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By John Sweet

7/22/02

rain
just after midnight
and the sound of
geese moving south

my own quiet breathing
in a dark room

the fact of
20,000 innocent people
brutally murdered
cannot stop the slow
approach of winter


there is always
something stronger
than this luminous
shell of faith


the poet avoiding confessions

By John Sweet

awake and mostly blind
at two in the morning
in a house where
nothing fits quite right

cold

ashamed of my
twenty-two years spent
feeding a pointless addiction
but unable to quit

unwilling maybe or
maybe afraid

nothing is ever gained
by putting
the truth on paper

 

Copyright © 2002 John Sweet

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John Sweet, 33, lives in upstate New York with his wife and son. He has been writing for 20 years, and publishing in the small press for 14. For more about him, visit his Web site.



Bio to come.
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2 Mar 2026

Strange Horizons
Strange Horizons invites non-fiction submissions for our March 30 special issue on “Fungi in SFF.”
Once I’ve finished writing, I will fold this letter up and tuck it into the Tristram you kindly loaned me (may it be our Galeotto … ). I’ll knock on your door, at which point I will most likely encounter a puzzled maidservant, who will ask who in the world I am, and I will explain that I am returning a book you were kind enough to bestow on me (generous creature that you are and clearly down-on-their-luck weatherworn would-be poet that I am).
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