.

All That’s Left Is Yours

based on I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris

The bride walked the aisle to her husband-to-be,
__Who gently took hold of her hand.
They started their vows, all to hear and to see,
__When a woman there started to stand.

She boldly but quietly marched to the altar
__The groom’s other hand there to hold
As he in his solemn vows started to falter,
__Five women walked up, just as bold.

The groom then repeated his vows to his bride.
__Tears welling, lip quivering, she spoke:
“Just who are these girls here to stand at your side?
__Is this your attempt at a joke?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, staring down at the floor,
__“I should have said something to start.
These girls, they mean nothing to me anymore,
__But each has a part of my heart.”

“I thought it was mine,” said the bride, now in tears.
__The groom said, “Love always endures.
I vow here and now that throughout all our years,
__What’s left of my heart shall be yours.”

__

__

The Stranger

based on a story circulating online at least since 1999

My dad once met a stranger in the mall,
New to our town, just months before my birth.
The stranger moved in quickly with us all
And soon became the source of endless mirth.

My mother taught us how to love God’s Word;
My father taught obedience is key,
But from the stranger, our whole family heard
All kinds of captivating tales for free.

Adventures, mysteries, and jokes he told,
And tales of kinder, gentler times of ours.
He drew realistic pictures and could hold
Our family spellbound every night for hours.

He took my parents with me and my brother
To sports events and movies every week,
To meals with actors, movie stars, and other
Celebrities who made us feel so chic.

The stranger spoke nonstop; Dad didn’t mind.
But sometimes Mom would quietly walk away.
While we were all enthralled, she’d go behind
Her bedroom door to read her Bible and pray.

I think she prayed the stranger soon would leave;
Although Dad ruled the house by moral code,
The stranger didn’t care what we believe
Or honor this, our straight and narrow road.

Though Dad would never let a person curse
Within his walls, the stranger freely spoke
Four-letter words like “damn” and “hell” and worse,
But Dad would not condemn the words he’d croak.

Though Dad called alcohol “the devil’s brew,”
The stranger offered us his wine and beer.
He said we all should be exposed to new
And different ways of life to see and hear.

He made tobacco smoking look refined,
Though Mom and Dad have prayed we never smoke.
He scoffed at sacred marriage and maligned
Its holy bed routinely as a joke.

At first, the smut he spouted scorched my ears;
He told a twisted tale of what love is.
But as my brother and I advanced in years,
Our views on marriage slowly changed to his.

Again, again, opposing Mom and Dad,
He never was rebuked or asked to leave.
He always preached in favor of what’s bad,
Yet somehow we weren’t able to perceive.

Though thirty years have passed, the stranger’s there,
Still drawing, telling tales of fantasy
To Mom and Dad, who’ve now no other care.
We always called him by his name—“TV.”

.

.

The Rabbi

based on a true story from the 1995 talk
“Men and Marriage” by Rabbi Daniel Lapin

A rabbi in an airplane row
Sat by a famous Communist
And two young men who seemed to know
The rabbi’s needs, the foods he missed.

His feet swelled up like sausage links,
So they replaced his shoes with slippers.
They gave him sandwiches and drinks,
The envy of the other trippers.

The Communist, observing this,
Said, “Rabbi, I am quite impressed:
In no way are your sons remiss—
They give to you their very best!”

“My sons?”  The rabbi shook his head.
“It’s my disciples you just saw,
But if my sons were here instead,
You’d really look at them in awe!”

The Communist sat there and wept.
“I have four sons, ungrateful bunch!
My teachings, none of them have kept,
And they would never make me lunch!”

The rabbi said, “They heed your words,
They keep your ways.  You can’t escape
What all their lives from you they heard:
Their father’s one step more an ape!

“Just as a horse obeys a man,
All lower life-forms must respect
A higher one, so by your plan,
Such thinking’s what their acts reflect.

“I’ve taught my sons about creation;
I’ve taught them through God’s Holy Word:
One step toward Adam’s generation
Is one step closer to the Lord!”

The Communist just turned away;
He said no more and gave no nod.
Our tale ends here, but still I pray
He may have later turned to God.

.

.

Joshua C. Frank works in the field of statistics and lives near Austin, Texas. His poetry has also been published in Snakeskin, Sparks of Calliope, Atop the Cliffs, and the Asahi Haikuist Network, and his short fiction has been published in Nanoism.

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The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


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22 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Joshua, these are three typically fascinating poems you have written that say a lot as usual about the human condition. The first one makes us pause and think what inner thoughts are smart when at the altar we give only a small part of our heart. The second one seemed strange, I wondered what friend could it be until the very end was clear that it was the tv. The third poem so fitting of the communist and rabbi. The rabbi was proud of his sons, the communist could only cry! I enjoyed the poems, but more than that it was the messages they imparted.

    Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Thank you, Petlwane. I first read that book 20 years ago and the story has stayed with me all this time.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        If you like that one, you might also like my poem “Names in Ink,” which is published in the June 2023 issue of Snakeskin:

        http://www.snakeskinpoetry.co.uk/

        You have to click the issue from the homepage and click on the poem title.

    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Roy. It was the messages that I wanted to spread to a wider audience, just as I translate French poems into English to give them a wider audience.

      Reply
  2. Paddy Raghunathan

    Joshua,

    The first two are really fine poems, and I must also say that I wholeheartedly agree with the views expressed in them.

    The third one is also good, but I feel it would flow better if the sixth and seventh stanza were interchanged. I just feel that the conclusion that the communist is an ape will read better, if your horse analogy came first. But if you like it the way it is, don’t change it: it’s your poem.

    Best regards,

    Paddy

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Paddy. I’m glad you like them. With the third, I considered the switch, but decided that I like it better as is.

      Reply
  3. Joseph S. Salemi

    All three poems are well crafted. The first one troubles me, but that’s purely personal — I have always been bothered by the idea of a wedding ceremony being interrupted by someone raising “objections” or “impediments.” The relevant scene in the novel “Jane Eyre” upsets me no end.

    The surprise ending in “The Stranger” is cleverly done — I hadn’t the slightest suspicion that the stranger was anything but a human visitor. The poem reminds me of the old Alfred Hitchcock television series from the 1950s, where there usually was a totally unexpected twist at the end of each episode.

    The final poem is based on a real incident, and this always gives a poet some special difficulties. He has to remain true to the facts, but he also has to shape them into an acceptable poem — not always easy to do. The crux of the story is the rabbi’s critique of a view of human descent that looks back to lower-level animals, and his contrary view that sees humans as having a special divine origin. The rabbi’s words express this in terms of linearity: belief in a descent from lower animals means that those farther ahead in the time-line are of greater importance than those who came earlier, but belief in a descent from a divine source means that earlier members of the family tree are closer to God, and therefore more valuable, and require more honor and respect.

    It’s a curious argument, but it is echoed in ancient literature by the notion of The Four Ages (Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron) that the human race went through. Each age showed a marked moral and physical decline from the previous one. I facetiously explain this idea to my students as being best expressed in the following sentence “You are much worse than your parents, and your own children are really going to suck.”

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Joe. I’m glad you enjoyed these.

      That’s really interesting about the Four Ages, a pagan parallel to the rabbi’s point. Sadly, your saying that encapsulates the idea is often spot on, especially in our declining culture. However, the good thing is that God often prepares a family over generations to make saints, as He did for the family from which St. Thérèse of Lisieux came. In fact, Biblical history shows God preparing the whole Jewish people in this way for Jesus.

      Really, the world has been in a larger overall trend toward decline since Adam took a bite. The only counteracting force is grace.

      Reply
  4. Brian A Yapko

    Josh, each one of these poems contains keen observations and fine crafstmanship. Well done! There is indeed a puzzling quality to The Rabbi which makes me want to dig deeper into his description of where men fit into the hierarchy of creation. My initial reading was simply that of the God’s Faithful versus the Communist Atheist, but after reading Dr. Salemi’s comment I can see that it’s not quite that simple. I shall ponder this further.

    I too was surprised by the identity of the stranger, which means you set up the narrative in a very skillful way to allow for a shocking reveal. It’s interesting to me that television here is considered an instrument of degeneracy. Was it always so? When I was growing up — in the days of Captain Kangaroo, Walter Cronkite and a live broadcast of Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon — I would argue that television was a force for good. But things changed drastically once cable t.v. came into the picture and there was suddenly a surfeit of channels to choose from and 1000 ways to turn t.v. into what I would fondly call a godless idiot box. And then once the internet came on the scene — YouTube, TikTok, etc. — all bets are off. Everyone gets to be their own star and there is nothing too profane for an adoring audience.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      There’s always been an argument about the value of television. There really was a Golden Age of TV from 1949 to about 1963, with some absolutely top-notch productions. But even then, some persons denigrated TV as a common and worthless time-waster. One critic famously called it “chewing gum for the mind.” If that critic were alive today, he’d probably faint in utter disbelief at the cesspool that the medium has become.

      Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Wow, Brian, I’m glad these have got you thinking! It means my poems are doing their job.

      As for your question, to give you an example, I once binge-watched Father Knows Best, from the 1950s. Throughout the series, the women push feminist ideas, displaying hatred of the female role while at the same time assuming that men are defective women. The wife routinely ignores or outright subverts the husband’s decisions. The children routinely disrespect and disobey both their parents—probably because they see their parents as one step closer to being apes! The whole thing was surprisingly modern in its thinking. I don’t know where the title of the show came from, but it certainly wasn’t based on anything in the show!

      Television, like any medium, is limited in what information it can convey. Television doesn’t do complex discourse well and so can only show simple ideas. The technology of television broadcasting is such that airtime is limited and therefore can only be afforded by the rich and powerful, whose values are usually antithetical to Christian faith and morals.

      Furthermore, a television network has to provide shows that garner the most numerous viewership in order to attract sponsors and thereby cover costs and gain revenue, and since the decline of Western culture was already well underway in the early days of television, this meant that successful television shows had to cater to the cultural decline and even further it. Even the best television has to push a kind of consumerism to keep advertisers coming.

      In short, I don’t think there’s any way television could ever have been or become anything other than what it is.

      Reply
  5. Margaret Coats

    Three well-planned narratives in easy reading verse that show your great talent, Josh, for small stories in seemingly simple lines. And yet, are these ever filled with meaning, message, and moral! In the first one that reveals the man’s “relationships” as meaningless trial marriages, I think I see a message especially for men. It’s true that women come to the altar with hearts already divided, but if male leadership still has any significance, the man has a bit more responsibility. You’ve reminded me of a totally opposite (and true!) story of a couple who saved first kisses until united at the altar. See the flagrantly romantic “Proposal of Michael to Larisa” on YouTube, and notice that although he carries her downstairs after a surprise love song at dawn, this is all done in front of her large family, with no kisses until the follow-up wedding video.

    I agree with other commentors that “The Stranger” is so quizzically done I was surprised at the stranger’s identity. The moral issues brought up include voyeurism and passivity indulging the lust of the eyes, as well as the waste of time on freely available fantasy that corrupts family values. Stage drama and movies were already questionable, but seeing and hearing these kinds of entertainment could never occupy such a place in the home throughout the day and the life, as you well show. Once again there’s a difference between roles of men and women, with paternal authority and maternal spiritual instinct both negated by the stranger. Fine work.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Margaret. It’s really nice to hear your praise of these poems.

      The same book the story of “All That’s Left Is Yours” came from mentions a couple who waited until the altar for the first kiss. I wasn’t even serious about my faith at the time (20 years ago), but when I read about that, I knew it was a really good idea.

      Though the author of that book was Protestant, St. Francis de Sales says the same in his book Introduction to the Devout Life:

      “If you look to married life in this life, guard your first love jealously for your husband. It seems to me a miserable fraud to give a husband a worn-out heart, whose love has been frittered away and despoiled of its first bloom instead of a true, wholehearted love.”

      In the source book for the poem, the story is a nightmare a woman had about her boyfriend. When she woke up, she was angry at him, but realized that she was just as guilty, that at least that many men could line up by her on that day. The author, too, had a similar realization about himself. But I agree with you that it’s even more important for the man to guard his heart and save it for his wife (and, by extension, their children) precisely because his role is one of leadership.

      “The Stranger,” as the epigraph mentions, already exists as a prose vignette, but I think it works better as a poem. I agree with you about the media and the roles the mother and father were supposed to play in protecting their children.

      Reply
  6. Paul Freeman

    ‘All that’s Left’ sort of hit me on two different levels. Firstly the honest of the nature of love, and that it ‘endures’, as you mentioned Joshua. The other is that the bride feels that she’s being left the crumbs of love and the groom’s heart. I think if your male or female, your reaction to this poem could be very different.

    ‘The Stranger’ really hit a chord. I lived in Egypt back in the 80s without a TV and didn’t miss it at all. The Nobel prize winner at the time, Nagib Mahfouz, lived down the road and in one of his books bemoaned how the coffee shops were transitioning from having radio (Tuesday night was reserved for Um Kalthum, ‘The Lady’) to TV for entertainment, and how TV was so much more an intrusive medium. I think part of the difference today is the plethora of channels vying for our attention these days and the variety of angles and agendas they have.

    ‘The Rabbi’, I enjoyed for its universal message on many levels.

    Thanks for the reads, Joshua.

    Reply
    • Joshua C. Frank

      Thank you, Paul. I’m happy to hear you enjoyed them.

      I don’t know for sure whether the reader’s reaction depends on the reader’s sex; after all, as I mentioned in my reply to Margaret, both the woman having this nightmare and the male author understood the point clearly: that the bride was hurt by how little of the groom’s heart was left for her, and that as much as he regretted having given it away to other women beforehand, there was nothing he could do. Many readers, male and female, understood the message: save your heart for marriage, or you won’t have much left to give to your spouse once you’re married.

      I’m glad “The Stranger” really hit a chord; I aim to do this with my poems. Mr. Mahfouz sure was right about television!

      Reply
  7. Margaret Coats

    “All That’s Left Is Yours” encapsulates a kind of scene that can be the dramatic turning point revealing a hidden backstory and the thematic background of a much longer work. Joseph Salemi has already mentioned the wedding scene in Jane Eyre. It is extremely complex, as is the one in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, and another in the movie The Graduate, which I note in preference to many other movie wedding scenes because, years later, it became part of an Audi commercial. See how many genres are involved!

    The moment is naturally tense in a traditional wedding ceremony where the officiant has the duty to inquire about impediments. Joshua in this poem describes not impediments to marriage, but to ideal marital love, a sad topic to introduce into a what should be a joyful occasion. That’s his point, and his closing lines serve to make the best of it after all.

    Both Joseph and Paul Freeman suggest that reactions to the situation (and to a work of literature incorporating it) vary a great deal depending on one’s sex and personal experience. They vary as well with the nature of the surprise and whether it is bride or bridegroom or someone else who receives the greater shock. Also depends on who makes the revelation and how it is made. Joshua merely delineates the potential as he has half a dozen women line up!

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      One thing about the marriage scene in the film “The Graduate” — the wedding ceremony is complete and finished when Benjamin shows up to whisk away Elaine Robinson. Her mother snaps at her “It’s too late!” Elaine responds “Not for me it isn’t!” and runs off to escape with Benjamin. The ambience is pure 1960s, with the idea that ceremonial rituals don’t matter, but emotional reactions do.

      Reply
      • Margaret Coats

        You are right, Joe. That is one creative twist of plot, and another is that the mother of the bride is the character most bitterly affected. Yes, a 1960s young couple would run away from ritual, but in the rare situation imagined, they would have no difficulty obtaining an annulment from church and state, should they ever want to.

      • Joshua C. Frank

        That’s modern culture in a nutshell: nothing matters except feelings. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that we went from defining whether two people are married by their feelings to defining whether someone is male or female by his feelings in just two generations.

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