PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

We had been assigned night patrol
around the secured village,
taken from the rebels.
Coming around the edge of town,
we heard the sound of a woman's scream.
It seemed to come from the darkened house
somewhat out of the way, next to the woods,
a dilapidated wreck of what might have been,
at one time (but no more)
a rather luxurious domicile.
Cautiously we entered.
From the cellar door, the weak glow of candles
pointed our way.
We slipped quietly down the stairs.
We found, apparently, the homeowner---
stripped to the waist (his gut was enormous)---
wearing an executioner's hood---
vigrously flogging a woman who was
naked, except for a pair of stockings;
and suspended by the wrists from chains
in the ceiling (such that
her stockinged feet hardly touched the floor).
She was screaming and squirming violently,
and her back was a mess of bruises, welts, and blood.
I shouted "Halt," to him, and, startled,
he let the whip fall from his hand.
I ordered him to hand over whatever key
or device would unlock his victim's shackles.
Trembling, he did so.
I told my Corporal to unshackle her gently.
Then he put his coat around her nakedness
and carried her (too weak to walk) upstairs,
where he started a roaring fire in the hearth.
I told the man who assaulted her to kneel.
As he did so, the urine soaked his britches.
He began to plead and blabber---
"She gave consent.  She wants to be enslaved.
"She likes being injured.  The pain pleases her,
"and it pleases me to inflict it on her---
"therefore we need each other.
"You know nothing at all about
"our life, and the dynamics of power exchange.
"In your stupid, vanilla ignorance.
"you have no respect for our lifestyle."
When he was finished, I told him
"This Army has come to free slaves."
I told him to put his mouth around
the end of my rifle's barrel.
His eyes were wide with terror and he sobbed
like a little kid caught with the cookie jar.
I thought of that beautiful girl he had chained
and stripped of all her clothes except her stockings;
and how he marked and marred her lovely back.
I wonder if he even heard the trigger click
as I blew the sonofabitch's brains out.