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come down come down come down

       

 

crawling to work through 6 a.m. fog got the

strength of christ got the

mouth of judas

 

got bleeding knees and broken hands and 

the words to captain kennedy

running through my head

 

hope in small doses which is

usually all i can stand and if i was you

i’d be drunk

 

if i was yr girlfriend

i’d be stoned

 

no point facing the sunlight without

someone else’s poison

running through your veins

 

but here, now, at the edge of this

two lane highway with these crows

on my back and a mouthful of gravel

 

been too old to be a martyr for

thirty goddamn years

 

keep having these dreams about a

waitress who insists she’s my wife

 

keep waking up at the bottom of the

basement stairs waiting

for my father’s ghost to find me

 

for the water to rise and the

walls to collapse and i wake up lost

                           in a stranger’s bed

with the sheets like a shroud and i

know why i hate myself but

                    not how to stop

 

 

 

 

i leave the gun but

grab my knife

 

it’s the choice between never quite

growing old and choking to death on

the bitter meat of hope

 

 

John Sweet, b 1968, still numbered among the living. A believer in writing as catharsis. Opposed to all organized religion and political ideologies. His collections include A DEAD MAN, EITHER WAY (2020 Kung Fu Treachery Press) and THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY THIS IS GOING TO END (2023 Cyberwit). All pertinent facts about his life are buried somewhere in his writing.

 

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