Tithing Salome Poem by gershon hepner

Luscious, and in body lithe,
Salome takes off seven veils,
a ten whom Herod wants to tithe
before the headless Baptist wails.

Linda’s version:

The headless Baptist wails,
Salome sly in seven veils
Beguiles a leering Herod with her writhing,
While he prefers her single parts, for tithing.

Ben Brantley reviews a production of “Salome at the Ethel Barrymore Theater with Marisa Tomei as Salome, Al Pacino as Herod Antipas, and Dianne Wiest as Herodias (“Veils or No Veils, Whatever She wants she Gets, ” The New York Times, May 1,2003)

As Herodias, Herod's wife and Salome's mother, the tuxedo-clad Ms. Wiest has the straight-backed carriage and stentorian tones of someone born to public life, streaked with a testy impatience with her less patrician husband. Playing the prophet Jokanaan (a k a John the Baptist) , Mr. Strathairn has the pale, wild-eyed look of Bob Dylan at his most visionary and an artificially enhanced voice that could peel flesh. And the production wittily summons the gallery of soldiers as a wary chorus and the court's visiting diplomats as a squabbling United Nations. But the show is at its most inspired in its presentation of Herod and Salome as different sides of the same expensive coin. Ms. Tomei, a Salome in a runaway state of sexual awakening, looks lithe-bodied and luscious, and she speaks with the petulant breathiness of a 1950's starlet. Mr. Pacino, his stomach straining against his black dress shirt, looks bleary and bloated and talks in the weary, high-pitched singsong of a man who is long accustomed to people hanging on his every word. For all their surface differences, they are both spoiled monsters, creatures of vast appetites used to getting exactly what they want. Both Herod and Salome have a habit here of letting their tongues stray out of their mouths, as if in anticipation of tastes to come. The plot of the play of course hinges on two specific wants: Salome wants to kiss the head of Jokanaan; Herod wants to see Salome dance. It's that simple. And that complicated. Watching these two pursue their appetites makes this 'Salome' a luxuriously and disturbingly entertaining illustration of a dictum well known to people of power of all ages: Be careful what you wish for.

5/1/03