Hagar Too
At last, a movement so a soul can hear.
Descendants, he did me, and didn’t ask.
Later, he tried to convince his wife
he’d heard a voice that told him he had to.
She didn’t buy it. So he spun it harder
and said it was the voice of—get this—G_d.
I’d have laughed, if I could, but I was pregnant
by then. Plus I felt for Sarah. I did.
Our stories were written down, too, but “lost.”
Since then we have been shouting them from here,
not quite four thousand years. Meanwhile, his tale
declined to use such terms as violation,
hallucination, adultery, attempted
murder, madness, bully. . . . And patriarch,
for some strange reason, isn’t treated as
a crime.
No, you can’t seduce a slave
(some versions call me—get this—“servant”; can
you believe that?) for there is no consent
possible when he has all the power,
any more than a pre-pubescent can consent,
or prisoner, or patient in a coma.
You know the child molester always says,
“It isn’t so, she—or he—seduced me”;
the psych-ward orderly believes he’ll get
away with it, as do invading armies,
jailers, fathers sometimes. . . . “Man-un-kind.”
But it’s still rape.
So spin this, Abraham,
you bastard, and add this to your scripture,
my children, if you’ve the audacity
to call yourself lover of G_d, or man.
Poet to Poet
I thought a poet could not help but stare
too long at things and could not look away.
How many must be killed before we care?
It was the poets' purpose once to scare
the polis; Plato sent them all away,
remember, who’d not only see but stare
—then call things what they were. Who else would dare?
Not even gods. In theory, anyway.
How many must be killed before we care?
If that mantle is too heavy to wear
today, then might there be another way?
Have we in fact been learning not to stare
or see by not looking directly where
the ancient poet could not look away?
Must many more be killed before I care?
I wave back to the treetops that you share;
your seascapes make me dance “Anchors Aweigh.”
But look around—I cannot help but stare.
How many must be lynched for you to care?
James B. Nicola’s poems have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; and Barrow Street. His seven full-length collections (2014-22) are Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page, Wind in the Cave, Out of Nothing,Quickening, Fires of Heaven, and Turns & Twists. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His poetry has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller's People's Choice award, a Best of Net and a Rhysling Award nomination, and eight Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful. A graduate of Yale, he hosts the Hell's Kitchen International Writers' Round Table at his library branch in Manhattan: walk-ins welcome.