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Monday, October 05, 2009

JESUS, MAPS

by David LaBounty


the lady on the TV screen
has credentials beneath
her red red lips &
motionless hair. she

talks about Iran in
a stream of
rhetoric & opinion
that sounds like
a drum beat as
her words echo
off her shiny
teeth & alabaster
double chin

she says

Iran has launched
missiles even
though the
rest of the
world said no, how

Iran has launched
missiles even though
Israel is in the
neighborhood.
& how Israel
already
has nuclear
weapons &
isn’t afraid
to use them,

and

she says if
Israel uses
nuclear weapons
against Iran
the battle lines
would be
drawn
across the
Middle Eastern map,
a battle that
would turn into
Armageddon

as if to say

Jesus is
sanctioning
all of this

I yell at the TV and say

the Jesus
I know
never bothered
to read maps

never had
boundary lines
crossing
His heart
or His face.


David LaBounty's prose and poetry has appeared in several print and online journals. His third novel Affluenza has just been released. Affluenza is a tale of debt, consumerism, vanity and sexual addiction told through the financial rise and fall of an insurance executive who lives beyond his means.
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