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  • MOLLY BLOOM
  • Julia Webb
  • Sarah James
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  • Steve Spence
  • Iain Britton
  • Melissa Buckheit
  • Robert Sheppard
  • Hazel Smith
  • Previously in Molly Bloom
  • Editor
  Molly Bloom

Zohar Atkins



SENT
After Genesis 34


daughter of
daughters of land

son of
prince of land

saw took lay
humbled

cleaved daughter
loved
spoke

damsel damsel
spoke to father
damsel to wife

heard defiled daughter
sons were with cattle
in field
held peace came

father went out
to speak

sons came from field
heard grieved angered
done what shouldn’t be done

spoke longs pray
give wife
make marriages
give daughters take daughters

dwell land dwell trade
take possession

said find favor
say give

ask give say
damsel to wife
answered spoke defiled sister

said cannot give uncircumcised
consent be circumcised

give daughters take daughters dwell
become one people

hearken circumcised take daughter
gone

pleased son
young man

deferred
delight daughter
honored father

son came to gate of city
spoke men

dwell land trade
behold: land is large
take daughters for wives give daughters

consent to dwell
become one people
circumcised circumcised

cattle and substance and beasts
consent dwell

son hearkened gate of city
circumcised gate of city

came to pass
brothers took came killed

killed son took
out of house
went forth

sons came spoiled
defiled sister

took flocks herds asses
city field

wealth little ones wives took
spoiled house

troubled
made odious
inhabitants of land

gather together against
smite

destroyed

house





DAVID


“They kissed one another,
and wept one with another,
until David exceeded.”
(1 Samuel 20:41)

Saul hates himself for not being David.
And all David wants is to be loved by Saul.
Jonathan, the sage (or pushover) loves them both.

But Saul can only accept a love that excludes David
and since Jonathan can only love inclusively
he must exclude the excluder.

He hates Saul for making him hate him a
nd this is a sign of his great love.
And David?

Does he even love Jonathan?
No.
David is too concerned with Saul.

Why won’t Saul realize the extra foreskins
were for him? That the nights David spent
practicing the lyre, were for him?

David wants the love of one who hates him.
Saul hates the one who most loves him.
And Jonathan loves two who do not care for him.

Psychologists say Saul is the superego,
David the id, and Jonathan the ego,
or some other combination.

Coaches say Saul is how we see ourselves,
Jonathan, how others see us,
and David how we would like to be seen.

The diagrams change with the business cycle
but never the text:
David, who never loved, wept the longest.


Copyright © Zohar Atkins 2018

poet Zohar Atkins
Zohar Atkins is a rabbi, scholar, and poet. He is the author of An Ethical and Theological Appropriation of Heidegger's Critique of Modernity (Palgrave Macmillan 2018) and Nineveh (Carcanet 2019). A 2018 winner of an Eric Gregory Award, his poems have featured in Carcanet's New Poetries, Blackbox Manifold, Glasgow Review of Books, and elsewhere.




MOLLY BLOOM: New POETRY in a modernist tradition

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