labyrinth,
in winter
says cold is one thing says
pain
is another
and then to combine the two
to follow the footsteps in the
snow until they reach the river
mother of someone’s baby
son of another dead soldier
it doesn’t mean
she didn’t love him just because
her hands were tied to the headboard
but then why all of the blood?
why all of the bitter february
sunlight hard against these
dirty windows?
seems like somebody’s lying
seems like there were at least
three of them and
taking turns with a video camera
seems like the ice was too thin
just not sure if he was pushed
or if he jumped
still
and
the killer is caught,
and
his girlfriend weeps
the
baby has no chance,
of
course,
and
the apartment is cold,
the
windows loose in their casings,
the
grey light of january filling
the
rooms like sleeping gas
smell
of gasoline,
approach
of trains and
then the fade
an
abandoned factory in the
center
of town
a
wreath of dead flowers
hanging
on
the
fence that surrounds it
something
small for the
world
to revolve around
grey lies the kingdom
a
slow collapse
in
an upstate landscape
an
apology
not
sincere and devoid of all meaning
but
why would you ever think
you
deserved more?
why
would the dogs ever bother to do
anything
but fuck you in your sleep?
look
it’s
not the boredom that
kills
you in the end
but
the pain
death
with the head of a crow
riding
a silver horse and
it’s
the past you’re afraid of
yes
and it’s the future
it’s
all those bright blue
sunfilled
days in between
the
sound of your name spilling
out
of an ex-lover’s mouth
went
back to his wife after he
got
bored hitting you,
but
still wanted to be friends
still
wanted to taste your tears
laughed
when he told you
it
was better than nothing
simulacra
one
more asshole wandering
blind
& lost in the desert
one
more starving poet
one
more gracious liar and a
neverending
supply of teenage girls
waiting
to be tied up and
fucked
in front of
the
camera
feels
like we need a war here
or
some new group of people to
persecute
and crucify
feels
like rain
silver
sky streaked with grey and
these
old men hiding behind
locked
doors
these
children shooting at cats
&
dogs with pellet guns
shooting
each other and laughing and
then
the body of someone’s runaway
daughter
pulled from the river
been
raped of course and
you
can give her a name and
you
can give her a face and still
no one cares
invent
new religions to justify
your
atrocities and
then
invent new atrocities
build
strip malls
between
the cemeteries
parking
lots filled w/ shining chrome,
mouths
filled w/ rust, and this
still
the desert
of
course
and
we are all still lost
words
are either
spelled
out in neon or
they’re
meaningless
no
one here will ever
admit
to promising you a
future
worth inheriting
hex
feels
so fucking right caught in the
undertow
at the edge of town,
eyes
closed against the copper sky and dreaming,
sweating
god’s blood into weed-filled back yards,
into
the weed-filled parking lots of abandoned shopping plazas,
and
from here there is only the interstate
to
take you to more of what you’ve left behind
from
here it is only 10,000 miles to the
sacred
shrine of st maria
to
the ghost of beth made flesh
and
i remember her smile and
the
feeling of holiness and
i
remember waves of pure sunlight
i
remember being someone better
i
forget why i
thought
it would ever matter
holiest
the sun through
a haze of snow
through a haze of
frozen despair
end of february,
hum of powerlines
and of history,
the bodies of
children slaughtered
in their sleep
freedom
defined by fear
the silence after
the last prisoner has
been executed
it is no small
victory not to be
a whore
John Sweet
