UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY
JOHN SWEET

the written word disguised as truth

the women are raped
silently beneath a blue sky
in rooms with or without windows

this is always a part of
someone's history

the smell of burning flesh and the
photographs of the slaughtered and
in the here and now i am
cupping your breasts in my
sweatslicked hands

i am naming the stars and
blessing the spaces between them
and there is a day where i
realize i will no longer live forever

where my son
will see for the first time
the man i truly am
and turn away in shame

there are pages in history that
cannot be rewritten
but i have yet to see one

i include my own life here

the events that actually happened
and the ways they were changed in
                                                    the retelling
and i am no different from any of you

about this much
at least
i can be honest

it costs me nothing to
point out
that we will all drown together


opened her arms, said come home

And here along the river wall where
the teenage dogs spray paint FUCK in
bright grey letters, where the truth is
nothing more than what it pretends
to be, is the same here as anywhere else,
and the stench rising from the water,
the abandoned shopping carts, rusting
bones of small animals, plastic bags
caught in the underbrush, and then
what? The city can only spread like
a cancer or die like a victim. The
future is only a single crumbling wall
holding up a collapsing roof. I can’t
remember a time in this place when
                                                   I wasn’t afraid.


the necessity of pain and fear

beautiful and high in the
pure white light of the sun and
never anything to eat but
broken glass

never anything to break
but promises
and then the small white flowers
that blossom where the
pieces fall

the filth that we
bathe our children in

the men of god who would
have us beg for more

who would have us lose
all sight of joy


john sweet, 35 and counting, angry, bitter, etc etc,
hiding in a pissant town in upstate new york, a believer
in very little. a follower of the writings of j. pollock
and of the words of h. frayne. too much education, and
still a shit job.

recent publications include the chapbook Enemy
(www.pinkanarchkittypress.com),
the full length collection Human Cathedrals
(www.ravennapress.com)
 and the electronic chapbook Silence in the House of Truths
(www.tmpoetry.com).







© 2007 Underground Voices