Poets' Corner
Table of Contents
Bulging orange Moon,
The pumpkin patch contends with
You, plumping its brood--
Patient. Growers, too, are shrewd:
Tomorrow, we carve you both.
Hollie Baker
2002
A note on the text: To preserve the rhythm in this poem, Amnon and Tamar should be pronounced with the stress on the second syllable, like this: am-NON and ta-MAR.
King David’s daughter, lovely, virgin, young
Tamar, was not a wonderfully well
Constructed aggregate of flesh alone,
O No! It wasn’t just her flowing hair,
However dark and sleek it may have been.
It wasn’t just her glist’ning dark, clear eyes.
Or even that remarkable hooked nose.
She also was a pure, kindhearted maid
Who cared for all the sick, the poor, and most,
the downtrodden.
Her half-brother Amnon,
In spring of life, he only slightly more
In years than she, of youth and good looks full,
Though not as beautiful as Absalom
Her brother, hid, in deep recesses his
True heart, as dark, insidious, and vile
And full of serpentine intentions as
A viper. Sore the lust for young Tamar
Tormented him. Advice from Jonadab,
His cousin, took his fancy with a plan,
And with delight, he sprang for evil’s snare.
King David, unaware, for sweet Tamar
Sent, and commanded her to care for foul
Amnon, who feigning ill requested her,
To pay attention to his failing health.
Tamar, none sweeter than she, generous
Beyond all bounds, agreed.
Amnon, upon
The girl’s arrival, ordered her to cook
For him, that innocent enough, it seemed.
But O! If only it had ended there!
For weak as he had made himself to seem,
Amnon pretended inability
So great to bring Tamar to come beside
His bed, and him to feed. This being done,
He sent his servants out, and now alone
Tamar was with sick’ning Amnon.
"Tamar,
No one is near. The two of us must needs
Discuss a thing or two. My sickness was,
No more, no less, a ruse. We are alone,
Aren’t we? Then listen, fair woman. For years
I have desired you. You must grant me this.
You know of what I speak. No coyness now."
"I am afraid I do now know your mind.
You cannot mean what I imagine you
Must mean. Does not the law under which we
By God’s grace live so clearly forbid such
Unrighteous actions? Ask, though, ask the king,
Our father, if you won’t desist. He may
Grant this unholy wish."
"You know he won’t.
But I must have...."
The thought unspoken left,
Tamar sprang up to flee the house. Amnon,
However, grasped her arms so tightly she
Was trapped. Amnon of passion full, without
Compassion flung her down onto his bed.
She, with a furious and impotent
Rage, was ingloriously debased, defiled,
And permanently stained.
The flame died down,
Amnon untangled from weeping Tamar,
Saw her contorted anguished countenance
And weak, still, ravaged form collapsed
Beside, and was disgusted (but not shamed),
And to this paragon of virtue said—
No, did not say, for full of rage and hate
Exceeding his abated lust was he,
Instead, intense unmitigated hatred
His body wracked, and his voice wrathful broke—
"Out, out! I want to see your face no more!
I would that I had never seen a girl
With face and hair and body, spirit, soul
As beautiful as you. Woman, woman,
All in ruins will you this region leave.
With base ignoble charms have you deceived
And torn asunder homes. Your presence I
Will stand no longer. Now be gone."
"You wrong
Me, surely, for deceit cannot be found
In my intention. What has happened was,
And you cannot but know, nothing but your
Deceit, and nothing further could be found
From my virtuous mind. If you forsake
Me, I am shamed and will be cast from grace.
You must now keep me. Please."
"Did I not bid
You leave? I shall hear you no more. No more."
She tore her vestal garments, crying out,
And quit the room, enraged.
* * * * *
King David would
Not visit retribution on Amnon.
Tamar to her dear brother Absalom
For comfort went. He swore revenge for poor
Tamar’s lost maidenhood.
"If only I
Could curse his father, but his father’s ours.
I shall not curse his mother, we know her
Too well. On damned Amnon alone can we
Find fault, and place these empty-handed threats.
I swear to you, dear sister, he shall not
Escape the wrath which he is justly due."
John Nelson Fogleman, Jr.
1999
The neighborhood all thought him queer
To walk without an office near--
From OUACHITA, for goodness sake,
The coldest evening of the year.
I give his beefish form a shake;
I poke and prod it with a rake.
The only other sound's a jeep
That swerves and hits me by mistake.
The sky is lovely, dark, and deep,
From my old friend, there comes no peep,
No sound to wake us from our sleep,
And, since it's cold, I think we'll keep.
Pickwick
January 27, 2000
A golden ocean, desert reflects sky,
And sky is pregnant with the silent sun.
We walk together 'cross the waves of dunes;
Our feet sink, stick in pools of fiery sand.
My father peers from out the shaded cave,
His withered face is eager, full of hope.
"Nothing," I say.
He curses.
My sister weeps.
They sleep, and stars begin to call my name.
My back against the cool of bluesoaked stone,
I lift my hands to catch the falling moon.
It burns and breathes and takes my father's face.
My heart was built by him.--I eat the moon,
The indigo blisters my throat and fills my womb.
My sister comes to sit beside me. Stars
Trickle down the sky and scar the blue with white.
Exploding on the slopes of sleeping sand,
The silver shards of stars ignite her palms.
Like one near death, she drinks that liquid fire.
Her womb absorbs that heat. And here beats life.
The emptiness of sky becomes our love.
It rightfully inherits two stone hearts.
The moon inside me glows. The stars inside
Her glisten. I no longer feel my pulse.
Only empty echoes inside my heart.
Only constellations of tainted love.
John Thomas Smith
1999
Death's Sigh
In memory of Vanessa
I sat in tears amid the crowd on long
And lonely pews, choking out words in song
I could not understand, of life that’s after
Life, where all her tears are changed to laughter.
Now was all I knew about and pain
Was all I felt, and all I heard was rain
Upon the roof, falling steady as my
Tears. And then there came a voice, a sigh,
An earnest moan in low and whispered breath.
“Life,” it said. It was the voice
of Death.
This solitary word became vibrations
Within my soul. Emotions and sensations
Of guilt and hope, of fear and peace, all pulled
My heart in mixed directions. Youth had
fooled
Me to believe that time was never ending,
And minutes could be wasted, vainly spending
And never savoring that softly spoken word.
Death breathed a sigh, and life is what I heard.
Melissa Tuckfield
March 2001
Of Love and War
A tale is told of true love lost,
Of one who loved and love’s great cost.
It all began one summer’s morn.
Apollo’s pride and Cupid’s scorn
Went bow to bow to even scores
And prove who’s best at love and war.
“You silly boy, put down your bow.
It’s not a toy, kid, I should know.
I killed a snake with deadly darts
While you were teasing love sick hearts,
So get a match to light love’s flame.
Give up the bow. Don’t steal my fame.”
“Oh yeah, we’ll see what I can do.
You may shoot snakes, but I’ll shoot you.”
And so began the great love chase.
Apollo’s heart was set arace
By Cupid’s arrow tipped with gold,
But Daphne’s wound made love grow cold,
For Cupid in his malice drew
From arrows true, not one, but two,
First, one of love, then one of lead.
Apollo loved, and Daphne fled.
With girly wiles she forced Peneus,
Who was her dad, to call a truce,
To promise her that she could stay
Unmarried till her dying day,
But still Apollo chased and wooed,
And still she was not in the mood.
And so they ran through field and grove,
In chase of unrequited love.
Then Daphne, in her desperation,
Cried aloud for her salvation,
And so her dad came to her aid.
Into a laurel she was made.
Apollo’s love was now a tree
With leaves for hair and roots for feet,
But still Apollo’s love was true.
“Forever men will honor you.
They’ll wear your leaves in victory.
If not my bride, then still my tree.”
So Cupid got revenge at last,
But poor dear Dapne got the shaft,
And all to see who could do more
With archer’s arrow—love or war.
Melissa Tuckfield
2001
Upon having heard for the millionth time a student bellow "Praise
God"
when apprised that a class would not be meeting owing to the absence
of the teacher.
Praise God, praise God, the teacher's sick today.
I don't have class. I hope he's not too ill.
I hope it's just the tart or créme brûlée
He had last night (he had his teacher's fill
And then--the porker!--had a wee bit more.
I'd bet my bottom dollar that the Lord,
Whose every machination I adore
And who is able, praise Him, to afford
Relief to me from learning's bitter brew,
Compelled Prof X to take an extra bite
Or two or three of tart. Next thing Prof knew
His bowels were in an uproar. Stormy night!).
I hope he'll be okay. But principally
I praise the Lord for taking care of me.
Johnny Wink
(Christianity and Literature 48.4, Summer
1999, 562)
Hollie Baker is an English Education major from Texarkana, Arkansas, who is getting married to Cory Gustke this coming August. They plan to reside in California and live happily ever after.
John Nelson Fogleman, Jr., is a philosophy student from the Arkansas Delta. He is getting married this summer to Iris Shepard, and plans to farm and write after graduation.
Pickwick, a fictional character from the works of Charles Dickens, has long been a friend of Ouachita and is a frequent guest in the Department of English. Whenever time allows, he celebrates, in both prose and verse, the life and times of John Howard Wink.
John Thomas Smith, the son of missionaries, was reared in the Philippines and is currently a senior theater major at Ouachita Baptist University. After graduation in May of 2000, John plans to pursue graduate studies in theater.
Melissa Tuckfield, currently completing her junior year at Ouachita, hails from Russellville, AR. She is majoring in English, with a minor in Biblical Studies.
John Howard Wink is Betty Burton Peck Professor of English at Ouachita Baptist University. He has published one volume of poetry, Haunting the Winerunner (1982), and contributed poems to Plains Poetry Journal, Kentucky Poetry Review, and The Christian Science Monitor.