David the king, my husband, leaped and whirled before the Lord
To Jerusalem he brought the ark and all the people danced
He was got up in a priestly robe; his doting subjects roared
With approval as, half-naked, he gyrated, twirled and pranced.
I saw him through the window; I saw the servant girls,
I saw the king had made himself the object of their gaze
I scorned the gross exposure, the flashing as he whirls,
While the wenches cry ‘God save him, may he live for length of days!’

David the King, my husband, I’m afraid he got me wrong
Yes it’s true I was the daughter of the king who came before
David called me ‘Jewish princess,’ said I’d criticized too long
And regarded him in private as a Bethlehemite boor.
‘God chose me above your father I advise you to recall,’
In that cutting voice of his I know the servants never hear,
‘I sang and played my harp; I was a comforter to Saul,
And I realize you despise me but the slave girls hold me dear.’

The stupid man forgot there was a day I’d saved his life,
He climbed out through my window with Saul’s soldiers in pursuit
I deceived King Saul, my father – I was David’s loyal wife,
I said ‘I think my love is not a matter for dispute.’
‘You mean to say I owe you,’ and his cold stare broke my heart
So I backtracked very quickly and, placatingly I said
‘No, I just want to remind you how I loved you at the start’
And he answered ‘That’s all done: I’ll come no longer to your bed.’

He took more wives, low-born they were, with husbands to despatch
His taste was not for maidens; I, of course, a virgin bride,
Was untouched by man (and royal), as you might say, quite a catch,
I loved him, but he thought me full of arrogance and pride.
Now he is threescore years and ten, and I am waxing old
I hear they found a young girl, Abishag, to warm his bed,
A fairly bold solution, when he mentioned feeling cold,
And ill-advised, considering how quickly rumours spread.

His children mostly let him down and Solomon, they say
Will succeed him. Don’t doubt it: that unholy trinity
Bathsheba, Nathan, Zadok, are sure to get their way
And David’s sons, like Banquo’s, will reign on to infinity.
His exit through my window even now comes to my mind
His perilous descent, yet he looked up to catch my eye,
He mouthed ‘I love you’. Yes! To me! Then I was left behind,
But that’s how I’ll remember him until the day I die.

June 2013

At the beginning of my troubles
I bought some Christmas baubles,
Exceptionally fine
Shiny crystal bubbles,
I have these shopping foibles
When happiness is mine.
On that day I was light of heart
Affections unattached
Yet on the cusp of change
And now I find I’m torn apart
Tranquillity despatched
Contentment out of range.
When the season turns to winter
Will the baubles be unwrapped
And smashed against the wall?
Will they shatter, will they splinter
When serenity has snapped
And my last defences fall?
These fragile pastel coloured orbs
These weightless glassy spheres
They seem to be myself
A piece of bric-a-brac absorbs
Affective states like loves and fears
Yet stands upon the shelf.
Now glass we know is made of sand
And I am dust and ashes
But still I stopped to buy
And held the bauble in my hand
For glass, although it smashes,
Is the lens before my eye.

May 2013

Tashich. We amble in the autumn sun
Replete with awe, late lunch and honey cakes
Towards the stream where brackish waters run
To shed our sins, wrongdoings and mistakes.
Among our company, there is not one
Whose soul is pure, so everyone partakes.

And in the moving stream we throw
Small crumbs of bread which represent
The damaging, unceasing flow
Of acts which cause us to repent,
But on this day we watch them go
And hope to feel the soul’s ascent.

Our sins are more than we can recollect,
We name them in the liturgy by rote,
For how can we with clarity detect
Where we fall short or, when we do, take note;
We strain our memories to resurrect
Misconduct so that we can watch it float.

The sins are scattered on the stream,
They cut the water like a knife
And by this gesture we redeem
The shattered fragments of our life
The holy, wishful, hopeless dream
Of lasting peace and banished strife.

Year after year we stand upon the bridge.
To passers-by, an unexpected sight
A group of Jews who seek the privilege
Of offering up the broken and contrite,
Judgment is not easy to envisage
But we choose life and trust there will be light.

This English, autumn afternoon,
We walk like others in the past
And though we stop for coffee soon,
The spirit of the day will last;
We saw at night the Tishri moon,
We heard today the shofar blast.

Textfinger tremens: a clinical condition
To which I am a martyr, I confess
A symptom is suppressing inhibition
To reply to an erotic SMS.

As a girl, I had no mobile phone or email
There was only waiting for the phone to ring
With the deadly passive patience of the female;
But technology assists my final fling.

To grow old wearing purple: that’s for bishops,
I’d rather see my vital force revive,
I don’t care for summer gloves and brandy piss-ups,
In aging, there are other ways to thrive.

If I wake up dead, I’ll know I was in error,
My judgment hasty, immature and rash,
But in spite of some anxiety and terror
Like Cyrano, I could exit with panache.

Beside your bed, a cupboard marked ‘David Baker’,
A former patient returned now to his maker,
From one side of the bed, a constant drip of saline,
Your lovely face is changed: how are the mighty fallen.
A nurse speaks in her own distinct vernacular,
Her task is re-positioning your cannula.
A fifteen second interval between each breath,
I count, as if in labour, but you toil for death.
You face the window and I view the scenery,
Thus turning my back on your bleak machinery.
I see ambulances, cars and the long, straight drive
Which leads back to a world where, strangely, people live.
Now the everyday can never be the same
And you lie in this room. Its cupboard bears a name:
‘David Baker.’ I’d like your own name to endure
But hospital furniture clearly lacks allure.
I call your name but death will not be over-ruled.
Where can I inscribe your name David, David Gould?

“>
When I was young
I thought God would be like teachers
Full of censure,
Angry, disapproving preachers;
When I grew up
I thought God was a mystery,
Transcendent God,
Revealed in the world’s history;
As time went by,
I thought human fellow-feeling
More than most things
Tended to be God-revealing,
That compassion,
Sorrow, pleasure, even humour
Must be God-like,
But this could be just a rumour;
When two people
Converse with benign intention,
Some say that this
Signals divine intervention,
That the presence
Of God is like people talking,
Reassuring,
Their deeds of love like God walking
About the world,
And Ethics of the Fathers tells
With one alone,
Even there the Almighty dwells.
<="https://gillianlazarus.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/

Our brief brief love went thud thud thud
My heart, your tool, my blood,
Your tall and heavy Slavic frame,
The high romantic game;
The years alone, the moment ripe,
The nightly talks on Skype;
The Stansted meeting, winter skies,
Your most unusual eyes;
The tie you wore to suit my taste,
How courtship goes to waste!
The language books that I perused:
Moj dragi, no longer used,
And you were quite a polyglot
Which I considered hot.
I saw with greatest clarity
The age disparity.
You, younger, still in middle age,
Myself mature and sage.
Your furry skin is what I’ll miss,
The slow lick of your kiss,
Your big hands twice the size of mine;
I tell myself I’m fine
Your presence slips into my past,
Not something that could last,
And certainly it’s no one’s fault,
This juddering, thudding halt.

I dreamed I tried to get you on the phone
Frustratingly, and typically of dreams,
And waking, I forgot I was alone;
An image briefly flickers by and gleams
Evanescent in the morning light;
Remembrance of reality returns
For though I have pursued you through the night
When morning comes my daytime self relearns
And I recall how you were ill and died,
Were buried, and four months have followed since,
Thus shockingly do dreams and truth collide
And when I wake I say ‘Goodnight, sweet prince.’

November 1990

Recurringly, I dream of babies

The word for which they say there is no rhyme

Sometimes unborn, sometimes newborn

My dreams remove me from the present place and time.

And in my dreams I’m often pregnant

I do not doubt no rhyme for this exists

Like Sarah, I waxed old, I find on waking

But still in sleep fecundity persists.

And frequently I dream of danger

Of assassins but, evading every threat,

I slip right past the barrel of the pistol

No predator can catch me in his net.

I dream of meals I don’t consume

And coitus interrupted by my waking

In dreams of food and sex

One does not taste the flavour of partaking.

Occasionally I dream I’m dead

This also lacks a proper consummation

As I still see and hear and feel

Excluded though I am from conversation.

The cause of dreams is in our lives

Read your life in consultation with your dreams

With Freud and Jung kept close at hand

To guarantee not much is as it seems.

2012