Delilah, on contradictions
[Delilah said to Sampson], "How can you say, 'I love you,' when your heart is not with me? You have deceived me these three times and have not told me where your great strength is." So he told her all that was in his heart and said to her, "… If I am shaved, then my strength will leave me and I will become weak and be like any other man." -- from Judges 16
He burnt my country
and I loved him. I betrayed him
and he stayed. He killed my brothers
and I held him. I betrayed him
and he stayed. What's between us
I can't tell you – musk and lust,
a lion's skin, dark mane tangled
with the tawny, transformation
on the wind. I cut his hair
because he told me, I loved him broken,
loved him hard – so I broke him
with a razor, and cut his hair
into my heart.
___________
Good Lord, it rhymes. How did that happen? Anyway, this is take three at Samson and Delilah -- or rather, Delilah and Samson. Read one and two. I think I've got it this time. Now, excuse me, I have to brace myself for hatemail.
6 Comments
Let me send you some love mail first then. This is such a fresh take and opened my eyes to seeing this familiar tragedy from the other side; from Delilah’s. Good one you.
As for the hate mail, God’s been getting it for years. He said what he knew and what was real and true and all three were one; and the same.
Keep writing. O
Powerful stuff. I really like this poem.
Your poetry evokes very powerful images - I can see these two doomed lovers. It makes me think; makes me feel their humanness and the ways their passions led to their downfall - as sometimes ours do.
Get out of town, sister. There’s only room for one neo-orthodox-post-revisionist-judeo-christian poet on the internet, and that’s me. ME, you hear?!?
It’s absurd how easy it is for people to say truly wounding things, especially in this venue. But congratulate yourself, anyway. As plenty of your readers have already said in one way or another, if you’re doing good work, people will hate you for it. Their venom is a privilege of sorts. Although, that’s small comfort. Hatemail never seems nearly so bad or threatening or hurtful as when you receive it yourself.
And while I don’t think you harbour evangelical tendencies, your poetry brings me a lot closer to God than almost anything touching the subject directly which I’ve read in years, which is strange work, too: I’m rarely moved that way. No wonder these small minded sectarians would be upset: you’re not drawing anyone to their god.
Let their response energise you. Grab that wrath. You only become a target because your poetry is that much stronger than anything else around. In that manner, every one of their letters an award for hard and excellent work.
You seriously rock.
Psst, Christians! Mattel has a new Wiccan Barbie — go bother them.
http://www.webdesk.com/secret-spells-barbie/