HOSEA
I will betroth you to myself in... unfailing devotion and love... and you shall know the LORD. (וְיָדַ֖עַתְּ wə·yā·ḏa·’at haShem)
Hosea 2:20
Hosea swung with a daughter of Baal,
a real gomer, a dirty ol’ lady.
Dug that yab-yum, that Shiva ’n’ Shakti,
dug that tantric left-hand jive.
Wound up makin’ it legal with the LORD,
wound up gettin’ acquainted with the LORD,
(quaint old Chaucerian pun)
knowin’ the LORD like they do in the Bible,
black swingin’ God with a necklace of skulls,
said Lo-‘ammi, you ain’t my people,
long-faced Baptiss from the hills of Canaan,
said Lo-‘ammi, I ain’t your God.
Got her back for fifteen bills
and like Hostess Twinkies with raisins in ’em,
and they’re a-jumpin’ and a-jivin’
a-swingin’ and a-swivin’
gettin’ to know
gettin’ to know
gettin’ to know the LORD.
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Author:
Robert Southwick Richmond (
Offline) - Published: December 16th, 2020 14:05
- Comment from author about the poem: I wrote this poem some time in the 1970s, a rather bizarre midrash blown on the biblical prophecy of Hosea. Hosea was a pretty weird guy. Looking to see how well MyPoeticSide and Wordpress support Unicode, using pointed Hebrew embedded in the Verdana font. In (וְיָדַ֖עַתְּ wə·yā·ḏa·’at haShem) all those little vowel points have to line up with the five big consonant letters.\r\n\r\n
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 26
Offline)
Comments2
If only we knew religion in the spirit of your writing here I'm sure it would have a far more joyous presence in 21st century U.K.
Nice one!
Thanks! Did the Hebrew display correctly on your screen? The little vowel points should be directly under the big consonants, with no spacing between the consonants.
Yes, strangely, he was told to go and marry this 'strange woman' or 'loose woman'. I think it was because it symbolised God's people's relationship with him - prone to be unfaithful, spiritually adulterous.
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