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H. Arlequin
Member
since 1999-08-23
Posts 210


0 posted 1999-09-14 03:55 AM




The Promised Land


Reuben

If give and take offers the space
to argue well or rest his case,
give a brother the firsthand place
at discourse, until face to face,
he pleads deference is due race,
in lieu of ideas to trace.


Issachar

To those able craftsmen whose vocation is the news,
one dissent from your monetarily, influenced views:
the protections of first amendment rights, you seduce!
We, the public, vested in these rights to know, refuse
you the right to trample privacy, in blind abuse
of its equal guarantees. Need we laws to induce
that the media inform us, yet no man abuse?


Simeon

Two sartorial senators propose,
"A man is known by other than his clothes!"
Pursue them through the cul de sac they chose,
cornered there, poorer logic they disclose.
When the whole world stinks, thoughtful in the pose,
New Jersey's two stuffed shirts will hold their nose.


Asher

A sage-less tome in Sanskrit written,
dead the words no longer there,
dead the dreams of ancients, smitten
dead the daring to passion share,
dead the dust of the graves, unbidden
a page-less poem of the gods unfair.


Dan

The tryst we missed
when our lips kissed,
oh, Lettie, how did we sire this lot?
"Conception, exist,
Eve's adder hissed!
Be these Guinevere de Lancelot?


Gad

Pill time and pulchritude,
diminished pillow talk...
some savoir faire for the prude
may metamorphose the walk,
Viagra, and her dude
youthful ardor will mock.


Judah

Most are not now nor shall they be,
enrobed like each of them.
Self-made garments, the blind can see,
long sleeves, large waists, no hem,
designed for pols who face TV,
review, re-spew their phlegm.


Benjamin

When wretches wish for riches,
unrighteous sons-a-bitches
expect failure to be owned;
but if life's doleful snitches
had plumbed their history's niches,
we'd find old horrors not atoned.


Naphtali

Just a high-stakes game of chess,
the board, a maze in progress,
movements destined, more or less,
appear only the simple guess?
Yet, soul's immortal congress
derives from choices to stress
actions, misdeeds to redress,
and fools may their past confess?


Joseph

It's hard to recapture innocence
once she finds the door,
racing hard, lusting experience,
dying on its floor;
unblemished beauty's final breath,
wanton disarray,
blindly embracing deceitful death,
she, the child at play.


Levi

If the world's wise to the ladies' surprise
should one day arrange their extinction,
then passion dies bereaving the eyes,
for beauty gives wisdom its distinction.


Zebulun

A nation of laws, so what's the big deal,
do what you please, lie, cheat and steal,
perjure an oath, throw honor to the wind,
proclaim, "I'm not Guilty of sin"?
Hilarity,
your name is cynicism freeing,
spice of life, experience far seeing,
a song of the soul to its well-being,
hope for the promised land's, believing.


--H. Arlequin
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.
.
copyright 1998, The Goober Tree Press,
all rights reserved
.
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Poems From The Goober Tree

Now you're linked..


[This message has been edited by Nan (edited 09-15-99).]

[This message has been edited by H. Arlequin (edited 09-15-99).]

© Copyright 1999 H. Arlequin - All Rights Reserved
snow in summer
Member
since 1999-08-28
Posts 67

1 posted 1999-09-15 10:47 PM


Wow, what a lot of biting commentary here, as well as some neat rhymes. How did you come to write this, and what is it about really? The topics of the verses are contemporary but their titles are not - a clever mix of the old and new. What is the Promised Land in this poem?
Nan
Administrator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-05-20
Posts 21191
Cape Cod Massachusetts USA
2 posted 1999-09-15 11:01 PM


You know I'm going to have to read this one about ten times before I even begin to delve amidst its depth..... - So far I like "Simeon's" part best, though....
H. Arlequin
Member
since 1999-08-23
Posts 210

3 posted 1999-09-16 11:28 PM


Hi Snow and Nan!!

tx for taking the time to read 12 poems when you intended to read only one :-)))

The promised land in this poem is the USA with alllll her problems, 12 of which are alluded to here....

here's the background, Snow....

Jacob nee Isaac nee Abraham was renamed Israel
(a long story). He had 12 sons. In a famine that whole family went to Egypt fo food, stayed 400 year. Moses convinced the tribal decendants of Israel to return to the "Promised Land" so named because of promises made to Abraham by the
Almighty who led hin there(another long story)
Though promised, it had to be fought for, wrenched from fierce defenders etc. Modern Israel
remains on part of that land, today.

These 12 tribes were as onery and as independent a bunch of people as any modern clans we read about. Does that sound a little like us today, we who inhabit another kind of "Promised land"?
But somehow a remnant of ancient Jacob's clansmen live on today.(10 tribes went their independent way, were finally amalgamated into conquering(Assyria) peoples and lost their identity.
The other two tribes were also defeated as a nation 200 yrs later but when they went into captivity they were allowed to maintain their cultural identity, and were permitted to return and rebuild.

The poem is about our country and some of its problems, the tribal name headings have nothing to do with the verse that they title, but are just dividers. They are arranged in the chronological ages of the the brothers.

Written during the impeachment hearings....
it concludes, though we are an irony to each other, laughably disparate, we ARE somehow still
able to rise to position of being for the world,
"The Promised Land"...

drat, didn't set out to lecture, it sorta flowed like we were chatting over coffee...plse no offense....

HA

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