The Powerless Press

 

Poetry Spotlight on Jonny Kingston

 

FLOPHOUSE ON ROUTE 666

Smut mattressed under the sign of the ghost
Christened in blood, the sleep walking virgin
Rends herself upon the banister rails
Gay-hearted Jack cracks his skull-like shell

Hatchlings feast heartily upon a gracious host
Beneath their hoods, teeth gnash like tin
Driven men peer from eighteen wheeled jails
As mudflap girls quief their majik spell.

©1999 Jonny Kingston

 

HOMETOWN DRIFTER

This is no town to drift in
Pallid moon, river barren
Nightshades drawn with leering eyes.

Strangers pass, suffocating
On air thick with innuendo
And the occassional lynch-mob din.

Death is a way of life here
Greed; the blood that feeds
Our pleasure-seeking hearts and minds.

No one asked to be born
And raised in this hopeless state
Turned inside out and out again.

Incapable of bringing joy
Only doom and gloom
And an unbelievable history.

Will this reckless abandon
Ever come to abandon me
To enjoy your simple pleasantries?

My pleas fall on deaf ears
Or maybe I'm too blind to see
Even the very slightest of mercies.

©1997 Jonny Kingston

 

BROS.

They sat together, closer than brothers
Sharing Guinness and sinsemilla
In the stillness of the workshed
Where one would later hang himself.

©1997 Jonny Kingston

 

DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY REUNION

Second-hand luxury cars
Fill the lot, where the kids
Will soon be fistfighting.

Barren evergreens offer
Sparse shade, bringing little
Relief from heated discussion.

Black flies nestle their eggs
Fruitlessly, into flesh
That is bound for the fire.

Accounts of sexual conquests
Are shared, out of earshot
Of wives and girlfriends.

The punch bowl is spiked
With the usual, table strewn
With various petri dishes.

Facelifts and tummytucks
Are compared, then the women
Move to more fertile chatter.

A stereophonic device
Creates ambiance, drowning out
Sounds we cannot endure.

Photos are taken
For posterity, as if anyone
Is ever going to care.

©1998 Jonny Kingston

 

CHILDHOOD MEMORY #463

Our babysitter
Was a coke dealer
On the side

She kept one eye on us
And the other
On her customers

Until one day
The masked man
Shot her in the face.

©1999 Jonny Kingston

 

SON OF A BITCH (MY LIFE STORY)

My life plays like a bad movie
Poorly cast, crudely written -
Too many loose ends left dangling.

My fan club has disbanded
No one buys a line I deliver -
I've played this part to death.

It's a cross between Danny Bonaduce/
Johnny Depp, with a little Sid Vicious
Thrown in for effect.

I've entertained Porn Stars
Coke whores, kleptomaniacs
And the occasional spoiled brat.

The one's I've respected I dismissed
While I was drawn like a magnet
To the worst trashcan bitches.

I was raised by "Bonnie and Clyde"
Two of America's Most Wanted
Gun-toting gangster wannabes.

I've stared down an FBI shotgun barrel
Carefully examining a photo of my "dad",
Whom I denied ever seeing.

My real father was hacked to pieces
In a blood splattered stairwell
Holding a birthday card addressed to me.

(I suspected my step-dad of this for a while).

We were forever somebody else,
I learned to lie to my best friends -
I learned to leave without saying goodbye.

We were constantly on the move,
On the lam; on the hunt for new digs
And even newer names.

Things would get back to normal
When he got sent back to the Pen -
He always got out too soon.

(He finally died of camel (non-filter) cancer).

My mother is decidedly worse for wear,
A perpetual welfare leech, high on OCD
And an expert petty criminal.

She drives a blood red Corvette,
Owns a Winnabego, van, truck
And is in the market for a ski boat.

(All of this on $235 a month Government Assistance).

My sister has fallen on hard times -
First husband is a full blown heroin addict,
Second one's on parole for murder.

Her two beautiful children are following
In her and my sorry footsteps, sad to say
History does repeat itself.

All through this - I pretend this is normal.
I watch my brother-in-law carve the turkey
Like his best friend carved his grandmother.

( ! )

So this is to be our last Christmas together,
My family will have to go on without me -
For this is my New Year's Resolution:

TO LIVE A NORMAL LIFE.

©1997 Jonny Kingston

 

 

PROTAGONIST

You've got a supercharged motor-mouth
Fully-blown out of all proportion
All run on sentences
And imitation intellect
Where is the insight?
The hindsight?
It's all small print
In a dim light.
You're a featherweight shadow-boxer -
I'm King Kong with a hard-on!

©2000 Jonny Kingston

 

THE DEATH OF RICKY RAT

Hey there
Hi there
Ho there

You're as welcome
As a knife in the gut

Tape your mouth shut

Smell the funk
Shoved in the trunk

A bullet with your name

Another
Bullet with your name

Another bullet
With your name.

©1999 Jonny Kingston

 

DAILY ROUTINE

I wake to a bowl of my favorite breakfast cereal
'Death & Mayhem', it's an acquired taste
a little hard to swallow at times, but then
everything good for you is.

I stand in the shower for hours on end
practicing the precepts of Onanism, but mostly
revelling in the fact that some of the dirt
can be washed away.

The bulk of my days are spent stalking
long lost interests, pointless prose
I'm an abortionist in alarming proportions
a deft destroyer of the forever unborne.

I take pride in my mechanical abilities
my rod is pumped and hard, reflecting
not on a lack of endowment, but rather
on my need for a quick get away.

Love leaves a bad taste in my mouth
sometimes an even worse smell on my clothes
especially when mixed with tobacco and alcohol
but we don't have time for that here.

I cut my teeth on sharp wit
I cover my tracks with dark humor -
I'm alive for the sake of chance
and I really hope it'll be over soon.

©1997 J. F. Kinyon

 

MOMENT OF INSIGHT

What lies between us
Could be called anything
But dead air

For it swirls and sparks
With the electricity
Of resentment.

Each morning we breakfast
At a fractured table
Speaking splintered words.

You read aloud ads
From the back of my paper
Out of spite.

The only way I can sleep
Lying next to you
Is to have my shotgun duct taped to your face.

This is no way to live ...

Why can't you just leave me?

©1997 Jonny Kingston

 

MAIL ORDER BRIDE

She is demure
Yet so sure of herself
When she's riding me
Like there's no tomorrow.

No one would suspect
That such abandon
Could be coaxed
Out of such a frail being.

Her coy smile
Her twinkling eyes
Are but illusions
To the uninitiated.

She can tame
The mightiest dragon
Sucking the fire
From deep within his throat.

Her strength lies
Between thighs steeped
In tradition
And dripping with knowledge.

©2001 Jonny Kingston

 

UP IN THE AIR

His ashes hit the breeze
At last he is freed
From those who held him down
His entire life.

©2000 Jonny Kingston

 

COOKING WITH JESUS

Stewing over an open flame
The Devil cracks wise
As sweat beads

He's as sure of my insincerity
As I am

Now that everything has moved
To the back burner
On orders from the kitchen

He's sure I'm gonna burn.

©2000 Jonny Kingston

 

ABANDONED HEARSE

Not even his conversion
Could draw women of faith

He came to rest graveside
Facing his final respite

Despite obvious rust
He held out to be resold

The night held promise
Daylight could not uphold

The years wore on forever
Seeming to never pass

The evidence mounting
Waged war with his reason

For living, for breathing
For ever taking it seriously

He would never again recover
That fresh-off-the-assembly-line feeling.


©1999 Jonny Kingston

 

All poems by Jonny Kingston were originally published under the title "Light Verses Dark Humor" - ©2000 Powerless Press

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