the poem is not an act of forgiveness
"I'm 35, married, a father, angry at a great many things, overeducated, underpaid, deeply in debt, one dead car in the driveway, just waiting for my neighbors to move. Recent work has appeared in DUFUS!, remark, Above Ground Testing and 63channels. Recent collections include
"Enemy," a chapbook from PinkAnarchkittyPress.com; "Silence in the House of Truths," an e-chapbook available at Tamafyhr Mountain Poetry; and "Human Cathedrals," a tasty little full-length collection of angst and bile available from Ravenna Press."
By John Sweet
i don't ask to
be holy
don't ask to stand
among the crippled and
the maimed and
i offer no apologies
i send the pale bones
of the raped and the starving
to those who marked the day
of my son's birth in black
on their calendars
beauty is
a necessary thing and
again
i offer no apologies
each day carries the weight
of its own brutality
every act
builds or destroys
one hundred thousand years
will pass and the sun
will forget what it means
to burn and
all of my words will become
less than the memory
of dust
and this is not prophecy
but only the obvious
it's my gift to the boy
who wears
my name without choice
there is no great trick
to outliving gods
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