Edwin Segal – 2 poems

 

 

The time has come: emergency
but not urgent; danger, but golf
first to ease the tensionless strain.
Who needs to read reports?  Facts are
always replaced by our nonsense.

 

I have already promised you:
someone will pay, but we won’t.
Hard choices, some one must, but not us.
Great strain, with turncoats all about.
The world is safe without our might.

 

Ask those we left behind; they have
new partners, and no one asks us.
We are free; no more mooching; our
treasure is ours, for our comfort,
and we will be great, but alone.

 

 

 

Na’amah:
Noah’s Wife
(Genesis 4-8)

 

 

They said he was righteous in his
generation, but that was all.
He stuffed me into that boat (he
heard a voice he said), animals
as well, and so we endured that
journey, sweaty, dusty, dirty,
smelly. We endured – no options.

 

Then it ended; I kissed the ground;
he planted a vine; I planted
crops, cooked animals and fed us.
A year later he made wine for
the voice in his head, and drank it,
and it took control of his body,
exposing his mind’s disarray.

 

Two of our sons tried to protect
him, while the third ran to tell me,
and then I realized I was alone.
No one speaks to me or of me.
I am Na’amah, daughter of
Lamech and Zillah, bringer of
sweet songs of praise to all voices.

 

My mother was a shadow, but
I am not; others hear me sing.
I speak my mind and the heavens
stay in place.  And so I left the boat
searching for the queen of demons,
Lilith, who has much to teach us.

 

 

 

Edwin Segal has been writing poetry since college (late 50s). Fortunately, he says, everything before 1974 has been lost. Some of his published poetry has appeared in Poetica Magazine , Bindweed Magazine and Verse-Virtual; a lot is out of print or has never been published.  He is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Louisville and has conducted field research in Senegal, Cameroon, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa, Kyrgyzstan and Oman. Apprentice House published his chapbook, Heritage, in 2017.