gershon hepner - ten sons

Ten names here I list for you to gather:
Parshandatha, Dalfon and Aspatha,
and Adalia, Aridatha and Poratha,
and Parmashta, Arisai, Vaisatha;
The ninth in the Megillah’s list, Aridai,
I’ve left for last; on Shushan’s famous D-day
it’s likely that all ten of Haman’s sons,
while hanging all together, died at once,
mere minor characters, like Guildenstern
and Rosencrantz, who their comeuppance earn
before the curtain falls. With bated breath
we tell the story of their death,
depicted in a biblical cartoon
which makes the Purim spirit swillers swoon,
but since they all were hanged without a trial,
we ought to think perhaps before we smile,
and ask ourselves if such judicial killing,
performed by coalition of the willing,
in Persia where one hundred twenty seven
nations made Iraq not hell but heaven,
should be condoned. Perhaps we should condemn
what Jews in Shushan did to all of them,
performing while the king was in the orchard
abuses to the terrorist they tortured;
politically correct, call them insurgents
and whitewash them with liberal detergents.
Since violence is mere insanity
let’s demonstrate our love of all humanity,
rejecting Mordecai and Esther’s daemon,
to rehabilitate the sons of Haman.
Next year, instead of the Megillah,
let’s read their memoirs and renounce the thriller
attributed to Esther, bible slander
of insurgents, Jewish propaganda.



3/8/06

gershon hepner

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/ten-sons/