this thing you say which is
nothing
or which is the
only thing you know

this small thing and that
all of the men named jesus christ
throughout history have answers
but that none of them are right

none of them are
enough to save the burning house
or the children inside or the
bleeding horse as he staggers down
the dirty grey side streets of
the town you grew up in

and after you grew up
you could only grow old and
there were moments where your
parents died and there were no sisters

no brothers

just yourself in
an ocean of words or a
sea of silence or even just
drowning in a bottle

just taking the pills from the doctor
and calling it a cure

a miracle

yourself against an empty blue sky

your wife
who no longer speaks to you
and when the pills run out
you find the bottle again

when your children approach
you bare your teeth
like a saint

you scream at the television

you sleep without dreaming and
your dreams of course
are about drowning
and the house begins to fall apart

the horse falls and the crows have it

not ashes to ashes but
blood into bone

bone into sorrow

small acts of alchemy and then
you find yourself
eight hundred miles away
from anywhere

not dead yet but dying

not dying but fading

anger turned to cancer and
faith to rust
and you can no longer find your
way back home

you're driven by a stranger
with your hands tied at your sides
and you yell and you scream

you sing
and no one laughs

no one wants to find out
if you're contagious

and three years later you go to sleep
and the next morning you wake up
and you've forgotten how to breathe

how to walk or
even how to crawl and
the floor is cold against your face

the windows are too bright against
the ruined corners of your mind

grey light like the face of every god
you were ever threatened with
and it feels like the reasons
for this exact moment
should be explained

and you
open your mouth to speak

and you come up with nothing


� 2004 by John Sweet