endings are the same
________________________________
upstate blessing
these dull grey houses w/
their tiny, bitter windows
with their dead brown lawns
cram in as many as you can
between the cemetery and the freeway
let the factories burn to the ground
let the poisons escape
little gods sing angry songs,
of course,
and no one expects the blind to
give a shit about the color of the sky
we are fucked out here in the
land of slaughtered indians
we are nailed to our crosses of
damp, rotting wood and
told to give thanks
we are lectured about the
millions less fortunate
all misery is a contest, of course,
and we can never win
all suicides are failures
girl in the corner raises her hand,
asks but what about cancer?
asks but what about AIDS? and her
back yard is gravel and chewed up mud
is last years laves and broken,
faded toys and what she’s thinking
about is her father
what happens is that nothing
washes clean in february rain
nothing grows
we stand in the shadow cast by
whatever pain we’ve caused and
wait w/out hope for the
discovery of fire
_____________________________
or this
little hands to hold the hammer
and drive the nails home
small birds shot through
exuberant hearts
call it war but paint it in
delicate pastels
drape a flag over every corpse
lovingly, like the child
underneath was your own
________________________________
blind as children
she asks but what about
the burning house? and i smile,
or no
she says your life is
nothing like your writing
says your writing has
nothing to do with anything real
and i can see why she’d
believe that
i can understand how
truths told by cowards might
sound like lies