New writing by Jonathon Kane

AT THE HEIGHT OF THE RAISED HAND

Even the hired clowns never knew what hit them, their tearstained faces running off into an oblivion of polyester, their paintbrushes thrashing around in a silver bowl of cold tomato soup, their parrotcolored paints streaking across white linen tablecloths -

while a nearby abandoned piano made the most of its only tune, keeping an eye out for the coatcheck girl helping herself to hundred dollar bills from every finely culled wallet she rubbed up against with the storytelling lines of her hands -

as the stragglers blocked as best they could the muttering walls, repeatedly announcing the abbreviated names on the guest list, including the young cousins hiding in the discarded folds of the paintstained wedding dress, playing cards in the hope of drowning out the din on the other side of the ruined silk -

where the lofty dreams of lovers grew green horns and a tail, leaving only the lightfooted priest untouched, and alone in signing the register, his inscription reading: This will not stand.

- Jonathon Kane 2013



THIS HOUSE FOR SALE

Vines of jasmine covered the mausoleum, the latest scent in a heavyweight night already far from sleeping, winding its way over the threshold shaped like the breadboard you were fingering after dawn with the dread of indecisiveness, back at the house:

away from the afternoon’s heavy humidity, pushing out the veins of your arms down to the end of wavering hands, prompting a pair of boots to stop and comment, relieved, as they must have been, to be speaking of something other than why everyone was gathered around - before the sky got mentioned, the sky the same shade of blue as the flapping tarpaulin, half covering the pile of firewood, back at the house:

away from the scuffed knee shots of her comparing crayon compositions atop a recently raked pile of leaves, her lines resembling the fragile strokes of clouds - before your threatened social awareness fragmented even further, and found you all washed up on a thinning stretch of beach, the trace of your steps together returning to the sea, then swishing round the pint remains in a centuries old pub, hearing her speak once again of Xanadu, and the biscuit tin, kindly left behind by the chambermaid, back at the inn.


- Jonathon Kane 2013


 Jonathon Kane currently resides in the Blue Mountains of Australia.