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[for Lady Rae]

We always had despised his attitude,
and his self-righteousness was rather crude.
We did not tolerate that foreign Jew
preaching against the thing we liked to do.
Eventually, he went to execution;
which, we thought, was a rather fine conclusion
to all of this religious agitation
that he stirred up just for our aggravation.
Strictly upon a perverse, vengeful whim
we went out to the road to jeer at him.
Two teenaged girls, my lover and I, nude
and (if I may describe the obvious)
highly aroused, we were, and amorous.
But Paul did not, once, even look at us.
None of the guards around him made a fuss.
Nothing at all, that evening, changed his mood---
he seemed, despite the facts, victorious;
his gaze appeared to be a glorious
anticipation of a better morrow.
The men assigned to kill him trudged with sorrow
heavy upon their gnarled feet and grim faces.
But Paul, himself, displayed none of the traces
of ordinary fear or cringing dread;
nothing a man more like us might have felt.
Not too far past the walls, they went.  Once there,
Paul spent a moment in his final prayer;
and then, without least hesitation, knelt.
At once, the flashing sword lopped of his head.

All that was fifty years ago, and more.
I have grown old, ugly, toothless, and sore
of limb.  I cannot even hire a whore
to lay with me.  And what is worse to bear---
these Christians turn up almost everywhere
(and any time, and anywhere at all) . . .
and they still talk, among themselves, of Paul.

They did not like our lifestyle:  arrogant,
I say that is, closed-minded, ignorant.
How dare they speak against, or even slight,
the choices to which I have perfect right?
 
Starward
 
[jlc]