Bill Murray Chocolates, Part I and other works by Eric Sweet

Eric Sweet is the co-editor of Tool Magazine. He lives with his family in Albany, New York.

 

Bill Murray Chocolates, Part I

The world was so sad that I had to step over it to get going
To look into it and get blinded was par for the course
I'll use mirrors to look behind me and then break through the clouds

Minute minutes, a moment comes when everything makes sense,
then it passes…and you are back to the ball of confusion

that's what the world is today said The Temptations

This is not all about the sadness though, sometimes writing about
it can make it go away

Sometimes leaping over it, or even diving in can make you
laugh about how ridiculous everything really is

But this poem could be about something like Bill Murray, and how
he keeps living the same day over and over again
And how he blows up gophers or groundhogs

Or about chocolates…
but that would not explain the sadness

I once visited a place in Buffalo where they made chocolates right there in
front of you. It was impossible not to breathe in the air and want
to reach right into the vat and stick your entire arm right in there

Then lick your arm right in front of everybody

But back to sadness: it is there, everywhere around you--there are people who will never
laugh or cry about anything, they are stoic smoke

The ball rolls up the hill, and Sisyphus is right behind it
The cost of life is nothing, or everything

The cost of never licking your arm--a life.

 

The Rest of Everything

You cannot be all

There comes a time when there is too much,
like when a fountain drink overfills into a plastic drain.

Tree-lined streets without grammar, they just grow over, and
then the town clips back their freedom, and you can drive
down the middle of the street again.

Fresh universe and everything; friends till the end --