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An Allegiance We Could Make
By Wayne Jackson 1950-1989

An allegiance we could make
slow walkers, people
who look up to see what time it is, those
of us who hold hands
at the movies, hummers, yard
rakers, a slow wonderful
war fought in silence without
them ever knowing

Mondays we”ll sleep late, we”ll
make a stand, giving the histories that happen
away to passing jets, to
rotating signs, and our heroes have walnut stained hands, have
buckeyes in their pockets, pocket watches
They will be whittlers of wood, of ivory soap
The orders come from inside the head
whispered remembered again and
again, refusing what happens elsewhere, grinning
at the dwarf spinning in the street
We”ll make our slow stand
on our front porch swings

Copyright © 1997 by Donald Wayne Jackson, All rights reserved

***

LOVERS

in these late breaking days

rebellion has become

the most ragged of fashion statements

the banality of it symbolized

by certain

hairstyles, cigarettes, rock bands, automobiles

a saltpeter-fueled revolution

defiance institutionalized

from our home entertainment centers

we see, we hear,

the latest corporate anti-heroes

as they sun themselves

along the banks of the mainstream

mega stars

idolized by thundering herds

spilling forth

from the nearest shopping mall

ask me and I”ll tell you

lovers with a cause

are the real rebels

the spiritual benefactors,

the wounded heroes,

the mystics eternally misunderstood

with fine grit paper

working against the grain

hands slivered and bleeding

creating hidden beauty

in time

through their labor

floating free-form

defying the gravity

of power, greed, envy”¦

detached-disconnected

born anew

these spirit artists become suspect

a kind of threat to social order

to be burned at a stake

nailed to a cross

assassinated by sniper fire

getting them out of the way

we make martyrs of them

coz the dead don”t scare us

the way living flesh and bone does

it”s easier to glorify a touched up past

than face a future

we seem hell-bent on desecrating

one by one

all are shot down

“¦and when the fields where the wildflowers grow

have been bulldozed and destroyed

then spring is gone

and what”s left

is a sort of somber confusion

as hard to define

as that 4 letter word

we so readily cut and paste

to fit our purpose

***

Salome Dancing For Herod

If I was in the great hall
Of the palace
Watching Salome dancing
For Herod
I too would marvel
At movements
So erotic and executed
With animal precision

Her heaving breasts
Swaying pelvis
The white waves of her skin
Moving in soft undulations
Across her abdomen
And I smile knowing
That the king and I
Are both drunk with dance

And the beat of the music
The rhythmic flashing
Of bare thighs
Naked belly
Awaken the pagan in me
Who knows that lust is to love
What poetry is to prose
A sensual awakening of sight and smell
And sound and taste

And I would swear too
At that moment that the bounce
In each breast
Was worth the heads
Of a hundred prophets
And is more moving to me
Than the words
Of all the holy men in Judea