CORNU
Rough-hewn wood
stained dark with blood
narrowing to a blunt tip
brightly sheathed in bronze
It scrapes against
my whip-scourged back
tormenting me as I hang
naked under the sun
Hours have passed
my muscles ache
I have danced the dance
my strength is sapped
It jabs at me
abrades my skin
a constant reminder
of my last recourse
The crowd jeers
points at my sex
so indecently exposed
‘tween trembling thighs
Come on!
they urge
get up on it
give thyself a rest!
Yet I hesitate
resist, delay
Is it not the
final humiliation?
Defiant to the last
I won’t submit
to such indignity
let them jeer and taunt
But weakness prevails
I am no longer able
to pull myself up
to gasp for breath
With one last push
I rest myself
upon its dreadful
blunted point
I balance myself precariously
on its bronze-sheathed tip
carefully considering
my limited options
Do I shift
my hips forward?
and accept the tip
up my tight behind?
Or do I
edge backward
and surrender willfully
my sacred womanhood
A grim choice!
I am so tight
the former could
rip me apart
But the other
seems so vulgar
nothing more than
a crowd-pleasing act
Pain or pleasure,
on a phallic horn of wood
Does it really
all come down to that?
How insidious can that be
to force a dying woman to choose
what orifice to sacrifice
for a few more hours of misery
I make my choice
the tip slides in
‘tween my open
accepting lips
The crowd cheers lustily
they got their wish
before their very eyes
I have impaled myself on that cruel cornu
But now I can relax a bit
ease the cramps in my legs
and relax the pressure on my wrists
for that the cornu proves useful
But such relief is short lived
only to be exchanged
for the growing agony
of ever-deepening impalement
From the cornu’s phallic thrust
there is never any escape
Once the corny enters you
it penetrates relentlessly
Slowly, inexorably
it works its way,
deeper and deeper,
further and further in
It tears and abrades
my tender insides
thrusting, stretching
burying to the hilt
I cry out in anguish
the pain intense
my bloody fluids
gush over its broad base
And through the pain
an erotic tingle
can it be?
No, God, please no?
The crowd erupts
in delightful rapture
Look! they cry
She’s fucking her cross
Laughter, cat calls,
merriment and taunts,
greet my final
performance of the day
Now all that’s left
is for me to die
slowly, painfully
who knows how long?
Hanging forward
head turned down
long brown hair
splayed ‘cross wobbling breasts
Gazing down at that
phallic piece of wood
pressed in so deeply
spreading wide my tortured loins
My constant companion
for the duration
both extender of life
and instrument of shame
The cornu giveth
and the corny taketh
I had no choice
impaled I die
Barbaria, July 2014