In The Museum Of Unfulfilled Dreams by John Sweet

a house of bones
built at the desert’s edge

the gift of sorrow

august’s bright blue heat carries over
into september and i know myself to be
blessed by any number of
                        lesser saints

i know the value of fear and
the necessity of hatred

god’s teeth filed down to points

the maps of every town you
no longer live in, those empty fields and
dead end streets where we hid from the future but
here it is and here we are

distances filled with regret and
the way regret looks like sorrow

a house of meaningless words built by
the hollow hands of ghosts

and i’m 13 years old when de chirico
forsakes america and then i’m
45 and standing in my own overrun back yard,
late afternoon shadows crawling across
scorched brown grass at the
end of summer,
nothing but weeds growing up where the
bones of christ have been planted  and
that history never changes

the last war has been lost

a new one has almost arrived

something to feel good about until
the first rotting wave of innocent corpses
washes up to your door

john sweet, b 1968, still numbered among the living. A believer in writing as catharsis. an optimistic pessimist. Opposed to all organized religion and political parties. Avoids zealots and social media whenever possible. His latest collections include A NATION OF ASSHOLES W/ GUNS (2015 Scars Publications) and APPROXIMATE WILDERNESS (2016 Flutter Press). All pertinent facts about his life are buried somewhere in his writing.