.

Absalom, Absalom

“Then David sent out [to battle Absalom’s army] one third of the people… And the king said to the people, ‘I also will surely go out with you myself.’ But the people answered, ‘You shall not go out! … You are worth ten thousand of us now. For you are now more help to us in the city.’ Then the king said to them, ‘Whatever seems best to you I will do.’ So the king stood beside the gate, and all the people went out by hundreds and by thousands. Now the king had commanded [the captains], ‘Deal gently for my sake with the young man Absalom.’ And all the people heard when the king gave all the captains orders concerning Absalom.“ —2 Samuel 18:2-5

How well I can recall when you were nine
And burned with fever. None thought you’d survive.
I wept. I prayed. I begged God for a sign
That you, my treasured son, might stay alive.
I kneeled before you, murmured lullabies;
And Heaven heard my sobbing and my sighs.

The decades passed. The son I cherished most
Defamed me, tried to stab me in the back,
Usurp my throne and kill my loyal host.
O, Absalom. Survive this day’s attack!
The loss you need to taste is justly earned
As payment for the father’s love you’ve spurned.

I’m glad I’m banned as witness to this fight.
I am instead directed to wait here
Beside this gate. The Lord expects my spite
To fade and wither ere you are brought near.
Soon smoke will rise to show the battle’s done—
We’ll then meet face-to-face, my faithless son.

O, Traitor! Absalom! Yet I would know
That in defeat you’re safe. You shall return
In chains to face your king. I’ll mete out woe
For you have painful lessons yet to learn.
You did far worse than mock and criticize
My governance! To wound me was unwise.

But soon enough I’ll have my son again!
Poor Absalom! You were deceived and driven
By him who tempted Eve and lied to Cain.
Just show repentance—you will be forgiven!
Like you, I’ve made grave errors I must face;
But even so, God’s showered me with grace.

I know when you were younger you meant well:
Your brother forced his flesh upon your sister.
A rape, you screamed. A knife. Then Amnon fell
By your own hand. Such evil days! A Twister—
Like God wrought unto Job—whirled forth to smash
Our dynasty, to grind hope into ash.

Our royal house has faced such painful days!
Tamar, then Amnon—tragedies I’ve pondered
So deeply they seem twisted like a maze.
And then you left. You left me and you wandered.
You changed. You mocked me as a king and father.
You would not hear my side. You could not bother.

But brute sedition? Give me one good reason!
You were my pride—a son both smart and able.
You had no right to stumble into treason
Or call my life a failed and tortured fable.
You warped the truth to overthrow my State.
How readily can love morph into hate!

I love you with a hate which rends my heart.
O, Absalom, I injured you and failed
To guide you well. But, son, can we not start
Anew once you’ve been chained and I’ve prevailed?
God hears my prayers. He will not turn His face.
He’ll surely lead you back to my embrace.

How many of my enemies have said
“The King hath no deliverance in God!”
But they are wrong! The Lord anoints my head,
And blessings line the road that I have trod!
The hatred we have felt can be reversed.
Let’s both forget that we each other cursed!

My Absalom! God feels our hurt and pain,
And surely He won’t let us suffer more.
His grace shall wash our sins away like rain
And we shall love each other as before.
The hate that poisons love at last shall cease.
Jerusalem shall be a place of peace.

.

.

Brian Yapko is a retired lawyer whose poetry has appeared in over fifty journals.  He is the winner of the 2023 SCP International Poetry Competition. Brian is also the author of several short stories, the science fiction novel El Nuevo Mundo and the gothic archaeological novel  Bleeding Stone.  He lives in Wimauma, Florida.

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

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

 

***Read Our Comments Policy Here***

 

21 Responses

  1. Scott Nems

    Beautiful poem. Delightfully reminiscent of Melville’s “Clarel.” Metre is a bit questionable on certain lines, such as “I wept. I prayed. I begged God for a sign” from the first stanza, where the impulse is on ‘begged’ and ‘God’ is lowered — a bit unnatural by my reading (not to mention arguably blasphemous — I joke). Lovely poem on the whole though.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much for reading and commenting, Scott. I’m very pleased that you found it to be beautiful. As for the meter… I hear you, but I’m content with it as is. It’s a rather emotional moment for King David and I associate perfection of meter with a cool and detached mind. If I had written that line you mention as “I wept. I prayed to God to give a sign…” it would have been easy enough to write and would “fix” what you perceive as a metrical imperfection but I would have lost the emotional churning just below the surface that I feel I achieved by clipping sentences and creating a triplet of verbs “I wept, I prayed, I begged…” Anxiety has a habit of ruminating.

      In a way, I felt disadvantaged here by creating a rhyming poem rather than one in blank verse which might have been more in keeping with the undercurrent of emotional anxiety. However, I also think of David as the psalmist and felt that as a poet and as a king there had to be some poetic form for what is essentially a soliloquy. In fact, given David’s stature as a poet, I think the reader would have been justifiably disappointed by a blank verse piece. So I went with rhyme. But, I feel, rhyming poetry which was overly cerebral and detached ( as manifested by an overregularity of meter) would have been both inaccurate to the character and a bit unseemly to the tragedy of the scene. I hope this doesn’t sound defensive… I try to take every aspect of a poem into account before submission and even right up to the date of publication. Here I feel that the results and effects are exactly what I had intended. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to explain my thinking on this.

      Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Another great poem, this time on the conflict too often between a father and a son. Ripped from the scripture of the “Bible” these amazing words of the love/hate relationship are amplified and treated with great masterful sensitivity for the father’s grief and pain. I once recently intimated you were a rising star in the field of classical poetry. With your most recent poems you are already shining there in the constellation.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, Roy! Your kind and generous praise means more to me than you can possibly know! I am glad you focused on the love-hate aspect of this father-son relationship. I have frankly been pondering a biblical corollary to the awful cancelling of family members that has occurred in the last several years and I kept coming back to David and Absalom. Especially the mention in the poem of the fact that Absalom could not be bothered to try to understand his father’s choices or reasoning That “I can’t be bothered” attitude is one that I have been on the receiving end a great deal since I came out publicly concerning my preferred presidential candidate. Canceled with neither curiosity nor charity concerning why I voted the way I did.

      Reply
  3. Mark Stellinga

    A concisely conveyed and depressingly common Sunday-morning-story, Brian. I’m reminded of the countless roller-coaster relationships between heart broken parents, that never quit wishing it weren’t so, and their strays, praying that, someday, they’ll manage, to some degree at least – reconcile. A wonderfully meaningful piece. 🙂

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much, Mark. Yes, I realize that this is not an uplifting poem and that it is a painful reminder of family rifts for a number of potential readers. Alas, that was my intention: to put a biblical mirror up to what has happened concerning those “roller-coaster relationships” you mention and the broken-hearted parents. There are still so many people advocating for family ties to be broken over political decisions. This continues to outrage me. I’ll never grasp why people who claim to be loving and embrace the idea of unconditional love can yet turn so hostile when it comes to disagreeing with them politically. It rather makes a mockery of all that “unconditional love” talk doesn’t it?

      Reply
  4. James Sale

    A great story and pleasing that you left the punch line out – capturing all the hope for a lost son, and none of the final hell and its finality.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, James! I wanted to bring the story right up to moments before David found out that Absalom had been killed and that the reconciliation he hoped for was not possible. At least not in this life. My reason for doing so was this: the Bible describes David’s grief superlatively well. His weeping, his cries of “Absalom, Absalom” are deeply painful and beautiful. There was no point in my poeticizing that moment because there’s no way I could compete with the Bible to add anything fresh or better-expressed. And I try to not to write a poem on something that’s already been written beautifully unless there’s a way for me to express something fresh or fill in the gaps. However, the time BEFORE David finds out about Absalom seemed like exactly that moment. There was much to explore concerning David’s private thoughts. Put another way, if this were an opera that would have been the moment I would have chosen to musicalize with an aria.

      I also wanted to bring in the pathos of David’s love for his son and hopes for a reconciliation. I did not want to destroy that hope within the text of the poem trusting that the reader — familiar with the fact that Absalom’s death will be reported to David immediately after the poem ends — would already know that tragedy is in store. In other words, I thought that this dramatic irony would make the piece and pathos more effective.

      Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    This is a very fine dramatic monologue on a scriptural story. It inevitably calls up memories of Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel” and Faulkner’s
    “Absalom! Absalom!” Brian’s poem is of course a concise one of eleven stanzas, and is for that reason tightly focused — that is, we get the viewpoints and emotional reactions of King David, and only hear those of others second-hand, from David’s words. But that is part of the structure of a dramatic monologue — it must present us with the interior world of the speaker primarily, especially when it is a soliloquy such as this poem is, with no silent interlocutor.

    I don’t see anything questionable about the meter. In fact it is severely regular, with only a few substitutions here and there, of the normal and traditional type in iambic pentameter.

    The tale is about an archetypal problem in parent-child relationships. The hormonally and psychologically programmed rivalry of father and son will come out in some manner, but the natural ties of affection will always remain as a complicating factor. The Hebrew story, by placing that archetypal conflict in the context of an intense political situation, turns the matter into a nation-shaking catastrophe.

    This is another triumph by Brian Yapko.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much for this very generous comment, Joe. It really means a lot to me. I appreciate your thoughts about the meter which happen to coincide with my own. And I’m glad that you brought up Absalom and Achitophel. I happened to re-read it as I was preparing this poem and was reminded of just how good Dryden’s work is. I remember an undergrad class discussion all these years later on the opening lines:

      “In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin,
      Before polygamy was made a sin;
      When man, on many, multipli’d his kind,
      Ere one to one was cursedly confin’d…”

      The coinage of the term “priest-craft” especially caught my attention and this is a term which I have found useful in analyzing many a historical event.

      I’m also glad you bring up the subject of the soliloquy which is a subset of dramatic monologues. It somewhat goes against the grain for me to write a dramatic monologue without a silent interlocutor because having a person there can stimulate the poem with emotional reactions and unexpected subject changes, etc. which we can infer from the text. Doing a soliloquy is somewhat harder as the poet has to simply speak as the character might on stage in front of an audience unprompted. Or, as I mention to James, as an opportunity to poeticize a moment which in opera would be served by an aria. The situation has to be one of great intensity to justify putting words in the mouth of a character who is all alone.

      As for the archetypal situation of conflict between parent and child, we see many such rivalries in history, including the Bible. Many a royal dynasty has been damaged from within by such rivalries. I’m recalling Constantine the Great putting his son to death. Ivan the Terrible as well, I believe. And, I’m sure, many others. And as far as parents and children not listening to each other, King Lear and Cordelia present the consummate example which ends in tragedy for both.

      Thank you again for the very kind words, Joe.

      Reply
  6. Paulette Calasibetta

    A beautifully crafted poem, created from a biblical passage that universally resonates in the complicated relationship between father and son; of love and loss.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, Paulette! I was hoping to tap into the universality of fraught parent-child relationships and am pleased that you feel I’ve succeeded!

      Reply
  7. Michael Vanyukov

    Just a small fragment of the complex story of Avshalom (Absalom), who “stole the hearts of the men of Israel,” so masterfully retold. Especially poignant is the cliffhanger of David’s hope for reconciliation (and the unnamed reasons for it despite the rebellion), which we know would not happen.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you very much indeed, Michael. Yes, this is a very small fragment of a very complex and challenged relationship between a father and son, but also between a king and one of his princes. It’s interesting to read in Samuel how charismatic Absalom actually is and how stealthily but purposefully he captures the hearts of his father’s subjects. The word “Machiavellian” comes to mind even though it is wildly anachronistic. I especially appreciate you finding the end poignant. I wanted it so, choosing not to disclose the imminent death of Absalom and the great grief it caused David. It is only alluded to in the title itself, “Absalom, Absalom” which (following Faulkner’s lead) I pulled from the heartrending quote from Samuel: “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!”

      Reply
  8. Marguerite

    Thank you so much, Brian, for this beautiful poem. The last stanza made me see the story’s end in a different light — perhaps they were reunited after death? I hadn’t thought of Absalom’s end as hopeful, but perhaps it is.

    Reply
    • Brian Yapko

      Thank you so much, Marguerite! I don’t wish to add to the tragedy of the story, but the ending of the poem makes use of “dramatic irony” wherein the reader knows something that the character in the piece does not. The reader who knows the story would realize that King David is only minutes away from being informed that his beloved son is dead which will in turn lead to the display of terrible grief which is described in the Book of Samuel. That being said, who is to say that David and Absalom were not reunited after death? As I think about it, it is a beautiful thought to consider that those with whom reconciliation on Earth will never take place might yet still have that opportunity in the hereafter. I had not thought of that “different light” until your comment — and I thank you for it.

      Reply
  9. Cynthia Erlandson

    An exquisite retelling of the story from the point of view of the agonized father. “You were deceived and driven / By him who tempted Eve and lied to Cain”; and “I love you with a hate that rends my heart” are — well, how else can it be said — heart-rending, and very insightful.

    Reply
  10. Morrison Handley-Schachler

    This is yet another beautiful poem, Brian, which brilliantly captures the depth of feeling evoked by the whole story in Samuel. It is a lengthy read but keeps our attention throughout.

    Reply
  11. M.D. Skeen

    Hubris and betrayal sting the most when delivered by family. As a father of three young boys who are my whole world, this poem fills me with unease. Love with heart-rending hatred sounds a lot less fulfilling than the regular kind.

    Reply
  12. Warren Bonham

    What a fantastic poem! There are so many great lines but I was drawn to the line about loving with a hate that rends one’s heart. It sounds paradoxical, but it is undoubtedly how David felt about his son. I also liked the hopeful ending (stealing from Marguerite’s comment). I never saw the ending that way when reading the story in 2 Samuel, but I’d like to think there was a reconciliation in the end.

    Reply
  13. Laura Schwartz

    Brian, your poem unfolds as an epic lament, weaving raw emotion and gravitas. The father’s voice, robed in grief, rage, and forgiveness, captures feelings both timeless and immediate as you masterfully blend the emotions of love and betrayal, making every line resonate with moral complexity and tragic irony. Your command of rhythm and imagery put me beside the gate with David, feeling each prayer and splintered bond, as if I were there in the dust of defeat. This is storytelling at its poetic finest: grand in scope, intimate in heart, and endlessly compelling.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.