David Swartz

Triptych: 3 Biblical Fictions David Swartz

Triptych begins with 3 quasi-Biblical dramatic poems, all dark, all convincing, an atavistic testimony to the harshness of an ancient Creator who exacts horror from his children, an unsettling tribute few will recognize from their childhood instruction, if any, in the ways of the elder Testament. The Daughter of Jephthah is the 1st, a fleshing out of the story of a man who trades, unwittingly, victory in a great battle for his daughter, killed by his own hand. Judith is the 2nd, the beheading of Holofernes, a fairly literal paraphrase. Susanna is the 3rd, the bloody perdition of 2 elders, a fanciful adaptation. Millennia later, The Mask on Brahman captures Justin Price and his attempt to relive the late Sixties within the context of 1976 and a journey west to Wisconsin. This prose-poem ends with Justin's satori-or suicide? The reader must decide. Beyond the Human Predicament is a series of poetic aphorisms and the underpinning of all the author's work. Slow Lane Cantos is a concluding episode of sorts, culled from the poet's own biography, 24 cantos, each of 9 tercets. Intensity is sacrificed to a levity and irony which ease one out of a fiercely emotional book.