John Sweet

blue to grey

there is a movie or
a tv show

a man who loves a woman he
can never be with
and so the ending is obvious

the ways we choose to waste our lives
are nothing special
but they're all we have

even in an empty house
i believe this

drowning, upstate

bright white light and this
nineteen year old girl falling

three stories
which is enough
and no one can find the baby's father

nothing can grow in the shadows

and we spend our lives
being sorry for the wrong reasons

we dream of fire and the ease with
which it consumes

the way the soldiers killed
the children in their sleep

we wake up to dirty silver skies
and the news that everything is true

the women were
tied to beds and raped

the ground was frozen
but a giant pit was still dug

three hundred bodies butchered
and burned and
the country that grew from them

freeways and strip malls and these
teenage girls fucked
in the name of internet cash

this man who
beats his wife to death
and then his eight year old son
and then cries out god's name
in an interrogation room

waits for an answer

hears only the sound the
body makes
when it finally hits the ground

after kirchner

something simple

a man at a table
with nothing left to say

cold grey light flooding in
through every window
but no poems

no anger

his hands finally empty
of everything but
themselves