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oppositional poetry, prose, polemic

Martin Jack
this town is wrong
in its slant way
streets speak bent
out of shape
a shorthand for crimes
and misdemeanors that only
discerners read, sensitive
to hotspots where the past
seeps through volcanic
written into the landscape
of names where evil grins
its face paint briefly
before melting in the light
Out of your Hand
mine is empty
cracked fingers stretch
out for promises
that overflow your wells,
named for posterity
when you chose deserts
in covenant, for dryness
to become laughter
and strongholds that grind
to become dust
you trample in victory
until I see and rejoice
over your welcoming shadow
all I need to drink
Martin Jack © 2009
A Front
garlands consecrated in terror
fashioned its godhead out of virtue
Robespierre's coronation at the Festival
of the Supreme Being
repeats itself with every new
salute from the tennis court
towards some fresh revolutionary flag,
its rouge bordering on misanthropy
as its stripes made themselves
a front felt on the back of history
engineering their lordship cult
through the ballot box
of mass graves, to the tune
of thunderous applause
The Lighthouse
set on a rock
Christ sweeps the bay
for lost ships draped in mist
our tears stained their deck
but his light called us homeward
warm arms flocking
around our wincing hulls
dry and brittle to the touch
airbrushed where the surgical cut was made
he broke the mist
clothed us in ribbon
the crimson of his righteousness
swinging from a lighthouse
at the right side of Father's
storehouse of grace
pulling us from the hull-crushing
rocks which drown men
in static
our fragile stations
gifted an economy ticket
to glory, which cost us less
than a dime but cost
him an empty patch of flesh
the nails anchored for our rescue
Martin Jack © 2009