all the nameless saints

de chirico’s shadows, late afternoon,
end of winter with sunlight as
weak as christ

gotta laugh when the
fist finds the child’s throat

gotta be some lesser god shooting
stray dogs
down by the river

it’s easy

not enough time in the day to
start worrying about the future

your father dies and then
your brother but
the bills still have to be paid

girlfriend keeps crying every
time you fuck her sister and
this is how the days pass

minutes scrape and hours bleed

a lifetime spent crawling through
sewers thick with disease is
more than some of us deserve
but you’d be a fool to think
you have a choice

you’d be a liar if you said that
begging for the pain
didn’t make you happy

or maybe it’s myself
i’m talking about here

John Sweet’s recent collections include Heathen Tongue (Kendra Steiner Editions) and Bastard Faith (Scars Publications).