Jon-Law

You mistake The knife for the cake. You savour the gore, lick The conflict, flavour already So like blood, but more. Heady, metallic. Hang a balloon in your ribs, Pop it with a rail spike. Bang. A peel of plastic, maroon, Like a bib, remains. That’s how it feels, That pain. Promises are hammers.

Empty pot on the floor To catch a leak in the ceiling. God itself never made A more perfect image of man.

Monday She looks for herself. The evening's rain has skinned the pavement with a reflection. Stalactites of yellow streetlight and neon, deep violet sky between black buildings, the dim green clouds of treetops in the park across the street. She used to watch Eric's reflection in mirrors and puddles. Now she only looks for herself. The skirl of tires on wet pavement startles her up. Without quite realizing it she'd knelt, then crouched, then leaned out over the curb to study the pavement. She shakes her head, brushes grit from her jeans. The bus lurches on without stopping. The next one won't come for a half hour. She looks at her bare wris

The first thing I remember is the taste of vomit. Always. This is my life story, the title of every chapter, that taste. If I believed in god I would thank him for leaving it at that. A quick dip, a few words—the treatment of Christ by John. I would thank him for sparing me the fate of Noah’s people or of Pharaoh. In my earliest memory I’ve half fallen from my red plastic chair. My throat burns sour, my arm is splattered and warm, my hand is clenched like a thousand year old mummy’s around a fork. A fat black spider dances impaled on the tines. I can still feel the tickle of its pinprick feet on my tongue. I’d call

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. Edmund Burke Sick. I’m sick. I felt it today, lying in the park. The sky was so blue and deep. Even the stain over the city didn’t look too bad, but it was what made me realize I’m sick. I’m just like that yellow stain, sulking at the edges of all that’s good and pure. The world is bright around me, and I have every comfort at my disposal. But I don’t feel comfort. What is it about nature that lets us know we don’t quite belong? Just sky and trees and animals, no mind or anything, but it tells us. It’s some big paradox, I bet.

Pretend to be aloof the proof of the intense who seldom use a friend to ends uncouth Instead of chivalry he spreads her trembling thighs and rivalry between her pleas ebbs red These holes in hotel walls are portals to disease his falling mortal soul but please Scotch bro and crotch joke and pot smoke by torch glow fox trot on slow coke watch him go