Some lines on leaving, by Jonathan Jones

Strange how ‘The Smiths’ made sense only
after I had no more use to make
of melancholy.

Self-deprecation
self-hatred, teenage stereotype,
self-taught.

Johnny Marr’s insouciant cool,
and if I don’t fit in today
it’s not merely nostalgia talking.

Merely a band that I came to
too late, in order to sound
like a true outsider.

Now is principally
the struggle to identify.
Stream pain’s banal

commodity. One cannot
live outside a wail
or wall.

Someone asks
me whether I am English
like a stage sans

seven ages.

Democracy without a doubt
Armada-like.
No way with words.

Monkey Dust, by Jonathan Jones

People who take the drug often believe that they are being chased and attack those around them. Steven Rust, a paramedic, said it was difficult to treat the patients. “There is no regular pattern of behaviour and there is a psychosis of being paranoid, mixed in with all that and superhuman strength in some cases, and they have no fear of doing anything,” he said. There was a comment from a colleague who said he drove through Stoke-on-Trent a couple of nights ago and it was like a scene from the Night of the Living Dead . . . One homeless addict said that 90 per cent of the people she knew “were on the dust”.

The Times, August 11^th 2018

 

It does you no good to plead for your life.
The very heart of England; you understand.
Left for dead. No jobs, no pubs quoting Philip Larkin.
No time to ponder natural selection.
Just the statue of Old Josiah Wedgwood
outside the North Stafford hotel. People chain
smoking to have hope having no hope,
because England makes you feel so superhuman,
so invincible. Amino acids into protein, enzymes
pumped on iron, genes in clay. White
rabbits pulled like powder from their pockets
where the roof caved in. Ingested intraveneously
so many flags that fill such rainy skies with terraces.
It means nothing to say things were different in my day.
Car stereo reports life goes on,
much the same.

Marilyn, by Jonathan Jones

$This is my silencer.
$This is my passport.
$This is my stolen car.
$This is my sweet tooth.
$This is my chainsaw.
$This is my mountain.
$This is my coat of arms.
$This is my railroad.
$This is my paycheck.
$This is my ghetto.
$This is my gold mine.
$This is my blood test.
$This is my faded tan.
$This is my win-win.
$This is my tailspin.
$This is my violin.
$This is my Marilyn.
$This is my blindfold.
$This is my tightrope.
$This is my prairie.
$This is my [Answer B]
$This is my pool hall.
$This is my record deal.
$This is my church of Christ.
$This is my stage door.
$This is my honeymoon.
$This is my lynchpin.
$This is my spare bill.
$This is my old car.
$This is my new car.
$This is my puncture.
$This is my alias.
$This is my lying tongue.
$This is my lying tongue.

This is my sentence.

house wins on red by Jonathan Jones

There are times
listening for

a cold nerve’s,
capillary action

when I don’t know if I’m planning
a reunion, or

maybe my second
marathon in as many days.  The other

happening while the oven fan hums
in my hallway

offering the last kiss of life
to a painted out window.

The page that comes fully automated
inactive, reloaded in seconds.

44 inches on mute
to remember or forget.

Slow motion hand shaking in high definition;
outside, the other happening,

and I really wouldn’t know if I’m
buying for fun or rehearsing

a romantic proposal.
Not counting my losses.