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.
