Matthew Sweeney

After the murder, I called a meeting
to see if we were happy. I declared
I was not — I said I liked the man
we shot. You all disagreed with this.
...

Outside the igloo he waited
for an invitation to come inside.
There was no knocker, no doorbell.
He coughed, there was no reply.
...

Munich Olympics 1972: there should have been
an Irish gold medal to go with Ronnie's
from Melbourne in 1956, my birth-year, give
or take four. The sport? Push-penny, or
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Was it Pascal who said "Almost all our misery has come from not being able to remain alone in our rooms"? Baudelaire thought it might have been, but was not sure. And let's take a look at that "almost" which I'm very glad is there. I can think of lots of misery that had nothing to
...

"Bottle gatherer, what do you hope to gain from this gathering of the discards of other people's merrymaking, beyond the few cents you'll accrue?"
...

I used to be a dog. What kind? Oh, a mongrel. Nothing poncy like the black cocker spaniel called Bonzo I had as a child. And certainly not one of those four-footed, aloof snakes that go by the name of greyhound. I remember each and every one of the lice that lived on me.
...

This is an old apartment and therefore the mirrors are huge and ornate. They go with the high ornate ceilings. There's one such mirror in the living room and another in the bedroom. Both have intricately carved borders and a leafy crest on top. In the living room these have been painted over in white, but in the bedroom it's still the original gilt rococo. Both mirrors sit on top of fireplaces and are as big as tombs. I think the descriptive term for them is French Regency Baroque.
...

I was walking from the Louvre to Place Saint-Michel along the Seine when I noticed a crowd gathered under a large linden tree. As I approached I thought how much I'd liked to walk down Unter den Linden when I'd lived in Berlin, and now
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As I walked up the Rue des Martyrs with my bag of small, perfect, waxy potatoes I doffed my imaginary hat to Monsieur Parmentier.
...

And then in the dust he drew a face,
the face of a woman, and he asked
the man drinking whiskey beside him
if he'd ever seen her, or knew who she was,
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I'm going back to the ice hotel,
this time under a false name
as I need to stay there again.
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There were five of us playing that night,
Padge, Kieran, Neal and me -
and, stretched out in his coffin, Uncle Charlie.
...

A green hat is blowing through Harvard Square
and no one is trying to catch it.
Whoever has lost it has given up -
perhaps, because his wife was cheating
...

Do not throw stones at this sign
which stands here, in a stony field
a stone's throw from the sea
...

Imagine a rain of hair
from all the barber shops in China
falling on the world.
Imagine the first clumps dropping
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Sitting, upright, on the sofa,
sandwiched between a pair of twins,
both blond, both beautiful,
wearing the same red leather
...

Behind the door was another door
and behind that was another.

The first door was black, as befitted
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Over the heads of the firing squad
flew a snowy owl, who oohooed twice
just before they pulled their triggers
and as the woman slumped on her ropes,
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He posted her a snake instructed not to bite her.
It came in a long cardboard tube, pricked all over.
It was yellow and black, with red squares and diamonds
to go with the yellow cat, the black terrapin, the red
...

Seven horses climbed out of the Wannsee
and galloped, dripping, to Kleist's grave.
They neighed and bent their forelegs -
one rapped the stone gently with a hoof.
...