Peer Pressure “Want a bump, Jon?” “It’s too much, Jon, share it with me!” “C’mon, Jon, I just got a bag...” We’re all crestfallen we came in crestfallen then our crests got hard-ons then they went flat again. Everyone is trying to beat back city lonesome I shake my head ‘no’ and watch the 10 o’clock news as so-and-so does rails in the toilet and the 11 o’clock news helicopters pregnant with lake water trying to assuage Califonia’s everlasting fever while my friends burn up and die. --
Big City
There’s so much not happening in my life so much empty space like a cotton ball in free fall At the 11:30 pm Tuesday bar acquaintances harvest small talk from arid relationships man, they’re talking about scallions vs. onions Sometimes I think about my nieces I’m a guy they met once one Christmas and the City keeps bubbling along with folks identical to me in little rooms pressing their empty beer mugs to the drywall listening to each other weep. --
The Right Thing
The gate was sticky I don’t know what they put on it, piss, or hair gel or Hawaiian Punch As I got back in the truck I saw something gray spasming in the gutter “dammit...” Pigeons roost in the alley along with the junkies I pulled up and got out the lever bar for the ½ ton jack but the bird was already dead I’d seen its last moment of life it seemed odd it would be easier to kill it then to see it there and grieve.
Bio: Jon Bennett is a writer and musician living in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. You can find more of his work on iTunes (his latest album is "A Saint's Book"), at www.jonbennett.info, or by connecting with him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jon.bennett.967.