The HyperTexts
Lance Jencks
Lance Jencks has been writing poetry for fifty years. In the 1970s he earned an 
MFA in playwriting and a PhD in Contemporary Theatre. In the 1980s he published 
his verse-based roman á clef, The Wisdom of Southern California, then toured 
that region with a one-man show of the same name. Lance has been an advertising 
copywriter, a stock-and-bond broker, and the guy who hooks your car to the chain 
at the car wash. He lives today in Newport Beach, California, where he was 
recently featured in the epic bodysurfing movie Dirty Old Wedge, streaming on 
Amazon Prime.
Organ Recital at Saint-Eustache
First a bird, then the sea;
then huge armies traipse
to their catastrophe.
Now the storm;
next the dawn—
freedom dangles
from a single sound.
Closer, ever closer, march
children from the womb.
After this: a tomb.
The HyperTexts